The book contains mostly English recipes, but draws from time to time on the cuisines of Wales and Scotland. Cooke describes it as "undoubtedly a work of scholarship: carefully researched, wide-ranging and extremely particular" but adds that it also contains "hundreds of excellent recipes, the vast majority of them short, precise and foolproof. Who could resist poached turbot with shrimp sauce, or a properly made Cornish pasty?" Among the puddings in the book are Yorkshire curd tart, brown bread ice cream, queen of puddings and Sussex pond pudding.