Ever get a yen for hemp seed soup, digestive pottage, carp fritters, jasper of milk, or frog pie? Would you like to test your culinary skills whipping up some edible counterfeit snow or nun's bozolati? Perhaps you have an assignment to make a typical Renaissance dish. The cookbook presents 171 unadulterated recipes from the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Elizabethan eras. Most are translated from French, Italian, or Spanish into English for the first time. Some English recipes from the Elizabethan era are presented only in the original if they are close enough to modern English to present an easy exercise in translation. Expert commentary helps readers to be able to replicate the food as nearly as possible in their own kitchens. An introduction overviews cuisine and food culture in these time periods and prepares the reader to replicate period food with advice on equipment, cooking methods, finding ingredients, and reading period recipes. The recipes are grouped by period and then type of food or course. Three lists of recipes-organized by how they appear in the book and by country and by special occasions-in the frontmatter help to quickly identify the type of dish desired. Some recipes will not appeal to modern tastes or sensibilities. This cookbook does not sanitize them for the modern palate. Most everything in this book is perfectly edible and, according to the author, noted food historian Ken Albala, delicious!

Provides recipes and other information about cooking in Europe 1250-1650.

From the Baroque Era to the Victorian Era, 1650-1850, unprecedented changes took place in the food ways and dining habits of European society. This daily life aspect of history comes alive for students and food enthusiasts as they read and try out these recipes, most translated into English for the first time. There are nearly 200 recipes, organized overall by the mini-periods of the Baroque and Rococo Era, the Reign of Louis XV to the French Revolution, and the reign of Napoleon to the Victorian Era. Author Ivan Day, a renowned food historian who specializes in meticulous recreation of these amazing dishes for museum exhibitions, makes them accessible with clear explanations of techniques and unusual ingredients. Recipes include examples from France, Italy, England, Austria, Germany, Holland, Portugal, Spain, and Scotland, from the simple Salad of Pomegranate from La Varenne Careme's 1651 cookbook to the elaborate Boar's Head in Galantine of Careme's 1833 cookbook. This unique cookbook is a culinary treasure trove to complement all European History library collections. As Day shows in his narrative and recipes, the principal theme in the story of food during the two centuries is the rapid spread of French fine cooking throughout Europe and its gradual percolation down the social scale. However, despite the domination of French cuisine at higher levels, most nations managed to cling proudly to their own indigenous traditions. A lively introduction explains the dramatic shift in culinary taste led by the exuberant creativity of French cooks. Cookbooks started to emerge from the Paris printing presses after a hundred years of silence. Numerous innovations completely transformed French cuisine and swept away all remnants of lingering medieval taste. There were new efficient cooking techniques for the kitchens of powerful and wealthy. For all, there were new ingredients from New World and new cooking mediums such as the mechanical spit and roasting ranges that made cooking cleaner and less back breaking. The recipes, each with a short explanation, are organized by type of dish. Categories include salads and cold dishes; soups; meat; poultry; fish and seafood; vegetables and fungi; eggs and dairy; sauces; savory pastries; starches, pastas, and legumes; breads and cakes; sweet pastries and puddings; fruit, nuts, and flower preserves; sweets and confections; jellies and ices; and drinks. Occasional sidebars offer period menus of, for example, elaborate feasts. A glossary and an appendix listing suppliers of equipment and ingredients are added features.

A groundbreaking handbook--the "method" companion to its critically acclaimed predecessor, The Flavor Thesaurus--with a foreword by Yotam Ottolenghi. Niki Segnit used to follow recipes to the letter, even when she'd made a dish a dozen times. But as she tested the combinations that informed The Flavor Thesaurus, she detected the basic rubrics that underpinned most recipes. Lateral Cooking offers these formulas, which, once readers are familiar with them, will prove infinitely adaptable. The book is divided into twelve chapters, each covering a basic culinary category, such as "Bread," "Stock, Soup & Stew," or "Sauce." The recipes in each chapter are arranged on a continuum, passing from one to another with just a tweak or two to the method or ingredients. Once you've got the hang of flatbreads, for instance, then its neighboring dishes (crackers, soda bread, scones) will involve the easiest and most intuitive adjustments. The result is greater creativity in the kitchen: Lateral Cooking encourages improvisation, resourcefulness, and, ultimately, the knowledge and confidence to cook by heart. Lateral Cooking is a practical book, but, like The Flavor Thesaurus, it's also a highly enjoyable read, drawing widely on culinary science, history, ideas from professional kitchens, observations by renowned food writers, and Segnit's personal recollections. Entertaining, opinionated, and inspirational, with a handsome three-color design, Lateral Cooking will have you torn between donning your apron and settling back in a comfortable chair.

Rachel Laudan tells the remarkable story of the rise and fall of the world’s great cuisines—from the mastery of grain cooking some twenty thousand years ago, to the present—in this superbly researched book. Probing beneath the apparent confusion of dozens of cuisines to reveal the underlying simplicity of the culinary family tree, she shows how periodic seismic shifts in “culinary philosophy”—beliefs about health, the economy, politics, society and the gods—prompted the construction of new cuisines, a handful of which, chosen as the cuisines of empires, came to dominate the globe. Cuisine and Empire shows how merchants, missionaries, and the military took cuisines over mountains, oceans, deserts, and across political frontiers. Laudan’s innovative narrative treats cuisine, like language, clothing, or architecture, as something constructed by humans. By emphasizing how cooking turns farm products into food and by taking the globe rather than the nation as the stage, she challenges the agrarian, romantic, and nationalistic myths that underlie the contemporary food movement.

The history of food is one of the fastest growing areas of historical investigation, incorporating methods and theories from cultural, social, and women’s history while forging a unique perspective on the past. The Routledge History of Food takes a global approach to this topic, focusing on the period from 1500 to the present day. Arranged chronologically, this title contains 17 originally commissioned chapters by experts in food history or related topics. Each chapter focuses on a particular theme, idea or issue in the history of food. The case studies discussed in these essays illuminate the more general trends of the period, providing the reader with insight into the large-scale and dramatic changes in food history through an understanding of how these developments sprang from a specific geographic and historical context. Examining the history of economic, technological, and cultural interactions between cultures and charting the corresponding developments in food history, The Routledge History of Food challenges readers' assumptions about what and how people have eaten, bringing fresh perspectives to well-known historical developments. It is the perfect guide for all students of social and cultural history.

Ideal for high school and college students studying history through the everyday lives of men and women, this book offers intriguing information about the jobs that people have held, from ancient times to the 21st century. This unique book provides detailed studies of more than 300 occupations as they were practiced in 21 historical time periods, ranging from prehistory to the present day. Each profession is examined in a compelling essay that is specifically written to inform readers about career choices in different times and cultures, and is accompanied by a bibliography of additional sources of information, sidebars that relate historical issues to present-day concerns, as well as related historical documents. Readers of this work will learn what each profession entailed or entails on a daily basis, how one gained entry to the vocation, training methods, and typical compensation levels for the job. The book provides sufficient specific detail to convey a comprehensive understanding of the experiences, benefits, and downsides of a given profession. Selected accompanying documents further bring history to life by offering honest testimonies from people who actually worked in these occupations or interacted with those in that field.