RELIC OF MRS. MARSDEN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21698, 13 January 1934, Page 6 (Supplement)

RELIC OF MRS. MARSDEN

THE " COMPLEAT COURT COOK " A BRIDE'S TREASURED RECIPES A Marsden relic, which recently came to light in New South Wales, has a special interest for New Zealand readers, to whom the memory of the good missionary and the part* he played in our early history must ever be dear.

Among the possessions of his " dearest Betsy," to whom young Samuel Marsden so " cheerfully offered his hand and his heart " ere he left in 1793 for his assistant chaplaincy in New South Wales, was a cookery book. Together with other relics of Mrs. Marsden, the " Compleat Court Cook " has been preserved all these years, although almost a century has passed since Mrs. Marsden was laid to rest in that plot in Parramatta, which her sorrowing husband could see from the study window of the old parsonage on thu hill.

The " Compleat Court Cook " is not as complete as it once was. Many of its pages are missing. One is tempted to wonder of what use were the elaborate descriptions of court dinners, so quaintly illustrated, in New South Wales? How could it profit Elizabeth Marsden, at the end of the earth, whether she knew how "to make cream the Italian way," " dress a gigot of veal a la Daube," make a " ragoo of perches," or to " broil gurnets with anchovy sauce?" As a record of the gastronomic feats of our ancestors of the 17th and 18th centuries, however, the " Compleat Court Cook " is certainly of service.

" King William thinks all, Queen Mary talks all, Prince George drinks all, and Princess Anne eats all!" So says the old rhyme. But this book establishes the fact that Queen Anne was certainly no worse than Mary, her sister, or Dutch William, her brother-in-law; and that German George, the first Hanoverian to sit on England s throne, was as great a as any of them. What appetites! What indigestions! What capacities! The gargantuan dinners of a bygone age still fill us with admiration. Incidentally, though recording the menus, the '' Compleat Court Cook " is silent as to the wines consumed!