Elizabeth Raffald
Elizabeth Raffald was born and raised in Doncaster, Yorkshire. She went into domestic service for fifteen years, ending as the housekeeper to the Warburton baronets at Arley Hall, Cheshire. In 1769 she published her cookery book The Experienced English Housekeeper. Her recipes were heavily plagiarised by other authors, notably by Isabella Beeton.
About Elizabeth Raffald in brief
Elizabeth Raffald was born and raised in Doncaster, Yorkshire. She went into domestic service for fifteen years, ending as the housekeeper to the Warburton baronets at Arley Hall, Cheshire. In 1769 she published her cookery book The Experienced English Housekeeper, which contains the first recipe for a “Bride Cake” that is recognisable as a modern wedding cake. She is possibly the inventor of the Eccles cake. In August 1772 she published The Manchester Directory, a listing of 1,505 traders and civic leaders in Manchester. She died suddenly in 1781, just after publishing the third edition of her directory and while still updating the eighth edition of the cookerybook. Her recipes were heavily plagiarised by other authors, notably by Isabella Beeton in her bestselling Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management. She was also admired by several modern cooks and food writers, including Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson. The following year she was also selling confectionery, alongside nuts, pistachio, French olives, Portugal, and all sorts of preserved pine apples, drymeats, raisins, Jorden Valencia almonds and other truffles. As was the practice for publishers at the time, she had subscribers who had pre-paid for a copy of the first edition. The first edition was published in 1769, and was dedicated to Lady Elizabeth WarBurton, which she dedicated to her husband John, the estate’s head gardener. The couple moved to Manchester, Lancashire, where she opened a register office to introduce domestic workers to employers; she also ran a cookery school and sold food from the premises.
In all she spent fifteen years in service. After her death there were fifteen official editions of her cookary book, and twenty-three pirated ones. The couple went on to run two important post houses in Manchester and Salford before running into financial problems, possibly brought on by John’s heavy drinking. Here John sold seeds and plants, while R Affald, according to her advertisements in the local press, supplied Yorkshire hams, tongues, brawn, Newcastle salmon, and sturgeon, pickles, and ketchups of all kinds, lemon pickles,. The year after her death, she also supplied the produce for, and organised, civic dinners. She had probably six daughters. The girls each had their own nurse, and when going out, were dressed in clean white dresses, with the nurses in attendance; at least three of the girls went to boarding schools. Over the next few years her business grew, and she added cookery classes to the services she supplied. She rented her spare rooms for storage, and advertised that she was “pleased to give her business of supplying cold entertainments, hot French dishes, confectionaries, &c.’’ The couple left the Warburtons’ service and moved to Fennel Street, Manchester, where John’s family tended market gardens near the River Irwell.
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This page is based on the article Elizabeth Raffald published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 02, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
