Chapter V: Part 5

COOK, ELIZA (1818-1889), English author, was born on the 24th of December 1818, in Southwark, being the daughter of a local tradesman. She was self-taught, and began when a girl to write poetry for the _Weekly Dispatch_ and _New Monthly_. In 1838 she published _Melaia and other Poems_, and from 1849 to 1854 conducted a paper for family reading called _Eliza Cook's Journal_. She also published _Jottings from my Journal_ (1860), and _New Echoes_ (1864); and in 1863 she was given a civil list pension of L100 a year. As the author of a single poem, "The Old Armchair," Eliza Cook's name was for a generation after 1838 a household word both in England and in America, her kindly domestic sentiment making her a great favourite with the working-class and middle-class public. She died at Wimbledon on the 23rd of September 1889.

COOK, JAMES (1728-1779), English naval captain and explorer, was born on the 28th of October 1728, at Marton village, Cleveland, Yorkshire, where his father was first an agricultural labourer and then a farm bailiff. At twelve years of age he was apprenticed to a haberdasher at Staithes, near Whitby, and afterwards to Messrs Walker, shipowners, of Whitby, whom he served for years in the Norway, Baltic and Newcastle trades.

In 1755, having risen to be a mate, Cook joined the royal navy, and after four years' service was, on the recommendation of Sir Hugh Palliser, his commander, appointed master successively of the sloop "Grampus," of the "Garland" and of the "Solebay," in the last of which he served in the St Lawrence. He was employed also in sounding and surveying the river, and he published a chart of the channel from Quebec to the sea. In 1762 he was present at the recapture of Newfoundland, and was employed in surveying portions of this coast (especially Placentia Harbour); in 1763, on Palliser becoming governor of Newfoundland, Cook was appointed "marine surveyor of the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador"; this office he held till 1767; and the volumes of sailing directions he now brought out (1766-1768) showed remarkable abilities. At the same time he began to make his reputation as a mathematician and astronomer by his observation of the solar eclipse of the 5th of August 1766, at one of the Burgeo Islands, near Cape Ray, and by his account of the same in the _Philosophical Transactions_ (vol. lvii. pp. 215-216).

In 1768 Cook was appointed to conduct an expedition, suggested by the revival of geographical interest now noticeable, and resolved on by the English admiralty at the instance of the Royal Society, for observing the impending transit of Venus, and prosecuting geographical researches in the South Pacific Ocean. For these purposes he received a commission as lieutenant (May 25th), and set sail in the "Endeavour," of 370 tons, accompanied by several men of science, including Sir Joseph Banks (August 25th). On the 13th of April 1769, he reached Tahiti, where he observed the transit on the 3rd of June. From Tahiti he sailed in quest of the great continent then supposed to exist in the South Pacific, explored the Society Islands, and thence struck to New Zealand, whose coasts he circumnavigated and examined with great care for six months, charting them for the first time with fair accuracy, and especially observing the channel ("Cook Strait") which divided the North and South Islands. His attempts to penetrate to the interior, however, were thwarted by native hostility. From New Zealand he proceeded to "New Holland" or Australia, and surveyed with the same minuteness and accuracy the whole east coast. New South Wales he named after a supposed resemblance to Glamorganshire; Botany Bay, sighted on the 28th of April 1770, was so called by the naturalists of the expedition. On account of the hostility of the natives his discoveries here also were confined to the coast, of which he took possession for Great Britain. From Australia Cook sailed to Batavia, satisfying himself upon the way that (as Torres had first shown in 1607) New Guinea was in no way an outlying part of the greater land mass to the south.

Arriving in England, by way of the Cape of Good Hope, on the 12th of June, Cook was made a commander, and soon after was appointed to command another expedition for examining and determining once for all the question of the supposed great southern continent. With the "Resolution" of 462 tons, the "Adventure" (Captain Furneaux) of 330 tons, and 193 men, he sailed from Plymouth on the 13th of July 1772; he touched at the Cape of Good Hope, and striking thence south-east (November 22nd) passed the Antarctic Circle (January 16th, 1773), repassed the same, and made his way to New Zealand (March 26th) without discovering land. From New Zealand he resumed his "search for a continent," working up and down across the South Pacific, and penetrating to 67 deg. 31' and again to 71 deg. 10' S., with imminent risk of destruction from floating ice, but with the satisfaction of disproving the possibility of the disputed continent in the seas south-eastward of New Zealand. He then made for Easter Island, whose exact position he determined, for the first time, with accuracy; noticing and describing the gigantic statues which Roggewein, the first discoverer of the island, had made known. In the same manner he accomplished a better determination and examination of the Marquesas, as well as of the Tonga or Friendly Islands, than had yet been made; and after a stay at Tahiti to rest and refit, crossed the central Pacific to the "New Hebrides," as he renamed Quiros's "Southern Land of the Holy Spirit" (a name preserved in the modern island of _Espiritu Santo_), called by Bougainville the "Great Cyclades" (_Grandes Cyclades_), whose position, extent, divisions and character were now verified as never before. Next followed the wholly new discoveries of New Caledonia, Norfolk Island, and the Isle of Pines. Another visit to New Zealand, and yet another examination of the far southern Pacific, which was crossed from west to east through the whole of its extent, from south Australia to Tierra del Fuego, were now undertaken by Cook before he finally closed his work in refutation of the Antarctic continent, as previously understood, on this side of the world. The voyage closed with a rapid survey of the "Land of Fire," the rounding of Cape Horn, the rediscovery of the island now named Southern Georgia, the discovery of Sandwich Land, the crossing of the South Atlantic (here also exploding the great _Terra Australis_ delusion), and visits to the Cape of Good Hope, St Helena, Ascension, Fernando Noronha and the Azores. The voyage (reckoning only from the Cape of Good Hope and back to the same) had covered considerably more than 20,000 leagues, nearly three times the equatorial circumference of the earth; it left the main outlines of the southern portions of the globe substantially as they are known to-day; and it showed a possibility of keeping a number of men for years at sea without a heavy toll of lives. Cook only lost one man out of 118 in more than 1000 days; he had conquered scurvy.

