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Elizabeth "Eliza" Acton (17 April 1799 – 13 February 1859) was a published English poet and cook. She was born in Battle, Sussex and raised in Ipswich, Suffolk before moving to Tonbridge, Kent, after her father was declared bankrupt. Eliza wrote a groundbreaking cookery book for economical cooking at home, Modern Cookery in All its Branches, later renamed Modern Cookery for Private Families. On 18th January 1845, the first advertisement for it appeared in The Morning Chronicle stating that it was 'Dedicated to the Young Housekeepers of England'. Eliza transformed recipes or "receipts" as they were known then, by adding a short summary of the ingredients along with their precise measurements after the instructions. Her cookbook was the first ever to include an ingredients list as part of each recipe and a precise cooking time, a huge improvement at a time when recipes were usually vague as to quantities and cooking times.
It was unusual that the book was published under her real name, as most cookery books of the time were published by named male chefs or anonymous ladies. The cookbook was a great success, with numerous newspaper reviews praising it. By May 1845 a new, improved version had been published, which was very popular. Eliza's cookbook was reprinted multiple times, each time with mistakes corrected and new recipes added.
According to Sheila Hardy who wrote a book about Eliza Acton, many of Eliza's recipes were copied by Mrs Beeton in her cookbook which was published just after Eliza's death, giving her no credit for them. A third of Eliza's soups and a quarter of her fish dishes were copied by Mrs Beeton, along with many recipes from other books. Mrs Beeton changed the order of the recipe to the format we recognise today, putting the ingredients list before the instructions.
According to Eliza, it took her 10 years to put her cookbook together, asking friends, family and even celebrities for recipes, which she then tested. She always acknowledged the source of well-known dishes and many of the recipes have a humorous name or are dedicated to people of the time or fictional characters. Surviving letters show that Eliza corresponded with and sent a copy of her 'Modern Cookery' book to Charles Dickens and to Fredrika Bremer, a Swedish author.
In December 1851 Eliza received a payment for her second cookery book, Invalid Cookery, aimed at those with illnesses. No copies of the book have ever been found, so it may never have been published. She also wrote another book, The English Bread-Book for Domestic Use, which was published in May 1857. Not just a recipe book, it included a history of bread-making in England and information about how the flour of the time was often mixed with other ingredients such as chalk or plaster of Paris, to make it cheaper for the millers and bakers. White flour of the time also included alum, to make it whiter and heavier so the bakers could charge more for a loaf. In her bread book Eliza wrote passionately about this bad flour and the bread made with it and how it was bad for people's health, especially for children and old people. It was time when poor people in England ate almost only bread because they couldn't afford other food and many of them had no access to an oven to bake their own bread.
First published in 2011, The Real Mrs Beeton, The Story of Eliza Acton is a biography of Eliza Acton written by Sheila Hardy with a foreword by the English cookery writer and television presenter Delia Smith. According to Sheila Hardy, Eliza's letters and diaries have not survived and the information in her book comes from Eliza's published books, newspaper articles, other people's letters, censuses and historical directories, which contain lists of traders, residents and important people in towns in England.
