cookbooks-msg - 5/31/10

Reviews of cookbooks with medieval recipes. Messages posted before
September 1995.

NOTE: See also the files: cookbooks2-msg, cooking-bib, cookbooks-bib, cookbooks2-bib, books-food-msg, cookbooks-SCA-msg, cb-rv-Apicius-msg, cb-novices-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
************************************************************************

From: perkins at msupa.pa.msu.EDU ("corpusculorum velocium perexiguorum
Date: 12 Jun 91 16:05:15 GMT

> My copy of "The Medieval Machine" by Gimpel also mentions butter as being only
> fit for the lower classes. It was, according to him, a substitute for refined
> lard...the difference being that to get lard to refine, you *killed* the beast
> whereas the poor, who couldn't afford to slaughter so much, used butter (a
> "renewable resource") more often. [...]
>
> (I appologize for not giving an exact quotation from "Machine". I seem to have
> lent it out again...)

Since,  from her post, NicMaoilan doesn't have her copy nearby (and I do),
here is the information:

Jean Gimpel, _The_Medieval_Machine:_The_Industrial_Revolution_of_the_
Middle_Ages_, 1976.  First published in French under the title _La_Revo-
lution_Industrielle_du_Moyen_Age_.  USA Publication:  Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, New York 1976 and (the paperback copy I have) Penguin Books 1977,
which has ISBN 0 14 00.4514 7 ; Lib of Cong Card Cat Num HC41.G5 1977 ; and
is categorized under the Dewey Decimal System as 330.902.

I have been looking through it and find no mention of butter vs refined
lard in the manner of NicMaoilan's comment above;  I've read through the
sections on agriculture, food & diet and skimmed the rest of the book, 
to no avail... Perhaps she is remembering a quotation from another book;
or perhaps (though I doubt it) Gimpel makes this particular point in some
other section of the book  (Mining, Engineering, Environment & Pollution,
Labor Conditions, Clocks, Experimental Science, etc.).
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Jeremy de Merstone       George J Perkins    perkins at msupa.pa.msu.edu
 North Woods, MidRealm    East Lansing, MI    perkins at msupa (Bitnet)
 -------------------------------------------------------------

From: greg at silver.lcs.mit.edu (Hossein Ali Qomi (mka Gregory F. Rose))
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: cut off date
Date: 20 Mar 93 22:29:35 GMT

Greetings to all, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn, posting on her husband's
account since her feed has been down the last couple of weeks, and
he's out of town for the weekend, so she can read up and then mark 
everything unread to give him a chance.  <Sigh>

On the topic of cutoff dates, Gwenllian Cwmystwyth makes the admirable
point that such dates vary depending on topic.  I agree with almost
everything she said, but have one small nit to pick.  She writes,

>              Cooking - 1625.  (date is fuzzy in the ol' 
> brain) Somewhere around here is the first "I'm a chef, so 
> I'll muck with cooking how-to's" book.  

Ummm, well, no.  The first commonly-available-in-English, published,
post-classical cookbooks date from the 14th Century.  The cookbooks
of known authorship by cooks of important households (Taillevent,
Chiquart, Martino) tend to date from the 14th and 15th Centuries.
(_Forme of Curye_, late 14th C, pretty much belongs in this class,
save that we don't know the author's name, only that he was Richard
II's head cook.)  The frequently-used-in-the-SCA collections from
the early to mid 17th C (Hugh Platt; Kenelm Digby; etc.) by and large
are gentlemen's collections, _not_ written by major chefs.  The
primary reasons for using them, to the best of my knowledge (I don't
do much work this late), are, in the case of Platt, that it gives
information about explicitly Elizabethan foods that is hard to find
elsewhere, and, in the case of Digby, that it is by far the richest
source of information on brewing (though there is a recipe for mead,
under the name "bouchet", in the Menagier, so there is at least one 
earlier source, but only with one recipe, and nowhere near as clear
as Digby's).

Not a bad cutoff, in other words, but not quite for that reason.

-- Angharad/Terry

From: branwen at cerebus.ccc.amdahl.com (Karen Williams)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Welsh recipes
Date: 2 Apr 93 21:35:17 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

greg at silver.lcs.mit.edu (Hossein Ali Qomi (mka Gregory F. Rose)) writes:

>>his home. One time he held a Welsh bardic feast, where all the food was
>>made using Welsh recipes, and each guest was asked to bring a poem, song,
>>or story to share. 

>Where, oh where did he get the Welsh recipes?  Please?????