The discoverer reached Plymouth on the 25th of July 1775, and his achievements were promptly, if meanly, rewarded. He was immediately raised to the rank of post-captain, appointed a captain in Greenwich hospital, and soon afterwards unanimously elected a member of the Royal Society, from which he received the Copley gold medal for the best experimental paper which had appeared during the year.

Cook's third and last voyage was primarily to settle the question of the north-west passage, practically abandoned since before the middle of the 17th century, but now taken up again, as a matter of scientific interest, by the British government. The explorer, who had volunteered for this service, was instructed to sail first into the Pacific through the chain of the newly discovered islands which he had recently visited, and on reaching New Albion to proceed northward as far as latitude 65 deg. and endeavour to find a passage to the Atlantic. Several ships were at the same time fitted out to attempt a passage on the other side from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Sailing from the Nore on the 25th of June 1776 (Plymouth, July 12), with the "Resolution" and "Discovery," and touching at the Cape of Good Hope, which he left on the 30th of November, Cook next made Tasmania and thence passed on to New Zealand and the Tonga and Society Islands, discovering on his way several of the larger members of the Hervey or Cook Archipelago, especially Mangaia and Aitutaki (March 30th-April 4th, 1777); some smaller isles of this group he had already sighted on his second voyage, September 23rd, 1773. From Tahiti, as he moved north towards the main object of his expedition, he made a far more important discovery, or rather rediscovery, that of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands, the greatest and most remarkable of the Polynesian archipelagos (early February 1778). These had perhaps first been seen by the Spanish navigator Gaetano in 1555; but their existence had been kept a close secret by Spain at the time, and had long been forgotten. Striking the west American coast in 44 deg. 55' N. on the 7th of March following, he made an almost continuous survey of the same up to Bering Straits and beyond, as far as 70 deg. 41', where he found the passage barred by a wall, or rather continent, of ice, rising 12 ft. above water, and stretching as far as the eye could reach. The farthest point visible on the American shore (in the extreme north-west of Alaska) he called Icy Cape. On his way towards Bering Straits he discovered and named King George's ("Nootka") and Prince William's Sound, as well as Cape Prince of Wales, the westernmost extremity of North America, never yet seen by English navigators, but well known to Russian explorers, who probably first sighted it in 1648; he also penetrated into the bay afterwards known as Cook's Inlet or River, which at first seemed to promise a passage to the Arctic Seas, to the south-east of the Alaska peninsula. Cook next visited the Asiatic shores of Bering Straits (the extreme north-east of Siberia); returning to America, he explored Norton Sound, north of the Yukon; touched at (Aleutian) Unalaska, where he met with some Russian-American settlers; and thence made his way back to the Hawaiian group, which he had christened after his friend and patron Lord Sandwich, then head of the British admiralty (January 17th, 1779). Here he visited Maui and Hawaii itself, whose size and importance he now first realized, and in one of whose bays (Kealakekua) he met his death early in the morning of the 14th of February 1779. During the night of the 13th, one of the "Discovery's" boats was stolen by the natives; and Cook, in order to recover it, made trial of his favourite expedient of seizing the king's person until reparation should be made. Having landed on the following day with some marines, a scuffle ensued which compelled the party to retreat to their boats. Cook was the last to retire; and as he was nearing the shore he received a blow from behind which felled him to the ground. He rose immediately, and vigorously resisted the crowds that pressed upon him, but was soon overpowered.

Had Cook returned from his third voyage, there is ground for believing King George would have made him a baronet. Distinguished honours were paid to his memory, both at home and by foreign courts, and a pension was settled upon his widow. But in his life a very inadequate share of official reward was dealt out to the man who not only may be placed first among British maritime discoverers, but also gave his country her title, and so her colonies, in Australasia. As a commander, an observer and a practical physician, his merits were equally great. Reference has been made to his survey work and to his victory over scurvy; it must not be forgotten that along with a commanding personal presence, and with sagacity, decision and perseverance quite extraordinary, went other qualities not less useful to his work. He won the affection of those who served under him by sympathy, kindness and unselfish care of others as noteworthy as his gifts of intellect.

See the _Account of a Voyage round the World in 1769-1771, by Lieut.
James Cook_, in vols. ii. and iii. of Hawkesworth's Voyages (1773);
the _Voyage towards the South Pole and round the World ... in ...
1772-1775, written by James Cook_ ... (1777); a _Voyage to the Pacific
Ocean ... in 1776-1780_, vols. i. and ii. written by Cook (1784); also
the _Narrative of the Voyages round the World performed by Captain
James Cook_, by A. Kippis, D.D., F.R.S. (1788), long the standard life
of the navigator, but now superseded by Arthur Kitson's _Captain James
Cook, the Circumnavigator_ (1907). (C. R. B.)

