cookery

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)The art and practice of preparing food for consumption, especially by the application of heat; cooking.

   “Henry was not very good at cookery and most of his meals ended up burned.”

   “together with excellent directions for cookery, as also for preserving, conserving, candying, &c.”

2. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)A delicacy; a dainty.

   “I've got a bit of cookery that will astonish him — my marinated pheasants' poults a la braise imperiale.”

3. (archaic, countable, uncountable)Cooking tools or apparatus.

   “She directed the servants, inspected both the cookery and arrangements of the table, held council with an old steward...”

   “...and would not be just dead weight, as on the trail it could conveniently be filled with the cookery and other odds and ends...”

4. (archaic, countable, uncountable)A place where cooking is done.

   “Mr. Weller produced upon the little dining-table, a roast leg of mutton and an enormous meat-pie, with sundry dishes of vegetables, and pots of porter, which stood upon the chairs or the sofa bedstead, or where they could, everybody felt disposed to do justice to the meal, notwithstanding that the meat had been purchased, and dressed, and the pie made, and baked, at the prison cookery hard by.”

5. (alt-of, obsolete)Obsolete form of kukri.