You'd have to ask him (John? oh, John?), but what I do when I want
Welsh recipes is use the Welsh mini-cookbook he brought me from Wales
(it's called something like "Recipes from the Bards," and is made up
of recipes of foods mentioned by Medieval Welsh bards), or, if none
of those are feasible for the moment, I use "The Little Book of Welsh
Recipes" (or whatever it's called; there's a whole series of "The Little
Book of ____ Recipes" out now) which has "traditional" Welsh recipes in
it.

Branwen ferch Emrys
The Mists, the West
                                          Karen Williams
                                          branwen at cerebus.ras.amdahl.com

From: ferzocog at ere.umontreal.CA (Ferzoco George)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: A must-read on medieval cuisine
Date: 9 Apr 1993 20:02:04 -0400

Hi guys and gals,

Just to say "no hard feelings", I'd like to point out a book I haven't
seen mentioned in sca; forgive me if I'm repeating this info.

For all of you interested in the state of the art of research on medieval
cookery, get the book

	Carole Lambert, ed., "Du manuscrit a la table. Essais sur la
	cuisine au moyen age et repertoire des manuscrits medievaux 
	contenant des recettes culinaires." Montreal and Paris: Presses
	de l'Universite de Montreal and Champion-Slatkine, 1992.

It contains 25 articles in English and French (with abstracts for each in
English and French), an incredibly useful (to scholars) list of manuscripts
containing culinary recipes, a complete bibliography, and indices of:
	titles and authors of cookery books
	Incipits of culinary texts
	titles of isolated recipes
	language of the texts
	place of production of the manuscripts

Hope this is useful. If you want more info, please don't post to sca,
but write to me directly.

Ciao, George Ferzoco	ferzocog at ere.umontreal.ca

From: TALLAN at flis.utoronto.CA (David Tallan)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: New Book on Medieval Cookery (was, I believe, Scully etc. *LONG*
Date: 25 Jun 1993 01:44:00 -0400
Organization: The Internet

Angharad/Terry asks for enough info about that book out of Montreal
that I mentioned to order it. The Following might be helpful.

Title: _Du Manuscrit a` la Table_
Editor: Carole Lambert
Publisher: Les Presses de l'Universite' de Montre'al
           2910, boul. E'douard-Montpetit, Montre'al (Qc), Canada
           H3T 1J7
           tel. (514) 343-6929, facs. (514) 343-2232
Distributer (?): gae[umlaut]tan morin e'diteur
                 diffuseur exclusif des Presses de l'Universite' de
                 Montre'al
                 C.P. 180, Boucherville (QC), Canada, J4B 5E6
                 tel. (514) 449-7886,  facs. (514) 343-2232
ISBN: 2-7606-1564-2

and to whet your appetite:

                    TABLE DES MATIE`RES
                          (extraits)

Forward (or preface) by Carole LAMBERT

_I - ESSAIS SUR LA CUISINE AU MOYEN A^GE_

1. SOURCES
Constance B. HIEATT "Listing and Analyzing the Medieval English
Culinary Recipe Collections: a Project and its Problems"

Johanna Maria van WINTER "Une livre de cuisine ne'erlandais du XVIe
sie`cle"

Allen J. GRIECO "From the Cookbook to the Table: a Florentine Table
and Italian Recipes of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries"

Bi SKAARUP "Sources of Medieval Cuisine in Denmark"

Danie`le ALEXANDRE-BIDON "A` la table des miniaturistes: arche'o-
iconographie des gestes et des mets"

2. DIFFUSION DES LIVRES ET DES RECETTES
Philip et Mary HYMAN "Les livres de cuisine et le commerce des
recettes en France au XVe et XVIe sie`cles"

Melitta WEISS-AMER "The Role of Medieval Physicians in the Spread of
Culinary Recipes and Cooking Practices"

Mary Ella MILHAM "Platina and Papal Politics"

3. CUISINE ET DISTINCTIONS SOCIALES
Bruno Laurioux, "Table et hie'rarchie sociale a` la fin du Moyen A^ge"

Odile REDON "La re'glementation des banquets par les lois somptuaires
dans les villes d'Italie (XIVe - XVe sie`cles)

Agathe LAFORTUNE-MARTEL "De l'entremets culinaire aux pie`ces
monte'es d'un menu de propogande"

4. PARTICULARITE'S RE'GIONALES

Barbara SANTICH "les e'le'ments distinctifs de la cuisine me'die'vale
me'diterrane'enne

Rudolf GREWE "Hispano-Arabic Cuisine in the Twelfth Century

Jeanne ALLARD "Nola: rupture ou continuite'?"

