From aspsys@slip.netWed Jul 26 12:13:20 1995 Date: Tue, 25 Jul 1995 23:27:59 -0700 From: Arthur S Pruyn To: Larry London Subject: Medieval/Renaissance Food Bibli MEDIEVAL COOKBOOKS - AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY This is an annotated bibliography of books I own that deal with medieval food or foodways. It does not claim to be a complete listing of all that it out there, but rather a start. As a safe rule of thumb, any cookbook which gives modern redactions but NOT the original is probably not worth much. Even when the original is giving look at the redaction carefully. Why did the author make the decisions he did when redacting the recipe. Aresty, EstHer B. THE EXQUISITE TABLE. A History of French Cuisine. Bobbs- Merrill. 1980. Very little of this books deal with the pre 1600 era. A few redacted recipes with no originals given. Out of period ingredients used. NOT RECOMMENDED. Beebe, Ruth Anne. SALLETS, HUMBLES & SHREWSBERY CAKES. David R. Godine. 1976. Elizabethan era recipes. Contains original and modern redactions plus some general information on food/foodways of the period. RECOMMENDED. Black, Maggie. THE MEDIEVAL COOKBOOK. Thames & Hudson. 1992. Original recipes and modern redactions. General information about food. RECOMMENDED. Cosman, Madeliene Pelner. FABULOUS FEASTS. George Brazlier. 1976. A lot of good general information about medieval food/foodways, redacted recipes without originals. Some of the recipes contain out of period ingredients. NOT RECOMMENDED. Driver, Christopher and Michelle Berriedale-Johnson. PEPYS AT TABLE. University of California Press. 1984. Quotes from Pepys diary mentioning food and more or less contemporary recipes with modern redactions. This book is small and does not contain much, and there are better books around that cover this time period. Still, there is nothing wrong with it except for the size. RECOMMENDED. Hagen, Ann. A HANDBOOK OF ANGLO-SAXON FOOD. Processing and Consumption. Anglo-Saxon Books, Nisslwawx, England. 1992. This is not a cookbook per say, but a book about Anglo-Saxon food and foodways. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Hammond, P.A. FOOD AND FEAST IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND. Alan Sutton. 1003. A very good comprehensible book on food and foodways of the middle ages. Plenty of good pictures. RECOMMENDED Henisch, Bridget Ann. FAST AND FEAST. The Pennsylvania State University Press. 1976. An excellent book dealing with food in England 13-15th centuries. General information, no recipes. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Hess, Karen. MARTHA WASHINGTON'S BOOKE OF COOKERY. Columbia University Press. 1981. A 17th century cookbook owned, not written by Martha Washington. Original recipes plus lots of commentary on food. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. PLEYN DELIT. University of Toronto Press, Toronto.1979. 14th & 15th century recipes with the complete original recipe and a modern redaction. Recipes come from English and French sources; the French have been translated. The type face that the original recipes are printed in can be difficult to read. RECOMMENDED. Hieatt, Constance B. AN ORDINANCE OF POTTAGE. Prospect Book. 1988. 15th century recipes with both original and redacted recipes. RECOMMENDED. Scully, Terence. CHIQUART'S 'ON COOKERY'. Peter Lang. 1986. A translation of a 15th century Savoy culinary treatise. Original recipes only, RECOMMENDED. Scully, Terrence. THE VIANDIER OF TAILLEVENT. University of Ottawa Press. 1988. An edition of all extant manuscripts (Taillevent lived in the 14th century), with a complete translation into modern English. A few redacted recipes and some information on food of the time. RECOMMENDED Spurling, Hilary. ELINOR FETTIPLACE'S RECEIPT BOOK. Elizabethan Country House Cooking. Viking Penguin, 1986. A transcription of slightly more than 200 recipes from a book dated 1604 and commentary. RECOMMENDED. Toussaint-Samat, Maguelonne. HISTORY OF FOOD. Blackwell. 1992. A 800 page history of food originally written in French. RECOMMENDED. Watson, Betty. COOKS, GLUTTONS & GOURMETS. Doubleday & Co. 1962. One of the earliest books on the history of food/foodways. Very inaccurate, with no original recipes given. NOT RECOMMENDED. Wilson, C. Anne. (ed) BANQUETTING STUFF. Edinburgh University Press. 1990. A collection of papers on the fare and social background of the Tudor and Stuart Banquet. RECOMMENDED. Wilson, C. Anne. (ed) THE APPETITE AND THE EYE. Edinburgh University Press. 