The Country Housewife's Family Companion

The Country Housewife's Family Companion

William Ellis’s The Country Housewife’s Family Companion is an unusual cookbook. Rather than offering a list of recipes as one would expect, Ellis presents a narrative of sorts of what appears to be “best practices.”Born in 1700, Ellis lived on a farm in southern England. He traveled through various parts of England, recording and advocating various farming techniques. He became quite famous throughout the country through his numerous publications, and he took advantage of this notoriety by also selling seeds during his trips. Due to the success of his books, he expanded the scope of his writings in this book to also include best practices for country living and cooking.Ellis, however, outlived his fame. Distrust in his work rapidly grew among his audience as farmers began to his visit his farm hoping to witness these best practices in action. Instead, they found old equipment, run-down land, and meager results. Toward the end of the his life, publishers routinely edited his work, omitting the more sensational accounts, assuming he had manufactured them simply to fill pages.