COOK, THOMAS (1808-1892), English travelling agent, was born at Melbourne in Derbyshire on the 22nd of November 1808. Beginning work at the age of ten, he was successively a gardener's help and a wood-turner at Melbourne, and a printer at Loughborough. At the age of twenty he became a Bible-reader and village missionary for the county of Rutland; but in 1832, on his marriage, combined his wood-turning business with that occupation. In 1836 he became a total abstainer, and subsequently became actively associated with the temperance movement, and printed at his own expense various publications in its interest, notably the _Children's Temperance Magazine_ (1840), the first of its kind to appear in England. In June 1841 a large meeting was to be held at Loughborough in connexion with this movement, and Cook was struck with the idea of getting the Midland Counties Railway Company to run a special train from Leicester to the meeting. The company consented, and on the 5th of July there were carried 570 passengers from Leicester to Loughborough and back at a shilling a head. This is believed to be the first publicly-advertised excursion train ever run in England--private "specials," reserved for members of institutes and similar bodies, were already in use. The event caused great excitement, and Cook received so many applications to organize similar parties that he henceforward deserted wood-turning, while continuing his printing and publishing. The summers of the next three years were occupied with excursions like the first; but in 1845 Cook advertised a pleasure-trip on a more extensive scale, from Leicester to Liverpool and back, with opportunities for visiting the Isle of Man, Dublin and Welsh coast. A _Handbook of the Trip to Liverpool_ was supplied for the use of travellers. In the previous year Cook had entered into a permanent arrangement with the Midland Railway Company to place trains at his disposal, for which he should provide the passengers. A trip to Scotland followed, and the excursionists were received in Glasgow with music and salute of guns.

The next great impetus to popular travel was given by the Great Exhibition of 1851, which Cook helped 165,000 visitors to attend. On the occasion of the Paris exhibition of 1855 there was a Cook's excursion from Leicester to Calais and back for L1:10s. The following year saw the first grand circular tour in Europe. This part of Cook's activity largely increased after 1863, when the Scottish railway managers broke off their engagements with him, and left him free for more distant enterprise. Switzerland was opened up in 1863, and Italy in 1864. Up to this time "Cook's tourists" had been personally conducted, but now he began to be an agent for the sale of English and foreign tickets, the holders of which travelled independently. Switzerland was the first foreign country accessible under these conditions, and in 1865 nearly the whole of Europe was included in the scheme. Its extension to the United States followed in 1866. For the benefit of visitors to the Paris exhibition, Cook made a fresh departure and leased a hotel there. In the same year began his system of "hotel-coupons," providing accommodation at a fixed charge. The year 1869 was marked by an extension of Cook's tours to Palestine, followed by further developments of travel in the East, his son, John Mason Cook, (1834-1899), being appointed in 1870 agent of the khedivial government for passenger traffic on the Nile. The Franco-German War of 1870-1871 was expected to damage the tourist system, but, as a matter of fact, encouraged it, through the demand for combination, international tickets enabling travellers to reach the south of Europe without crossing the belligerent countries. At the termination of the war a party of American freemasons visited Paris under J. M. Cook's guidance, and became the precursors of the present vast American tourist traffic. At the beginning of 1872 J. M. Cook entered into formal partnership with his father, and the firm first took the name of Thomas Cook & Son. In 1882, on the outbreak of Arabi Pasha's rebellion, Thomas Cook & Son were commissioned to convey Sir Garnet Wolseley and his suite to Egypt, and to transport the wounded and sick up the Nile by water, for which they received the thanks of the war office. The firm was again employed in 1884 to convey General Gordon to the Sudan, and the whole of the men (18,000) and stores necessary for the expedition afterwards sent to relieve him. In 1889 Thomas Cook & Son acquired the exclusive right of carrying the mails, specie, soldiers and officials of the Egyptian government along the Nile. In 1891 the firm celebrated its jubilee, and on the 19th of July of the following year Thomas Cook died. He had been afflicted with blindness in his declining years. His son, J. M. Cook, died in 1899, leaving three sons, all actively engaged in the business.

COOK or HERVEY ISLANDS, an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, lying mainly between 155 deg. and 160 deg. E., and about 20 deg. S.; a dependency of the British colony of New Zealand. It comprises nine partly volcanic, partly coralline, islands, the more important of which are Rarotonga, hilly, fertile and well watered, with several cones 300 to 400 ft. high, above which towers the majestic Rarotonga volcano (2920 ft.), the culminating point of the archipelago; Mangaia (Mangia); Aitutaki, with luxuriant cocoa-nut palm groves; Atui (Vatui); Mitiero; Mauki; Fenuaiti; and the two Hervey Islets, which give an alternative name to the group. The total land area is 111 sq. m. Owing to its healthy, equable climate, the archipelago is well suited for European settlement; but the dangerous fringing coral reefs render it difficult of access, and it suffers also from the absence of good harbours. The natives, who are of Polynesian stock and speech, have legends of their emigration from Samoa. They say their ancestors found black people on the islands, and the strongly Melanesian type which is found, especially on Mangaia, supports the statement. The Cook Islanders were formerly man-hunters and cannibals, but they now are nearly all Protestants, wear European dress and live in stone houses. The total population is about 6200. Since 1890 the islands have enjoyed a general legislature and an executive council of which the _Arikis_ ("kings" and "queens") are members. But all enactments are subject to the approval of the British resident at Rarotonga, and a British protectorate, proclaimed in 1888, was followed by the annexation of the whole archipelago by the governor of New Zealand, by proclamation of June 10th, 1901. The archipelago was discovered by Captain Cook in 1777, and in 1823 became the scene of the remarkable missionary labours of John Williams, of the London Missionary Society. The chief products of the group are cocoanuts, fruits, coffee and copra. Lime-juice and hats are made.

