Curye-on-Ingl-msg- 7/28/06 Reviews and comments on "Curye on Iglysch" - English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century (Including the Forme of Cury) edited by Constance B. Hieatt and Sharon Butler. NOTE: See also the files: cookbooks-bib, books-food-msg, cookbooks-SCA-msg, fd-in-Chaucer-msg, merch-cookbks-msg, online-ckbks-msg, cookbooks-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 07:49:56 -0500 From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Curye on Inglysch To: Cooks within the SCA On Nov 13, 2005, at 4:12 AM, wrote: > I've just received a copy of this as an early birthday gift from (shocker) > my mundane sister. Curye on Inglysch - English Culinary Manuscripts of the > Fourteenth Century (Including the Forme of Cury) edited by Constance B. > Hieatt and Sharon Butler, published for The Early English Text Society by > the Oxford University Press, 1985 > Please any commentary on this book from those on the list would be > welcome. > > Molli Rose How to put this? I was going to say, "It's the friggin' Bible of medieval cookery!" Perhaps that's a little extreme, though. What I will say is that it is the only medieval cookbook edition I own that has necessitated replacement through sheer wear, twice, and ready for a third time. I don't mean abuse; I'm extremely gentle with my books. On rare occasions I'll put them in a bag and take them out of the house, but otherwise, use consists of taking them off the shelf, leafing through them to find the page I need, reading that page, and putting it back on the shelf. It's just that when you do this, on the average, two or three times a day for about 20 years, this can happen. It's _nearly_ perfect, though. It presents a good approximation of several medieval texts in easy-to-read form, provides commentary that is separate from the text, so you don't mistake the editor's opinion from the text itself, and the glossary/index is pretty invaluable, even for use with other cookbooks. The only drawback I've encountered is that Hieatt and Butler are medieval manuscript scholars, and not cooks, or if they are cooks, their experience of non-European cuisines isn't broad enough to include them as tools in understanding medieval European cookery. I suppose this represents the flipside of the drawbacks to Vehling's Apicius -- he was a cook and not much of a manuscript authority. Off the top of my head, though, I recall only two occasions where that's been a problem, and only one of those appears in CoI, I believe (some confusion about using "a penne" in a stuffed chicken recipe, which they interpret as basting with a feather, when it seems more likely, in context, that the penne is a reed being used as an inflation tube to separate skin from flesh). It's pretty much a must-have, though, if your interest is in medieval English cookery. Adamantius Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 09:23:51 -0500 From: Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Curye on Inglysch To: "Cooks within the SCA" What Adamantius said, with the addition that it is 'rediscovered' every so often by the world at large - a year or so ago there was a big flap over the "discovery" that lasagne being a medieval dish - and they were quoting from COI - a recipe that had been being served in the SCA for years - Losynes - and was no news to us! Congratulations, both on a fab new book, and on your mundane sister Getting a clue as to what you'd be interested in! Christianna Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 13:56:52 -0500 From: Johnna Holloway Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Curye on Inglysch To: Cooks within the SCA Curye on Inglysch. I have owned a copy for 20 years at this point. I still have my original volume that I paid 6 pounds .50 pence for back in October 1985. I know because I still have the original Heffers receipt for it. I can remember how excited I was when it arrived. I had ordered it before leaving England, and eventually it followed me to Maryland that fall. I can remember reviewing and promoting the book and urging that Society members buy it. I even created a nifty readings course for learning about medieval English cookery and recipes. One would start with Pleyn Delit, work then through An Ordinance of Pottage, and end up working with Curye on Inglysch. I envisioned that one could work from the original recipes and their adaptations in PD to the manuscript recipes, commentaries on those recipes, and adaptations in Ordof Pottage to the 14th century straight texts with footnotes of Curye on Inglysch. Supplement Hieatt's work with Two 15th Cookery-Books and the four volumes would serve one through many a feast. Today of course one would also add Cindy's take a Thousand Eggs, but it could still be done as a readings course. Perhaps when the Concordance is published next year, I'll devise a new medieval English readings course in cookery. Johnnae llyn Lewis Edited by Mark S. Harris Curye-in-Ingl-msg Page 3 of 3