Hannah Glasse

Hannah glasse wrote the most successful English cookbook of the eighteenth century, but her fame owes more to chance than good cooking. Mrs Glasse was a mystery. When The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy first appeared anonymously in 1747, the modest “By a Lady” on the flyleaf tickled the public fancy; the signature H. Glasse” which was scrawled in the fourth edition of 1751 only added to the enigma for no one knew whom this could be. The matter became sufficiently intriguing to interest no less a figure than Dr Johnson, who apropos of the book’s origins remarked drily that “women can spin very well, but they cannot make a good book of cookery.”