COOKE, GEORGE FREDERICK (1756-1811), English actor, was born in London, and made his first appearance on the stage in Brentford at the age of twenty as Dumont in _Jane Shore_. His first London appearance was at the Haymarket in 1778, but it was not until 1794 in Dublin, as Othello, that he attained high rank in his profession. In 1801 he appeared in London as Richard III., Iago, Shylock and Sir Giles Overreach, and became the rival of Kemble, with whom, however, and with Mrs Siddons, he acted from 1803. His intemperate habits unfortunately grew more and more notorious, and on at least one occasion the curtain had to be rung down owing to the audience hissing his drunken condition. He visited the United States in 1810, and died in New York on the 26th of September 1811. A monument to his memory was erected in St Paul's churchyard there by Edmund Kean.

COOKE, JAY (1821-1905), American financier, was born at Sandusky, Ohio, on the 10th of August 1821, the son of Eleutheros Cooke (1787-1864), a pioneer Ohio lawyer, and Whig member of Congress from that state in 1831-1833. Being destined for a commercial career, Jay Cooke received a preliminary training in a trading house in St Louis, and in the booking office of a transportation company in Philadelphia, and at the age of eighteen entered the Philadelphia house of E.W. Clark & Company, one of the largest private banking firms in the country. He showed such aptitude for business that three years later he was admitted to membership in the firm, and before he was thirty he was also a partner in the New York and St Louis branches of the Clarks. In 1858 he retired from the firm, and for the next three years he devoted himself to reorganizing some of the abandoned Pennsylvania railways and canals and placing them again in operation. On the 1st of January 1861 he opened in Philadelphia the private banking house of Jay Cooke & Company, and soon achieved signal success in floating at par a war loan of $3,000,000 for the state of Pennsylvania, whose credit had become notoriously bad. In the early months of the Civil War Cooke co-operated with the secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Chase, in securing loans from the leading bankers in the Northern cities, and his own firm was so successful in distributing treasury notes that Chase engaged him as special agent for the sale of the $500,000,000 of so-called "five-twenty" bonds authorized by the act of the 25th of February 1862. To dispose of these bonds the treasury department had already tried every regular means at its command and had failed. Cooke secured the influence of the American press, appointed 2500 sub-agents, and before the machinery he set in motion could be stopped he had sold $11,000,000 more of bonds than had been authorized, an excess which Congress immediately sanctioned. At the same time he used all his influence in favour of the establishment of national banks, and organized a national bank at Washington and another at Philadelphia almost as soon as such institutions were authorized by Congress. In the early months of 1865, when the needs of the government were pressing, and the sale of the new "seven-thirty" notes by the national banks had been very disappointing, Cooke's services were again secured. He sent agents into the remotest villages and hamlets, and even into the isolated mining camps of the West, and caused the rural newspapers to praise the loan. As a result, between February and July 1865 he had disposed of three series of the notes, reaching a total of $830,000,000. Through these efforts the Union soldiers were well supplied and well paid while dealing the final blows of the war; and, later, with money in their pockets, they were disbanded without difficulty.

After the war Cooke became interested in the development of the North-west, and in 1870 his firm undertook to finance the construction of the Northern Pacific railway. In advancing the money for the work, the firm over-estimated the possibilities of its capital, and at the approach of the financial crisis of 1873 it was forced to suspend. By 1880 Cooke had discharged all his obligations, and through an investment in a silver mine in Utah had again become wealthy. He died at Ogontz, Pennsylvania, on the 18th of February 1905. Cooke was noted for his piety, and gave regularly a tenth of his income for religious and charitable purposes. His handsome estate at Ogontz, which he had been compelled to give up during his bankruptcy, he later repurchased and converted into a school for girls.

See E. P. Oberholtzer, _Jay Cooke, Financier of the Civil War_
(Philadelphia, 1907).

COOKE, ROSE TERRY (1827-1892), American writer, _nee_ Terry, was born at West Hartford, Connecticut, on the 17th of February 1827. She published in 1860 a volume of _Poems_, but after her marriage in 1873 to Rollin H. Cooke she was best known for her fresh and humorous stories, though in 1888 she published more verse in her _Complete Poems_. The chief volumes of fiction dealing mainly with New England country life, produced by Rose Terry Cooke, were _Happy Dodd_ (1878), _Somebody's Neighbors_ (1881), _Root-bound_ (1885), _The Sphinx's Children_ (1886), _Steadfast_ (1889) and _Huckleberries_ (1891). She died at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on the 18th of July 1892.

COOKERY (Lat. _coquus_, a cook), the art of preparing and dressing food of all sorts for human consumption, of converting the raw materials, by the application of heat or otherwise, into a digestible and pleasing condition, and generally ministering to the satisfaction of the appetite and the delight of the palate. We may take it that some form of cookery has existed from the earliest times, and its progress has been from the simple to the elaborate, dominated partly by the foods accessible to man, partly by the stage of civilization he has attained, and partly by the appliances at his command for the purpose either of treating the food, or of consuming it when served.