1991. A collection of papers on the visual aspects of food and its presentation with their historic context. Not all are medieval. RECOMMENDED. Ackerman, Roy, THE CHEF'S APPRENTICE. Headline. 1988. Recipes from 6 period of times, (Roman through late 19th/early 20th). The original recipes are NOT given; only modern redactions. Some out of period ingredients are used. Lots of interesting information about food/foodways of the time. Still, NOT RECOMMENDED. Buxton, Moria. MEDIEVAL COOKING TODAY. The Kylin Press. 1983. A cookbook full of 14th & 15th century recipes from various sorts with modern redactions. Some useful information on foodways, and a number of useful pictures. RECOMMENDED. Chang, K.C. (ed) FOOD IN CHINESE CULTURE. Yale University Press. 1977. A fascinating book on the history of Chinese food, broken down by dynasties. RECOMMENDED. Cinqueterr, Berengario delle. THE RENAISSANCE COOKBOOK. The Dunes Press. 1975. An interesting book all about Renaissance food/foodways with lots of recipes. Unfortunately only modern redactions are given, with no original recipes listed. Because of this, I hate to recommend it, although I do enjoy reading it. NOT RECOMMENDED. Guy, Christian. AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF FRENCH CUISINE. Bramhall House.1962. General information on the history of French food. Some translations of period recipes. A few good pictures. all in all not terribly useful. NOT RECOMMENDED for anyone but a completest. Hartley, Dorothy. FOOD IN ENGLAND. Macdonald. 1954. A well written, interesting book about English food that, alas has no dates, which makes it pretty useless for our purposes. NOT RECOMMENDED Herman, Judith & Marguerite Shalett Herman. THE CORNUCOPIA. Harper & Row. 1973.A collection of recipes dating between 1399 and 1890 from historical cookbooks written in English. They have, in some instances modernized the spelling/grammar. Still, all in all RECOMMENDED. Hieatt, Constance & Sharon Butler. CURYE ON INGLYSCH. Oxford University Press. 1985. 14th century English recipes. Originals only, no redactions. Good glossary. RECOMMENDED. Hodgett, G. A.J. STERE HTT WELL. Mary Martin Books. (no date). A facsimile of a 15th century cookbook owned by Samuel Pepys. There is a modern rendition of the period hand, however it is not a word for word retyping and is therefore suspect. The facsimile will take some work to read. RECOMMENDED only for people who are willing to use the facsimile. Isitt, Verity. TAKE A BUTTOCK OF BEEFE. Ashford Press. 1987. A badly flawed book dealing with 17th century food. While there is a lot of interesting information about the food/foodways of the period, and the original recipes are given, the modern redactions bear so little resemblance to the original recipes that the cookbook is extremely inaccurate. Lots of out of period ingredients are used in the modern redactions. NOT RECOMMENDED. Lambert, Carole. DU MANUSCRIT A LA TABLE. Univeriste de Montreal. 1992. 24 fascinating articles all dealing with medieval food/foodways. However, about 2/3rds of them are in French. RECOMMENDED only if you read French. Mckendry, Maxime. SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS OF ENGLISH COOKING. Exter Books. 1793. NOTE: this has been published under a number of different names and with at least one other author! Most, but not all of the recipes include the period source as well as the modern redaction. Some of the redactions are flawed in as much as they use non-period ingredients. RECOMMENDED only if you can't find something better - but be VERY cautious when using the redactions. Riley, Gillian. RENAISSANCE RECIPES. Pomegranate Artbooks. 1993. Pictures involving food and redacted recipes to go along with the picture. No original recipes are given. Some of the pictures are useful, but I have some doubts about some of the recipes, although without seeing the originals it is hard to tell. NOT RECOMMENDED. Rose, Peter G. THE SENSIBLE COOK. Syracuse University Press. 1989. A translation of a 1683 Dutch cookbook that was used in the America during the 17th century. Translations of original recipes plus about 24 modern redactions. RECOMMENDED Sass, Lorna J. CHRISTMAS FEASTS FROM HISTORY. Irena Chalmers Cookbooks, Inc. 1981. Five different "Christmas" feasts from 5 different time periods. Original recipes as well as modern redactions. Some information about food from the period. RECOMMENDED. Tannahill, Reay. FOOD IN HISTORY. Stein and Day.1973. NOTE: there is a revised edition that came out in the past several years, but this is what I grabbed from my shelves. In 448 pages she tries to cover food throughout the world and throughout time. By the very nature of her subject and the size of the book, it is, at best, a cursory covering of the subject. OK for a start, but there are much better books out there. RECOMMENDED only if you can't get anything better. Waines, David. IN A CALIPH'S KITCHEN. Riad El-Rayyes Books, London. 