Cookery Schools have been going for longer than might be imagined, even if most female cooks have commonly learned either at their mother’s knee, or by steady climb through the ranks of domestic service. The career of the 17th-century author Robert may is an example of the classic professional formation of the male cook. As a child, he worked with his father, cook to a family well entrenched at the English court, then spent his teenage years in the kitchens of a prominent French diplomat and lawyer in Paris, apparently sent by his employers in anticipation of excellent meals to come. He was then formally apprenticed in London to the cook to the Grocers’ Company and the court of the Star Chamber before returning fully trained to the paternal stove. This model was to hold good until well into the 20th century.