The developed art of cookery is necessarily a late addition--if it may be considered to be included at all--to the list of "fine arts." Originally it is a purely industrial and useful art. Man, says a French writer, was born a roaster, and "_pour etre cuisinier, il a besoin de le devenir._" The ancients were great eaters, but strangers to the subtler refinements of the palate. The gods were supposed to love the smell of fried meat, while their nectar and ambrosia represented an ideal, which, though preserved as a phrase, would hardly satisfy a modern epicure. The ancients were poorly provided with pots and pans, except of a simple order, or with the appurtenances of a kitchen, and they were sadly to seek in the requisites of a modern table. So long as men ate with their hands no dainty confection was suitable; the viands were set forth in a straightforward style fit for their requirements. "Plain cooking," which, after all, can never become obsolete, was the only sort. Oddities, no doubt, were the luxuries; and we can see to-day in the ethnological accounts of contemporary savages and backward civilizations, a fair representation of the cookeries of the ancients. The luxuries of the Chinese are, in their way, a survival of long ages of a cookery which to western civilization is grotesque. Even if it is an historic impertinence, it is impossible for the countries of western civilization to regard the fine flower of their own evolution as other than the highest pitch of progress. _Autres temps, autres moeurs._ To the Chinaman French cooking may possibly be as grotesque as to an Englishman the Chinaman's hundred-year-old buried egg, black and tasteless. The history of comparative cookery is bound up with the physical possibilities of each country and its products; and if we attempt to mark out stages in the evolution of cookery as a fine art, it is necessarily as understood by the so-called civilized peoples of the West in their culmination at the present day.

It is obvious that opportunity has dominated its history, for the art of cookery is to some extent the product of an increased refinement of taste, consequent on culture and increase of wealth. To this extent it is a decadent art, ministering to the luxury of man, and to his progressive inclination to be pampered and have his appetite tickled. It is thus only remotely connected with the mere necessities of nutrition (q.v.), or the science of dietetics (q.v.). Mere hunger, though the best sauce, will not produce cookery, which is the art of sauces. For centuries its elaboration consisted mainly of a progressive variety of foods, the richest and rarest being sought out; and their nature depended on what was most difficult to obtain. The Greeks learnt by contact with Asia to increase the sumptuous character of their banquets, but we know little enough of their ideas of gastronomy. Athens was the centre of luxury. According to our chief authority Athenaeus, Archestratus of Gela, the friend of the son of Pericles, the guide of Epicurus, and author of the _Heduphagetica_, was a great traveller, and took pains to get information as to how the delicacies of the table were prepared in different parts. His lost work was versified by Ennius. Other connoisseurs seem to have been Numenius of Heraclea, Hegemon of Thasos, Philogenes of Leucas, Simonaclides of Chios, and Tyndarides of Sicyon. The Romans, emerging from their pristine simplicity, borrowed from the Greeks their achievements in gastronomic pleasure. We read of this or that Roman gourmet, such as Lucullus, his extravagances and his luxury. The name of the connoisseur Apicius, after whom a work of the time of Heliogabalus is called, comes down to us in association with a manual of cookery. And from Macrobius and Petronius we can gather very interesting glimpses of the Roman idea of a menu. In the later empire, tradition still centred round the Roman cookery favoured by the geographical position of Italy; while the customs and natural products of the remoter parts of Europe gradually begin to assert themselves as the middle ages progress.

It is, however, not till the Renaissance, and then too with Italy as the starting-point, that the history of modern cookery really begins. Meanwhile cookery may be studied rather in the architecture of kitchens, and the development of their appurtenances and personnel, than in any increase in the subtleties of the art; the ideal was inevitably gross; the end was feeding--inextricably associated in all ages with cooking, but as distinct from its _fine fleur_ as gluttony from gastronomy.

Montaigne's references to the revival of cookery in France by Catherine de' Medici indicate that the new attention paid to the art was really novel. She brought Italian cooks to Paris and introduced there a cultured simplicity which was unknown in France before. It is to the Italians apparently that later developments are originally due. It is clearly established, for instance (says Abraham Hayward in his _Art of Dining_), that the Italians introduced ices into France. Fricandeaus were invented by the _chef_ of Leo X. And Coryate in his _Crudities_, writing in the time of James I., says that he was called "furcifer" (evidently in contemptuous jest) by his friends, from his using those "Italian neatnesses called forks." The use of the fork and spoon marked an epoch in the progress of dining, and consequently of cookery.

Under Louis XIV. further advances were made. His _maitre d'hotel_, Bechamel, is famous for his sauce; and Vatel, the great Conde's cook, was a celebrated artist, of whose suicide in despair at the tardy arrival of the fish which he had ordered, Madame de Sevigne relates a moving story. The prince de Soubise, immortalized by his onion sauce, also had a famous chef.

In England the names of certain cookery-books may be noted, such as Sir J. Elliott's (1539), Abraham Veale's (1575), and the _Widdowe's Treasure_ (1625). The _Accomplisht Cook_, by Robert May, appeared in 1665, and from its preface we learn that the author (who speaks disparagingly of French cookery, but more gratefully of Italian and Spanish) was the son of a cook, and had studied abroad and under his father (c. 1610) at Lady Dormer's, and he speaks of that time as "the days wherein were produced the triumphs and trophies of cookery." From his description they consisted of most fantastic and elaborately built up dishes, intended to amuse and startle, no less than to satisfy the appetite and palate.

