Presents an overview of British dining customs, eating habits, and table manners in Shakespeare's time, along with original recipes and a revised version of each recipe for modern cooking.

“Shakespeare’s Kitchen not only reveals, sometimes surprisingly, what people were eating in Shakespeare’s time but also provides recipes that today’s cooks can easily re-create with readily available ingredients.” —from the Foreword by Patrick O’Connell Francine Segan introduces contemporary cooks to the foods of William Shakespeare’ s world with recipes updated from classic sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cookbooks. Her easy-to-prepare adaptations shatter the myth that the Bard’s primary fare was boiled mutton. In fact, Shakespeare and his contemporaries dined on salads of fresh herbs and vegetables; fish, fowl, and meats of all kinds; and delicate broths. Dried Plums with Wine and Ginger-Zest Crostini, Winter Salad with Raisin and Caper Vinaigrette, and Lobster with Pistachio Stuffing and Seville Orange Butter are just a few of the delicious, aromatic, and gorgeous dishes that will surprise and delight. Segan’s delicate and careful renditions of these recipes have been thoroughly tested to ensure no-fail, standout results. The tantalizing Renaissance recipes in Shakespeare’s Kitchen are enhanced with food-related quotes from the Bard, delightful morsels of culinary history, interesting facts on the customs and social etiquette of Shakespeare’ s time, and the texts of the original recipes, complete with antiquated spellings and eccentric directions. Patrick O’Connell provides an enticing Foreword to this edible history from which food lovers and Shakespeare enthusiasts alike will derive nourishment. Want something new for dinner? Try something four hundred years old. NOTE: This edition does not include photos.

Presents an overview of British dining customs, eating habits, and table manners in Shakespeare's time, along with original recipes and a revised version of each recipe for modern cooking.

This illustrated cookbook offers a unique insight into what people were eating in Shakespeare's time, featuring 50 original menus and recipes from 16th and 17th century cookbooks, alongside food-related quotes from Shakespeare's canon.

"Thirteen complete Shakespearean feast menus, spiced with essays and comments on the food and social customs of Elizabethan England"--Jacket subtitle.

* Contains a fascinating array of manuscript and printed materials documenting not only what people ate but where the food came from, how it was grown, preserved, seasoned, and served, and what people believed about various foods' benefits to their health

Providing a unique perspective on a fascinating aspect of early modern culture, this volume focuses on the role of food and diet as represented in the works of a range of European authors, including Shakespeare, from the late medieval period to the mid seventeenth century. The volume is divided into several sections, the first of which is "Eating in Early Modern Europe"; contributors consider cultural formations and cultural contexts for early modern attitudes to food and diet, moving from the more general consideration of European and English manners to the particular consideration of historical attitudes toward specific foodstuffs. The second section is "Early Modern Cookbooks and Recipes," which takes readers into the kitchen and considers the development of the cultural artifact we now recognize as the cookbook, how early modern recipes might "work" today, and whether cookery books specifically aimed at women might have shaped domestic creativity. Part Three, "Food and Feeding in Early Modern Literature" offers analysis of the engagement with food and feeding in key literary European and English texts from the early sixteenth to the early seventeenth century: François Rabelais's Quart livre, Shakespeare's plays, and seventeenth-century dramatic prologues. The essays included in this collection are international and interdisciplinary in their approach; they incorporate the perspectives of historians, cultural commentators, and literary critics who are leaders in the field of food and diet in early modern culture.