Eliza Acton
English food writer and poet
Biography
Eliza Acton (Battle, Sussex, 1799 – Hampstead, London, 1859) was an English food writer and poet, author of Modern Cookery for Private Families, one of the first cookery books written for the domestic reader in Britain. Her work sits between the kitchens of the eighteenth century and the industrial age. Its importance lies in giving the modern recipe a structure we still recognise: ingredients and cooking time first, then the method.
She was born on 17 April 1799 in Battle and was the eldest of nine children of John Acton, a brewer, and his wife Elizabeth. By 1800 the family had moved to Ipswich, Suffolk, where John worked for the St. Peter's Brewery. In 1811, after the death of the firm's owner, John became junior partner and the business was renamed Studd, Halliday and Acton. The biographer Sheila Hardy considers it likely that he borrowed heavily to buy into the firm.
In 1817 Eliza opened, with a companion, a boarding school for young ladies at Claydon, just outside Ipswich. In 1819 she founded another with her sisters at Great Bealings, which moved to Woodbridge in 1822 and probably closed around 1825. She spent some time in France, either in Paris or the south, but when she left England is not known for certain; Hardy suggests 1823. The food historian Elizabeth Ray argues that she went abroad for her health, as she had a weak constitution. There is also a poorly documented theory that she was pregnant and gave birth to a daughter abroad. The idea that a sister named Sarah raised the child has no support, as Hardy points out that Acton had no sister named Sarah and no records confirm it. In France she had a difficult relationship with a French army officer, which may have been an engagement that was broken off.
She had been writing poetry since at least 1822, when she dated one of her poems. Around 1826 she returned to England, and Longman published a collection with a list of subscribers, nearly all from Suffolk, as was customary at the time. Some 328 copies were printed in October 1826, and a reprint was needed within a month. She later wrote longer pieces, such as « The Chronicles of Castel Framlingham », printed in the Sudbury Chronicle in 1838, and « The Voice of the North », from 1842, written for Queen Victoria's first visit to Scotland. O'Brien argues that her work was overshadowed by a richer poetic field. Aylett and Ordish place her in the romantic style and describe her verse as accomplished rather than inspired, though also somewhat conventional. Hardy highlights themes such as nature, twilight and unrequited love.
In 1827 John Acton was declared bankrupt and fled to France. His wife turned the family home, Bordyke House in Tonbridge, Kent, into a boarding house for upper-class guests who came to take the waters at Royal Tunbridge Wells. Eliza stayed there and, over time, turned to writing about cookery.
Around 1835 or 1837, depending on the source, she sent more poems to Longman. It is often said that the publisher then suggested she write a cookery book, but Hardy considers this story apocryphal. By her own account, she spent about ten years preparing Modern Cookery in all its Branches, published in January 1845 for the English middle classes. Her preface argued that domestic economy deserved the attention of educated women. The book is mainly English in its recipes, although she labelled several as « French », and devoted a chapter to curries and chutneys, treated as a naturalised Anglo-Indian dish rather than one of purely Indian origin, according to the professor Susan Zlotnick.
The book contains the first recipe in English for Brussels sprouts and the first use of the word spaghetti in an English cookery book, spelled differently from today. It also includes what Acton called « Christmas pudding », although plum pudding had appeared in recipes before; she was the first to put the name and the recipe together. Her layout, with the method followed by the ingredients and total time, was her own and differed from other books. Acton claimed that each recipe had been tested under her own roof and under her personal supervision. The food historian Sarah Freeman praises instructions written with as much gastronomic sensitivity as practicality. Reviews were favourable: The Morning Post called it unquestionably the most valuable compendium of the art published so far. A corrected second edition appeared in May 1845, and Longman also issued it in Philadelphia through Lea & Blanchard. The book sold well, and in June 1845 the publisher sent her £67 11s 2d as her share of the profits; she earned £162 in 1846 and £189 in 1847.
She then settled in Hampstead, north-west London. She became cookery correspondent for the weekly magazines The Ladies' Companion and Household Words, and began research for a book on feeding the sick, Invalid Cookery. She set this aside to prepare a new edition of Modern Cookery, published in 1855 as Modern Cookery for Private Families, the title by which it is best known. This version added a chapter, « Foreign and Jewish Cookery », with Ashkenazi recipes. In its preface she complained that many writers had copied her work without acknowledgement. Her health was deteriorating, as she acknowledged in her writing, but she did not abandon a new project on bread.
In May 1857 she published The English Bread-Book for Domestic Use, a more scholarly book than its predecessor. Hardy describes it as a serious, scientific study with a darker tone. It covers the history of bread-making in England, European improvements in baking, the ingredients used, and recipes for different breads. Acton also denounced the adulteration of flour and bread with alum and other « deleterious substances ». According to Ray, it sold less well than Modern Cookery and was not reprinted until 1990.
Acton died at home on 13 February 1859, aged 59, and was buried four days later at St John-at-Hampstead church in London.
Her legacy is twofold. Modern Cookery stayed in print until 1918, when Longman decided not to reprint it. Her recipes were gathered in The Best of Eliza Acton (1968), edited by Elizabeth Ray with an introduction by Elizabeth David, and the full book was not reissued until 1994. Isabella Beeton copied many of her recipes in Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861); the biographer Kathryn Hughes places roughly a third of Beeton's soups and a quarter of her fish recipes among those taken from Acton. Elizabeth David called Modern Cookery the greatest cookery book in the English language, and Delia Smith described Acton as the best cookery writer in English. Jane Grigson and Rick Stein also acknowledged her influence, and Stein included her soles stewed in cream in his Seafood Lovers' Guide (2000).
Key contributions
- Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845; ed. 1855), a home cookery book that popularised placing ingredients and cooking times before the method.
- The first recipe in English for Brussels sprouts and the first use of spaghetti in an English cookery book, two landmarks in British recipe writing.
- The first recipe for « Christmas pudding » linked to its name, in a festive dish now associated with England.
- The English Bread-Book for Domestic Use (1857), a study of the history of English bread, European baking methods and flour adulteration.
- The care of her instructions, which made her a reference for later writers such as Elizabeth David.
- Her poetry and longer verse, such as « The Voice of the North » (1842), which place her in British Romantic writing too.