Food historian Neil Buttery delves into the life & food of Elizabeth Raffald: cookbook author, tavern keeper, mother, midwife & exorcist!

The great Elizabeth Raffald used to be a household name, and her list of accomplishments would make even the highest of achievers feel suddenly impotent. After becoming housekeeper at Arley Hall in Cheshire at age 25, she married and moved to Manchester, transforming the Manchester food scene and business community, writing the first A to Z directory and creating the first domestic servants’ registry office—the first temping agency if you will. Not only that, she set up a cookery school and ran a high-class tavern attracting both gentry and nobility. She reputedly gave birth to 16 daughters, wrote a book on midwifery and was an effective exorcist of evil spirits.

But all this pales in comparison to her biggest achievement: her cookery book The Experienced English Housekeeper. Published in 1769, it ran to over 20 editions and brought her fame and fortune… until her alcoholic husband bankrupted the family, twice.

Her book, however, lived on. Influential and often imitated (but never bettered), it became the must-have volume for any kitchen, and it helped form our notion of traditional British food as we think of it today.

To tell the story of Elizabeth’s tumultuous rise and fall—and how her influential book helped form our notion of traditional British food —historian Neil Buttery doesn’t just delve into the history of food in the 18th century; he has to look at trade and empire, domestic service, the agricultural revolution, women’s rights, and much, much more.

A question & answer period will follow the talk.