Louis XV. was a great gourmet; and his reign saw many developments in the culinary art. The mayonnaise (originally _mahonnaise_) is ascribed to the duc de Richelieu. Such dishes as "_potage a la Xavier_," "_cailles a la Mirepoix_," "_chartreuses a la Mauconseil_," "_poulets a la Villeroy_," "_potage a la Conde_," "_gigot a la Mailly_," owe their titles to celebrities of the day, and the Pompadour gave her name to various others. The Jesuits Brunoy and Bougeant, who wrote a preface to a contemporary treatise on cookery (1739), described the modern art as "more simple, more appropriate, and more cunning, than that of old days," giving the ingredients the same union as painters give to colours, and harmonizing all the tastes. The very phrase "_cordon bleu_" (strictly applied only to a woman cook) arose from an enthusiastic recognition of female merit by the king himself. Madame du Barry, piqued at his opinion that only a man could cook to perfection, had a dinner prepared for him by a _cuisiniere_ with such success that the delighted monarch demanded that the artist should be named, in order that so precious a _cuisinier_ might be engaged for the royal household. "_Allons donc, la France!_" retorted the ex-grisette, "have I caught you at last? It is no _cuisinier_ at all, but a _cuisiniere_, and I demand a recompense for her worthy both of her and of your majesty. Your royal bounty has made my negro, Zamore, governor of Luciennes, and I cannot accept less than a _cordon bleu_" (the Royal Order of the _Saint Esprit_) "for my _cuisiniere_."

The French Revolution was temporarily a blow to Parisian cookery, as to everything else of the _ancien regime_. "Not a single turbot in the market," was the lament of Grimod de la Reyniere, the great gourmet, and author of the _Manuel des amphitryons_ (1808). But while it fell heavily on the class of noble amphitryons it had one remarkable effect on the art which was epoch-making. It is from that time that we notice the rise of the Parisian restaurants. To 1770 is ascribed the first of these, the _Champ d'oiseau_ in the rue des Poulies. In 1789 there were a hundred. In 1804 (when the _Almanach des gourmands_, the first sustained effort at investing gastronomy with the dignity of an art, was started) there were between 500 and 600. And in 1814, to such an extent had the restaurants attracted the culinary talent of Paris, that the allied monarchs, on arriving there, had to contract with the two brothers Very for the supply of their table. Among the great gastronomic names of Napoleon's day was that of his chancellor Cambaceres, of whose dinners many stories are told. Robert (the eponym of the _sauce Robert_), Rechaud and Merillion were at this period esteemed the Raphael, Michelangelo and Rubens of cookery; while A. Beauvilliers (author of _Art des cuisines_) and Careme (author of the _Maitre d'hotel francais_, and chef at different times to the Tsar Alexander I., Talleyrand, George IV. and Baron Rothschild) were no less celebrated.[1] Perhaps the greatest name of all in the history of the literature of cookery is that of Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), the French judge and author of the _Physiologie du gout_ (1825), the classic of gastronomy.

In England Louis Eustache Ude, Charles Elme Francatelli, and Alexis Soyer carried on the tradition, all being not only cooks but authors of treatises on the art. The _Original_ (1835) of Thomas Walker, the Lambeth police magistrate, is another work which has inspired later pens. Like the _Physiologie du gout_, it is no mere cookery-book, but a compound of observation and philosophy. Among simple hand-books, Mrs Glasse's, Dr Kitchener's and Mrs Rundell's were standard English works in the 18th and early 19th centuries; and in France the _Cuisiniere de la campagne_ (1818) went through edition after edition. An interesting old English work is Dr Pegge's _Forme of Cury_ (1780), which includes some historical reflections on the subject. "We have some good families in England," he says, "of the name of Cook or Coke.... Depend upon it, they all originally sprang from real professional cooks, and they need not be ashamed of their extraction any more than Porters, Butlers, &c." He points out that cooks in early days were of some importance; William the Conqueror bestowed land on his _coquorum praepositus_ and _coquus regius_; and Domesday Book records the bestowal of a manor on Robert Argyllon, by the service of a dish called "de la Groute" on the king's coronation day.

At the present time, whatever the local varieties of cooking, and the difference of national custom, French cooking is admittedly the ideal of the culinary art, directly we leave the plain roast and boiled. And the spread of cosmopolitan hotels and restaurants over England, America and the European continent, has largely accustomed the whole civilized world to the Parisian type. The improvements in the appliances and appurtenances of the kitchen have made the whole world kin in the arts of dining, but the French chef remains the typical master of his craft. Schools of cookery have been added to the educational machine. The literature of the subject has passed beyond enumeration.

It is unnecessary here to pursue so vast a practical subject into detail; but the following notes on broiling, roasting, baking, boiling, stewing and frying may be useful.

_Broiling._--The earliest method of cooking was probably burying seeds
and flesh in hot ashes, a kind of broiling on all the surfaces at the
same time, which when properly done is the most delicate kind of
cooking. Broiling is now done over a clear fire extending at least 2
in. beyond the edges of the gridiron, which should slightly incline
towards the cook. It is usual to rub the bars with a piece of suet for
meat, and chalk for fish, to prevent the thing broiled from being
marked with the bars of the gridiron. In this kind of cookery the
object is to coagulate as quickly as possible all the albumen on the
surface, and seal up the pores of the meat so as to keep in all the
juices and flavour. It is, therefore, necessary thoroughly to warm the
gridiron before putting on the meat, or the heat of the fire is
conducted away while the juices and flavour of the meat run into the
fire. Broiling is a simple kind of cookery, and one well suited to
invalids and persons of delicate appetites. There is no other way in
which small quantities of meat can be so well and so quickly cooked.
Broiling cannot be well done in front of an open fire, because one
side of the meat is exposed to a current of cold air. A pair of tongs
should be used instead of a fork for turning all broiled meat and
fish.

