Bald? Take a dram of burnt bees

March 2007

As a celebrity cook and lifestyle guru, Eliza Smith enjoyed the ear of some of the country's most noble families in the most fashionable houses.

Described as an 18th century domestic goddess, her most popular dishes included a hearty meal of cow's heels followed by a dram of burnt bees, the perfect cure to prevent hair loss.

It might be hard to imagine Nigela Lawson serving up such a feast, but Mrs Smith's dishes of the day proved so popular that she put them all down on paper.

Now an original copy of her best-selling book, published in 1736, has surfaced, giving a fascinating insight into the trends of the era's "ladies of taste".

The Compleat Housewife or Accomplish'd Gentleman's Companion, which cost five shillings, proves that even in those days lifestyle experts were popular.

As well as cooking tips and recipes, she devotes a large section of the book to an array of lotions, potions and poultices to cure her readers of a range of ills.

One of her potions, for a perfect complexion recommends a pound of hog's lard and two handfuls of sheep dung boiled to an ointment.

Her baldness cure calls for "two ounces of boar's grease, one dram of the ashes of burnt bees, one dram of the ashes of Southernwood, one dram of the juice of white lilly root, one dram of oil of sweet almonds and six drams of musk".

Make the mixture the day before the full moon.

The book was presented to Charles Hanson, an auctioneer, of Kings Bromley, Staffs.

"What is clear is that Mrs Smith was very much the domestic goddess of her day," he said. "Some of her ideas have an almost witchcraft-like quality about them.

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But we must remember that this was the pre-Industrial-Revolution era and that the Great Plague had happened only 70 years before."

The book is expected to fetch more than £800 when it goes on sale on May 3.

Ragoo of Pigs-Ears

Take a quantity of pigs-ears, and boil them in one half wine and the other water; cut them in small pieces, then brown a little butter, and put them in, and a pretty deal of gravy, two anchovies, an eschalot or two, a little mustard, and some slices of lemon, some salt, and nutmeg; stew all these together, and shake it up thick.

Garnish the dish with barberries.