1989. This book tells where the original recipe came from, but does not give it, but instead only gives the modern redaction. A fair bit of general information on medieval Arabic cooking. Because of the lack of the original recipe in full, I find it hard to recommend it fully, but it is very good from a modern viewpoint, with lovely color pictures showing what the finished product should look like. FAINTLY RECOMMENDED. Wheaton, Barbara Ketcham. SAVORING THE PAST. The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789. University of Pennsylvania Press. 1983. A well written and put together book on French food/foodways. A small number of original recipes with modern redactions. RECOMMENDED Aresty, Esther B. THE DELECTABLE PAST. Simon & Schuster. 1964. As one of the earliest books published on food in history - at least in this century it suffers from most of the flaws of the early books. While the general information about historical food is not too bad, the recipes are, at best, inaccurate. The original recipes are not given, and in many cases the modern redactions contain out of period ingredients. NOT RECOMMENDED. Bynum, Caroline Walker. HOLY FEAST AND HOLY FAST The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. University of California Press. 1987. An interesting book dealing with medieval women and the role food played in their lives. While not much use, per say for the average person, it is quite fascinating, and takes medieval foodways from another vantage point. RECOMMENDED for serious scholars. Howe, Robin. MRS GROUNDES-PEACE'S OLD COOKERY NOTEBOOK. David & Charles. 1971. A fascinating book on English food/foodways, edited and published from the author's notes after her death. It is incomplete because of that; but what is left shows what a monumental work it would have been. Even in its incomplete form it is still quite useful. RECOMMENDED. Lorwin, Madge. DINING WITH WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. Atheneum. 1976. A lot of good, general information on Elizabethan era food, as well as a number of useful pictures. Original recipes and modern redactions. Its only flaw in my eyes is that is groups the recipes by menus instead of by category, so that if you are looking, for instance, for all the vegetable recipes, if have to keep going back to the index. That is, however, a small price to pay for this informative book. RECOMMENDED. O'Hara-May, Jane. ELIZABETHAN DYETARY OF HEALTH. Corondo Press. 1977. Lots of information mostly taken from primary sources (although obsolete orthographic symbols have been modernized) on the Elizabethan view of food. While of limited interest to most people, it can be quite interesting and useful for the serious scholar of this time period. RECOMMENDED. Power, Eileen. THE GOODMAN OF PARIS (Le Menagier de Paris). Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1928. A Translation of late 14th century treatise written by a man for his young wife to instruction her on running their household. It contains not only recipes, but instructions on all areas of domestic life. RECOMMENCED Ritchie, Carson I.A. FOOD IN CIVILIZATION. Beauford Books, Inc., 1981. This book attempts to show how history has been affect by human tastes. It is, unfortunately, more of a "pop" overview of food history, and how it interacts with history in general. There are much better books around. NOT RECOMMENDED. Sass, Lora. J. TO THE QUEEN'S TASTE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1976. One of the earlier decent redacted cookbook, this book which focus on Elizabethan era food contains both original recipes and their modern redactions as well as some basic information about food of the time. RECOMMENDED. Sass, Lora. J. TO THE KING'S TASTE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Contains original recipes as well as modern redactions. Focus on the food/recipes from the time of Richard II, and uses Form of Cury for the source of the recipes. RECOMMENDED Willan, Anne. GREAT COOKS AND THEIR RECIPES From Taillevent to Escoffier. Little Brown and Company. 1992. Information about the food of the time, original recipes and modern redactions. Lots of good pictures. RECOMMENDED. Wilson, C. Anne. FOOD AND DRINK IN BRITAIN From the Stone Age to Recent Times. Penguin. 