_Roasting._--Two conditions are necessary for good roasting--a clear
bright fire and frequent basting. Next to boiling or stewing it is the
most economical method of cooking. The meat at first should be placed
close to a brisk fire for five minutes to coagulate the albumen. It
should then be drawn back a short distance and roasted slowly. If a
meat screen be used, it should be placed before the fire to be
moderately heated before the meat is put to roast. The centre of
gravity of the fire should be a little above the centre of gravity of
the joint. No kitchen can be complete without an open range, for it is
almost impossible to have a properly roasted joint in closed
kitcheners. The heat radiated from a good open fire quickly coagulates
the albumen on the surface, and thus to a large extent prevents that
which is fluid in the interior from solidifying. The connective tissue
which unites the fibres is gradually converted into gelatin, and
rendered easily soluble. The fibrin and albumen appear to undergo a
higher oxidation and are more readily dissolved. The fat cells are
gradually broken, and the liquid fat unites to a small extent with the
chloride of sodium and the tribasic phosphate of sodium contained in
the serum of the blood. It is easily seen that roasting by coagulating
the external albumen keeps together the most valuable parts of the
meat, till they have gradually and slowly undergone the desired
change. This surface coagulation is not sufficient to prevent the free
access of the oxygen of the surrounding air. The empyreumatic oils
generated on the surface are neither wholesome nor agreeable, and
these are perhaps better removed by roasting than any other method
except broiling. The chief object is to retain as much as possible all
the sapid juicy properties of the meat, so that at the first cut the
gravy flows out of a rich reddish colour, and this can only be
accomplished by a quick coagulation of the surface albumen. The time
for roasting varies slightly with the kind of meat and the size of the
joint. As a rule beef and mutton require a quarter of an hour to the
pound; veal and pork about 17 minutes to the pound. To tell whether
the joint is done, press the fleshy part with a spoon; if the meat
yield easily it is done.

_Baking_ meat is in many respects objectionable, and should never be
done if any other method is available. The gradual disuse of open
grates for roasting has led to a practice of first baking and then
browning before the fire. This method completely reverses the true
order of cooking by beginning with the lowest temperature and
finishing with the highest. Baked meat has never the delicate flavour
of roast meat, nor is it so digestible. The vapours given off by the
charring of the surface cannot freely escape, and the meat is cooked
in an atmosphere charged with empyreumatic oil. A brick or earthenware
oven is preferable to iron, because the porous nature of the bricks
absorbs a good deal of the vapour. When potatoes are baked with meat,
they should always be first parboiled, because they take a longer time
to bake, and the moisture rising from the potatoes retards the process
of baking, and makes the meat sodden. A baked meat pie, though not
always very digestible, is far less objectionable than plain baked
meat. In the case of a meat pie the surfaces of the meat are protected
by a bad conductor of heat from that charring of the surface which
generates empyreumatic vapours, and the fat and gravy, gradually
rising in temperature, assist the cooking, and such cooking more
nearly resembles stewing than baking. The process may go on for a long
time after the removal of the meat from the oven, if surrounded with
flannel, or some bad conductor of heat. The Cornish pasty is the best
example of this kind of cooking. Meat, fish, game, parboiled
vegetables, apples or anything that fancy suggests, are surrounded
with a thick flour and water crust and slowly baked. When removed from
the oven, and packed in layers of flannel, the pasty will keep hot for
hours. When baked dishes contain eggs, it should be remembered that
the albumen becomes harder and more insoluble, according to the time
occupied in cooking. About the same time is required for baking as
roasting.

_Boiling_ is one of the easiest methods of cooking, but a successful
result depends on a number of conditions which, though they appear
trifling, are nevertheless necessary. The fire must be watched so as
properly to regulate the heat. The saucepan should be scrupulously
clean and have a closely-fitting lid, and be large enough to hold
sufficient water to well cover and surround the meat, and all scum
should be removed as it comes to the surface; the addition of small
quantities of cold water will assist the rising of the scum. For all
cooking purposes clean rain water is to be preferred. Among cooks a
great difference of opinion exists as to whether meat should be put
into cold water and gradually brought to the boiling point, or should
be put into boiling water. This, like many other unsettled questions
in cookery, is best decided by careful scientific experiment and
observation. If a piece of meat be put into water at a temperature of
60 deg., and gradually raised to 212 deg., the meat is undergoing a
gradual loss of its soluble and nutritious properties, which are
dissolved in the water. From the surface to the interior the albumen
is partially dissolved out of the meat, the fibres become hard and
stringy, and the thinner the piece of meat the greater the loss of all
those sapid constituents which make boiled meat savoury, juicy and
palatable. To put meat into cold water is clearly the best method for
making soups and broth; it is the French method of preparing the _pot
au feu_; but the meat at the end of the operation has lost much of
that juicy sapid property which makes boiled meat so acceptable. The
practice of soaking fresh meat in cold water before cooking is for the
same reasons highly objectionable; if necessary, wipe it with a clean
cloth. But in the case of salted, smoked and dried meats soaking for
several hours is indispensable, and the water should be occasionally
changed. The other method of boiling meat has the authority of Baron
Liebig, who recommends putting the meat into water when in a state of
ebullition, and after five minutes the saucepan is to be drawn aside,
and the contents kept at a temperature of 162 deg. (50 deg. below
boiling). The effect of boiling water is to coagulate the albumen on
the surface of the meat, which prevents, but not entirely, the juices
from passing into the water, and meat thus boiled has more flavour and
has lost much less in weight. To obtain well-flavoured boiled meat the
idea of soups or broth must be a secondary consideration. It is,
however, impossible to cook a piece of meat in water without
extracting some of its juices and nutriment, and the liquor should in
both cases be made into a soup.

