Ann Cook (cookery book writer)

[1][2] According to the autobiographical account she included in her cookery book, she worked as a cook and housekeeper; the historian Madeleine Hope Dodds considers it likely that she went into service aged about twelve.

[1][5] In 1739–1740, during the Lent circuit of the assizes, Sir Lancelot Allgood, who held positions of high sheriff and Member of Parliament, sent a message to the Black Bull that the visiting judge and his party wanted six bottles of good French wine, and that John Cook should order them in.

Allgood publicly accused the landlord of cheating him, and threatened to ruin him, resulting in a feud between the two, partly inflamed by Ann's defence of her husband.

[6][7] In late 1745 the Cooks moved from the Black Bull to Morpeth, Northumberland, where they ran the Queen's Head inn on behalf of the landlord, Thomas Pye.

[9] The persecution continued in 1749 when Pye instigated a rumour that because the Cooks were selling their household possessions, they were insolvent and on the verge of abandoning the town.

In reality they were giving some of their unneeded possessions to their eldest daughter who had recently married and was running an inn with her new husband in Newcastle upon Tyne.

By this stage the Cooks had paid back £320 of the £369 bond; they sold most of their remaining goods and moved to Newcastle with the intention of setting up a pastrycook shop.

[16] A third edition of Professed Cookery was published around or after 1760;[1] its title page stated that Cook was a lodger at the house of the cabinet maker Mr Moor, in Fuller's Rents, Holborn, London.

[22] Cook warns that Glasse's aim was not to educate, but "To fleece the poor low servants to get wealth / And collect surfeits to destroy all health".

[23] One part of the poem, accusing Glasse of plagiarism, reads: She steals from ev'ry Author to her Book, Infamously branding the pillag'd Cook, With Trick, Booby, Juggler, Legerdemain, Right Pages to bear up vain Glory's Train.

[32][32] The attacks on Glasse were described by Dodds as a "violent onslaught",[33] although much of Cook's criticism about the recipes and treatment of food is warranted, according to the social historian Jennifer Stead.

[44][40] Glasse's recipe "How to Preserve Cocks-Combs" includes instructions to add vinegar to boiling fat; Cook points out that it "would give a crack like a cannon; so that there would be no need of the chimney sweeping, for the blast would down the soot at once, and destroy the pretty supper-plate".

[46] According to the Anglicist Andrew Monnickendam, "Cook's wit and sarcasm produce amusing moments and valid criticism, yet such heavy doses of vitriol eventually tire some readers".

[1][49] Professed Cookery contains recipes for fricassees,[50] ragùs (which Cook spelled "ragoo"),[51] collops,[52] stews,[53] pilafs,[54] pasties,[55] pies (including oyster and eel),[56] fish dishes,[57] potted fish and meat,[58] soups (which she spelled "soop"),[59] desserts, including puddings, jellies, pancakes, fritters, flummeries, possets, tarts, cakes and biscuits,[60] preserved foods—including pickles, jams, wines and sweets[61]—and sausages.

[70] The chapter "A Plan of House-Keeping" takes the form of a narrative of Cook meeting a friend with whom she had lost touch for thirty years.

[3][71] The instructions include information relating to the management and care of live poultry and how, by doing this properly, one can achieve the optimal flavour from the animal, and ensure the person eating has the best result.

[75] She described her approach to poultry rearing thus: My great care was to keep the feathered flock clear of diseases, which, without great care and pains they are subject to; and to prevent distempers, I never bought chickens with their feet tied together, and stopped into baskets and creels, for this reason: the birds are confined to lie on their sides, which the stepping or trotting of the horses makes them full of bruises, and puts them into fevers.