The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook

In The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook (1888), Flora Annie Steel and her co-author Grace Gardiner give practical and highly opinionated advice to young memsahibs in India. Covering all aspects of household management from the duties of servants to recipes, the manual sheds fascinating light on the entire imperial experience.

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'an Indian household can no more be governed peacefully, without dignity and prestige, than an Indian Empire'

InThe Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook (1888) Flora Annie Steel and her co-author Grace Gardiner provide practical, and often highly opinionated, advice to young memsahibs in India. They explain how to 'make a hold' over servants, how to establish and stock a storeroom, how to plan a menu, manage young children, treat bites from 'mad, or even doubtful dogs', and teach an Indian cook how to make fish quenelles. The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook promised its reader a comprehensive guide to domesticitiy in India, even if she found herself living in camps or in the jungle, on the hills or in the plains, whether she was the wife of an influential Indian Civil Servant or a missionary.

This new edition, complete with its stimulating introduction and substantial notes, makes available a classic domestic work that in detailing the memsahib's role in the household sheds light on the entire imperial experience.


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