e of the chief
Motives that made me to adventure this Volume to your Censures, hath
been to testifie my gratitude to your experienced Society; nor could
I omit to direct it to you, as it hath been my ambition, that you
should be sensible of my Proficiency of Endeavours in this Art. To
all honest well intending Men of our Profession, or others, this
Book cannot but be acceptable, as it plainly and profitably
discovers the _Mystery_ of the _whole Art_; for which, though I may
be _envied by some that only value their private Interests above
Posterity, and the publick good_, yet God and my own Conscience
would not permit me _to bury these my Experiences with my Silver
Hairs in the Grave_: and that more especially, as the advantages of
my Education hath raised me above the _Ambitions_ of others, in the
converse I have had with other _Nations_, who in this _Art_ fall
short of what I _have known experimented by you my worthy Country
men_. Howsoever, the _French by their Insinuations, not without
enough of Ignorance_, have bewitcht some of the _Gallants of our
Nation_ with Epigram Dishes, smoakt rather than drest, so strangely
to captivate the _Gusto_, their _Mushroom'd Experiences_ for _Sauce_
rather than _Diet_, for the generality howsoever called _A-la-mode_,
not worthy of being taken notice on. As I live in _France_, and had
the Language and have been an eye-witness of their _Cookeries_ as
well, as a Peruser of their Manuscripts, and Printed _Authors_
whatsoever I found good in them, I have inserted in this _Volume_.
I do acknowledg my self not to be a little beholding to the
_Italian_ and _Spanish_ Treatises; though without my fosterage, and
bringing up under the _Generosities_ and _Bounties of my Noble
Patrons and Masters_, I could never have arrived to this
_Experience_. To be confined and limited to the narrowness of a
Purse, is to want the _Materials_ from which the _Artist_ must gain
his knowledge. Those _Honourable Persons_, _my Lord_ Lumley, and
others, with whom I have spent a part of my time, were such whose
generous cost never weighed the Expence, so that they might arrive
to that right and high esteem they had of their _Gusto's_. Whosoever
peruses this _Volume_ shall find it amply exemplified in _Dishes_ of
such high prices, which only these _Noblesses Hospitalities_ did
reach to: I should have sinned against their (to be perpetuated)
Bounties, if I had not set down their several varieties, that the
_Reader_ mi