_Stewing._--When meat is slowly cooked in a close vessel it is said to
be stewed; this method is generally adopted in the preparation of made
dishes. Different kinds of meat may be used, or only one kind
according to taste. The better the meat the better the stew; but by
carefully stewing the coarsest and roughest parts will become soft,
tender and digestible, which would not be possible by any other kind
of cooking. Odd pieces of meat and trimmings and bones can often be
purchased cheaply, and may be turned into good food by stewing. Bones,
although containing little meat, contain from 39 to 49% of gelatin.
The large bones should be broken into small pieces, and allowed to
simmer till every piece is white and dry. Gelatin is largely used both
in the form of jellies and soups. Lean meat, free from blood, is best
for stewing, and, when cut into convenient pieces, it should be
slightly browned in a little butter or dripping. Constant attention is
necessary during this process, to prevent burning. The meat should be
covered with soft water or, better, a little stock, and set aside to
simmer for four or five hours, according to the nature of the
material. When vegetables are used, these should also be slightly
browned and added at intervals, so as not materially to lower the
temperature. Stews may be thickened by the addition of pearl barley,
sago, rice, potatoes, oatmeal, flour, &c., and flavoured with herbs
and condiments according to taste. Although stewing is usually done in
a stewpan or saucepan with a close-fitting cover, a good stone jar,
with a well-fitting lid, is preferable in the homes of working people.
This is better than a metal saucepan, and can be more easily kept
clean; it retains the heat longer, and can be placed in the oven or
covered with hot ashes. The common red jar is not suitable; it does
not stand the heat so well as a grey jar; and the red glaze inside
often gives way in the presence of salt. The lid of a vessel used for
stewing should be removed as little as possible. An occasional shake
will prevent the meat from sticking. At the end of the operation all
the fat should be carefully removed.

_Frying._--Lard, oil, butter, or dripping may be used for frying.
There are two methods of frying--the dry method, as in frying a
pancake, and the wet method, as when the thing fried is immersed in a
bath of hot fat. In the former case a frying pan is used, in the other
a frying kettle or stewpan. It is usual for most things to have a wire
frying basket; the things to be fried are placed in the basket and
immersed at the proper temperature in the hot fat. The fat should
gradually rise in temperature over a slow fire till it attains nearly
400 deg. Fahr. Great care is required to fry properly. If the
temperature is too low the things immersed in the fat are not fried,
but soddened; if, on the other hand, the temperature is too high, they
are charred. The temperature of the fat varies slightly with the
nature of things to be fried. Fish, cutlets, croquets, rissoles and
fritters are well fried at a temperature of 380 deg. Fahr. Potatoes,
chops and white bait are better fried at a temperature of 400 deg.
Fahr. Care must be taken not to lower the temperature too much by
introducing too many things. The most successful frying is when the
fat rises two or three degrees during the frying. Fried things should
be of a golden brown colour, crisp and free from fat. When fat or oil
has been used for fish it must be kept for fish. It is customary first
to use fat for croquets, rissoles, fritters and other delicate things,
and then to take it for fish. Everything fried in fat should be placed
on bibulous paper to absorb any fat on the surfaces.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] See Lady S. O. Morgan's _France_, 1829-1830, ii. 414, for an
account of a dinner by Careme.

COOKSTOWN, a market town of Co. Tyrone, Ireland, in the east parliamentary division, 54 m. W. by N. of Belfast, on branches of the Great Northern and the Northern Counties (Midland) railways. Pop. of urban district (1901) 3531. It consists principally of a single street of great length, and lies in a pleasant, well-wooded district, near the Ballinderry river. It has important manufactures of linen, and some agricultural trade. It was founded in 1609, the landlord, Allan Cook, giving name to it. The mansion of Killymoon Castle, in the vicinity, is a notable example of the work of a celebrated architect, John Nash (c. 1800).

COOKTOWN, a seaport of Banks county, Queensland, Australia, at the mouth of the Endeavour river, about 1050 m. direct N.N.W. of Brisbane. It is visited by the ocean steamers of several lines, and is the centre of a very extensive _beche-de-mer_ and pearl fishery. Tin and gold are worked in the district, in which also good coffee and rice are grown. Cooktown is the port of the Palmer gold-fields, and a railway runs to Laura on the gold-fields, 67 m. W. by S. of Cooktown. It is the chief port of Queensland for the New Guinea trade; and is also the seat of a Roman Catholic vicariate apostolic whose bishop has jurisdiction over the whole of Queensland north of lat. 18 deg. 50'. In 1770 Captain Cook here beached his ship the "Endeavour," to repair the damage caused by her striking a reef in the neighbourhood of the estuary, which he could only clear by throwing his guns overboard. Cooktown became a municipality in 1876. The population of the town and district in 1901 was 1936.