1984. the best history of food that I know of. It's only drawback is that is it from a British perspective only. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Anderson, John L. editor. A FIFTEENTH CENTURY COOKBOOK. Charles Scribner's Sons, NY, 1962. A collection of 15th century recipes. Original recipes only; no modern redactions. RECOMMENDED. Bayard, Tania, translator. A MEDIEVAL HOME COMPANION (Cut version of THE GOODMAN OF PARIS/Le Menagier de Paris). Harper Collins. 1991. Not as complete as the Eileen Power version, but better than nothing. RECOMMENDED only if you can't get the Eileen Power edition, Berriedale, Johnson, Michelle. OLDE ENGLISHE RECIPES. Piatkus. 1981. Modern redactions with information about the original recipe, but without the original recipes in full. NOT RECOMMENDED. Best, Michael R., editor THE ENGLISH HOUSEWIFE by Gervase Markham. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1986. Original recipes - early 17th century. RECOMMENDED. Black, Maggie. FOOD AND COOKING IN MEDIEVAL BRITAIN. English Heritage. 1985. Part of a six part series on British historical food. Good basic information about food of the time as well. Original recipes and modern redactions. RECOMMENDED. Brears, Peter. FOOD AND COOKING IN 16TH CENTURY BRITAIN. English Heritage. 1985. Part of a six part series on British historical food. Good basic information about food of the time as well. Original recipes and modern redactions. RECOMMENDED. Brears, Peter. FOOD AND COOKING IN 16TH CENTURY BRITAIN. English Heritage. 1985. Part of a six part series on British historical food. Good basic information about food of the time as well. Original recipes and modern redactions. RECOMMENDED. Brett, Gerard. DINNER IS SERVED. Rupert Hart Davis. 1968. This book deals with how food was served, and what is was served with/on. The text is moderately useful; the pictures are quite useful. RECOMMENDED. Cosman Madeleine Pelner. MEDIEVAL HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS. Charles Scribner's & Sons. 1981. This book goes through the medieval year with holidays and/or celebrations for each month. This book shares the same flaws as FABULOUS FEASTS in as much as the only recipes given are modern redactions without the original ones given. Furthermore, the modern redactions contain out of period ingredients. NOT RECOMMENDED. Drummond & Wilbraham. THE ENGLISHMAN'S FOOD. J. Cape. 1957. An analysis of what the English eat by time period. Breakdown of amount of calories consumed, vitamins, etc. Not of use to most people but quite interesting just the same. RECOMMENDED. Ellwanger, George H. THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE. Doubleday Page & Co. 1902. While not a bad piece of scholarship for its time, it has been superseded by modern books. Still, can be interesting to the completest. But, for the average medieval cook, NOT RECOMMENDED. Feret, Barbara L. GASTRONOMICAL AND CULINARY LITERATURE. The Scarecrow Press, Inc. 1979. Not a book on food or foodways per say, but rather a book about collections of food ways. Very useful bibliographies of book on/about food in the appendices. RECOMENDED for completest only. Jacobs, Jay. GASTRONOMY. Newsweek Books. 1975. This history of food is full of good pictures, but has little else to recommend it. It is too short a book to do justice to its subject. NOT RECOMMENDED. Norman, Barbara. TALES OF THE TABLE. Prentice-Hall. 1972. Mostly a history of food, there are a few original recipes; no modern redactions and menus from actual medieval feasts in the back. Some interesting information not readily available elsewhere; some useful pictures. RECOMMENDED if they better food in history books are not available. Renfrow, Cindy TAKE A THOUSAND EGGS OR MORE, VOLS 1 & 2. Privately printed. Original 15th century recipes plus a lot of modern redactions. Good information on how to do your own redactions. RECOMMENDED. Roberts, Enid. FOOD OF THE BARDS. Image Publishers, 1982. A "period Welsh" cookbook, the author took period references to food from Welsh sources, and found medieval English recipes that were for those foods. Original recipes and modern redactions. RECOMMENDED. Simeti, Mary Taylor. POMP & SUSTENANCE: 25 Years of Sicilian Food. Alfred A. Knopf. 