16th-century ‘pamflyt compiled of cheese’ offers a comprehensive survey of British varieties – and their dubious medical benefits
Jay Rayner, the Observer’s restaurant critic and a University of Leeds alumnus, called the university’s acquisition “thrilling”. The rare document takes us “right back to the origins of cheesemaking in the UK, in itself part of the very weft and weave of our food culture”, he added.
The identity of the book’s author is uncertain, but notes on the text show that it was circulated among courtiers and politicians: a note on the flyleaf from Clement Fisher, MP for Tamworth, for example, asks for the book to be returned to him when it has been “perused” while Walter Bayley, whose name appears at the end of the text, was regius professor of medicine at Oxford and physician to Elizabeth I.
Edward Willoughby is another name that appears on the text, and Brears thinks he was likely to have been the author. Willoughby came from a family of parliamentarians and was from Bore Place, Kent. “The mention of Kingsnorth, a village near Ashford in Kent, as a cheesemaking centre in a county otherwise unrecognised for its cheeses, demonstrates a degree of local knowledge that appears to confirm Edward Willoughby as the author,” the historian said.
Following an open auction earlier this year, the manuscript was acquired by the University of Leeds with the support of a grant from Friends of the National . It will join the cookery collection at the University of Leeds library, which also contains the libraries of the food writer and journalist Michael Bateman, and the French-British cookery teacher Gisele Mardon.
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