Backlist Love is an informal series on “older” books that I hope you’ll find interesting. These aren’t so much reviews as quickie recommendations, so check out your favorite book review sources if you want more info.
The Cookbook Library: Four Centuries of the Cooks, Writers, and Recipes That Made the Modern Cookbook by Anne Willan and Mark Cherniavsky (University of California Press, 2012)
From the spiced sauces of medieval times to the massive roasts and ragouts of Louis XIV’s court to elegant eighteenth-century chilled desserts, The Cookbook Library draws from renowned cookbook author Anne Willan’s and her husband Mark Cherniavsky’s antiquarian cookbook library to guide readers through four centuries of European and early American cuisine. As the authors taste their way through the centuries, describing how each cookbook reflects its time, Willan illuminates culinary crosscurrents among the cuisines of England, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain.
A Hastiness of Cooks by Cynthia D. Bertelsen, ill. by Courtney Nzeribe (Turquoise Moon Press, 2019)
Wormwood Cakes, Quodling Pie, Sosenga, Hennys en bruet …. Do you like to read old cookbooks and perhaps even yearn to cook some of the recipes, with their enticing names? A Hastiness of Cooks is not just for chefs and cooks. Living-history interpreters, battle reenactors, writers of fiction and nonfiction, historical archaeologists, historians, artists, and just about anyone interested in how people cooked and ate in the past will find much meat (and vegetable) in this concise handbook.
Why I liked them
I think culinary history is a fascinating subject. I also have a soft spot for folks who put their money history where their mouth is. I’m currently cooking my way through Tasting History by Max Miller, actually. If you share that interest, you might like either of these two books.
A Cookbook Library is perhaps the more well-known of the two, given its award-winning author and university press publisher. It is an in-depth look at the history of the cookbook as a thing itself, not just of cooking or cuisine as general subjects. It includes an extensive bibliography and notes, which I really appreciate.
A Hastiness of Cooks is a much slimmer volume. It’s really more of a starter guide to historical cooking for non-historians who want to give it a shot — reenactors or authors would really be the target audience. This includes not-too-intimidating suggestions for how to interpret historical ingredients and techniques in a modern kitchen, as well as several examples.
Both books are primarily history-focused, but also include several recipes. I haven’t personally tried any of them yet; they’re on my to-cook list!
Who I’d recommend them to
These books are both great resources for folks who want to learn a little more about the culinary adventures of our ancestors and maybe give some ancient-to-medieval recipes a shot, but who aren’t ready to try to decipher all those centuries-old texts for themselves.
Links
The Cookbook Library
- Official website of Anne Willan, “La Varenne”
- Anne Willan and Mark Cherniavsky Gastronomy Collection at The Getty
A Hastiness of Cooks