1970. General information about food with recipes; modern redactions only, no period recipes given. NOT RECOMMENDED. Vence, Celine & Robert Courtine. THE GRAND MASTERS OF FRENCH CUISINE. G. P. Putnam & Sons. 1978. Some basic information about French food, as well as a few good pictures. As a cookbook, versus a historical cookbook, it is very good with color photos on how the food should look, as well as many tasty recipes. However, the original recipes are not given, just the modern redactions. While I like this book a lot, and have used a few of the modern redactions, after tracing them back to the original source, I must downgrade it because the originals aren't given. NOT RECOMMENDED. Walker, Harlan. OXFORD SYMPOSIUM ON FOOD & COOKERY 1990 - Feasting & Fasting. Prospect Books. 1991. While most of the articles do not deal with medieval food/foodways, there are a few articles on medieval food. Still, all in all RECOMMENDED FOR THE SERIOUS SCHOLAR ONLY. Walker, Harlan. OXFORD SYMPOSIUM ON FOOD & COOKERY 1992 - SPICING UP THE TABLE. Prospect Books. 1991. While most of the articles do not deal with medieval food/foodways, there are a few articles on medieval food. Still, all in all RECOMMENDED FOR THE SERIOUS SCHOLAR ONLY. Aliki. A MEDIEVAL FEAST. Harper & Row. 1983. Written for children, this is a fictionalized account of a lord and lady getting ready for a visitation by the King and Queen and their preparations for the feast. Nice pictures, lots of fun. RECOMMENDED. Booth, Sally Smith. HUNG, STRUNG & POTTED. A History of Eating in Colonial America. Clarkson N. Potter. 1971. This book deals with food in American in the 16, 17th and 18th centuries. Lots of recipes from original sources; lots of useful pictures. RECOMMENDED FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN LATER PERIOD FOOD. David, Elizabeth. ENGLISH BREAD AND YEAST COOKERY. Penguin. 1979. The book on bread, this contains a great deal of historical information on grain, ovens, shapes of loaves, etc. If you want to try and recreate medieval bread, this is where you should start. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Freeman, Margaret B. HERBS FOR THE MEDIEVAL HOUSEHOLD. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Information taken from original sources on how herbs were used. RECOMMENDED. Hale, William Harlan & the Editors of Horizon Magazine. THE HORIZON COOKBOOK and Illustrated History of Eating & Drinking through the Ages. Doubleday & Co. 1968. This is found as a two volume slipped case set or a one volume combined set. It is divided into Illustrated History and recipes. The recipes do not include the originals and a lot of the ingredients used are at best, suspect. The historical half is reasonable with a lot of good pictures. However, because the recipes are so flawed, I hate to recommend this just for the historical information. NOT RECOMMENDED. Heisch, Bridget Ann. CAKES AND CHARACTERS. An English Christmas Tradition. Prospect Books. 1984. This book by the author of the truly excellent "Fast and Feast" deals with the history of the English Christmas traditions; where they came from and how they evolved. As such, most of it is after the time period of this discussion, but what is there is well researched and useful. RECOMMEND FOR SERIOUS SCHOLARS ONLY. Layton, T.A. FIVE TO A FEAST. Gerald Duckworth & Co. 1948. The first part of this book is a fictional account of an actual banquet given in 1363. Appendix II takes some interesting and useful extracts from The Booke of Nurture, circa 1420. RECOMMENDED FOR THE COMPLETEST ONLY. Quayle, Eric. OLD COOK BOOKS. An Illustrated History. E.P Dutton. 1978. An interesting book about historical cookbooks with some original recipes included. RECOMMENDED. Smallzried, Kathleen Ann. THE EVERLASTING PLEASURE. Influences on american;s Kitchens, Cooks and Cookery from 1565 to the year 2000. Appleton-Century-Crofts. 1956. While only vaguely in the period of this bibliography, this book has a lot of interesting things to say about the development of food/foodways in America. While I frequently disagree with her conclusions, especially from my vantage point of 40 years later, it is an interesting and informative book. RECOMMENDED FOR COMPLETEST ONLY. Soyer, Alexis. THE PANTROPHEON. Paddington Press. 1977. This book was originally printed in 1853. Alexis Soyer was a renowned French cook of the time. This book deals primarily with Roman times, but goes up to the 17th century. Some interesting information comparing the prices of some foodstuffs throughout the medieval time. All in all, while amusing and containing some interesting information, this book has been superseded by more accurate and useful books. NOT RECOMMENDED. Verrill, A. Hyatt. FOODS AMERICA GAVE THE WORLD. L.C. Page. 1937. If you ever wanted to have one book to check if a food source was old or new world, this will do it. While the histories of the various foods are not always 100% accurate, it is a useful reference book. RECOMMENDED.