author
Robert May
b. 1588
Best known for The Accomplisht Cook (1660), this English chef helped bring professional cookery into print at a time when such knowledge rarely appeared in books. His recipes and grand banquet designs offer a vivid look at how ambitious seventeenth-century kitchens really worked.
1 Audiobook
The accomplisht cook or, The art & mystery of cookery
by Robert May
About the author
Born in 1588, Robert May was an English professional cook who trained in France and later worked in England. He came from a family connected with service in great households, and his long career placed him in aristocratic kitchens where skill, ceremony, and scale mattered as much as flavor.
May is remembered for The Accomplisht Cook, first published in 1660. The book became one of the best-known English cookery works of its century, gathering recipes for soups, pies, meats, pastries, and elaborate dishes, along with striking designs for feasts and table settings. It stands out not just as a recipe collection, but as a record of the techniques and spectacle of elite dining in early modern England.
For modern readers, his work is fascinating because it preserves both everyday kitchen knowledge and the showmanship of banquet culture. Through his writing, Robert May remains one of the clearest voices we have for understanding seventeenth-century English food.