Noe[umlaut]l COULET "La cuisine dans la maison aixoise du XVe sie`cle
(1400-1450)

Jean-Louis FLANDRIN "Structure des menus francais et anglais aux XIVe
et XVe sie`cles

Michel BALARD "E'pices et condiments dans quelques livres de cuisine
allemands (XVe-XVIe sie`cles)

5. CUISINE ET CONTRAINTES

Terence SCULLY "Les saisons alimentaires du _Me'nagier de Paris_"

Carole LAMBERT "Astuces et flexibilite' des recettes culinaires
me'die'vales francaises"

Laurier TURGEON et Denis DICKNER "Contraintes et choix alimentaires
d'un groupe d'appartenance: les marins-pe^cheurs francais a' Terre-
Neuve au XVIe sie`cle"

6. LES DOUCEURS ET LE PLAISIR

Liliane PLOUVIER "Le <<letuaire>>, un confiture du bas Moyen A^ge"

Lucie BOLENS "Les sorbets andalous (XIe-XIIIe sie`cles) ou conjurer
la nostalgie par la douceur"

Mary HYMAN "<<Les menues choses qui ne sont pas de ne'cessite'>>: les
confitures et la table"

Bruno ROY "Trois reagards sur les aphrodisiaques"

_II - RE'PERTOIRE DES MANUSCRITS ME'DIE'VAUX CONTENANT DES RECETTES
CULINAIRES_

Pre'sentation

Re'pertoire

Bibliographie

Index

Now doesn't that make your mouth water! If no enterprising Pennsic
merchant offers one for sale, my parents have offered (without too
much arm twisting) to get me it for my birthday. Grad student budget
or not, I cant miss this one. I've just got to start those French
lessons now...

Thomas/David

David Tallan (tallan at flis.utoronto.ca)
or David_Tallan at magic-bbs.corp.apple.com
snail: 42 Camberwell Rd. Toronto ON M6C 3E8

From: aj406 at yfn.ysu.edu (David L. Tallan)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: appetizers recipe
Date: 30 Apr 1993 04:17:18 GMT
Organization: Youngstown State/Youngstown Free-Net

I wish I had a copy of _Early English Meals and Manners_
a.k.a. _The Babee's Book_ but I must admit (with an
abiding sense of shame) that I do not own a copy of this
fine work and must rely on the library. For those in a
similar unfortunate situation I should perhaps point out
that it was edited by Furnivall and is part of the
Early English Text Society Original Series. It was
mentioned in a TI research column not too long ago so
you can get the full citation there). 

This book is a "must read" for all of those interested
in the broader topic of the medieval meal (broader than
the individual recipes, that is). It contains a number
of fifteenth and sixteenth century "books of courtesy"
that give instruction in how a meal was to be served
and describes the table manners of the time.

What does all of this have to do with appetizers, you
ask. Well, one of the works contained therein, "John
Russell's Boke of Nurture" (15th C) in the instructions
on how a meal is to be served, tells of the food to be
fetched from the pantry and placed on the table both before
and after the meal. This does not appear in the menus and,
as it was not cooked or prepared, does not appear in the
recipe collections. The items after the meal were supposed
to aid the digestion and the items before the meal were,
if I remember correctly, supposed to prepare the stomach
for what was to come. They would thus seem to qualify as
appetizers.

So what were these items? Here's where I really wish I had
the book in front of me. My fallible memory tells me that
grapes, cherries and soft cheese were eaten before the 
meal and apples, pears and hard cheese were eaten after
the meal but I welcome correction from someone who has
possession of the book.

Yours in research of the medieval meal,
David Tallan (who, as Thomas Grozier, has a fine cook
and loves to eat)
-- 
David Tallan
aj 406  OR
tallan at flis.utoronto.ca

From: jtn at nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Cooking refs
Date: 1 Jul 93 02:38:52 GMT

Greetings, all, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn.  It has been
suggested in email that I might publish a list of sources
for people who'd like to start work in cookery.  A complete
list of good stuff I know is available in English is 
already long enough to be intimidating, and anyhow, it
suggests a kind of completeness that I can't claim.  The
following is rather more specialized, in that it centers
on 14th and 15th C English and French cuisine (about which
I know rather more than I do about other places and times).

The following are books currently in print that contain 
14th and 15th C recipes either in Middle English or in 
English translation of French recipes.  (Some also contain 
the Middle French originals.)

Hieatt, Constance B., ed., _An Ordinance of Pottage_, Prospect 
   Books (London) 1988, ISBN 0-907325-38-6.  Fifteenth C 
   English material.  Middle English; includes an extensive 
   glossary.

Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler, eds., _Curye on Inglysch_, 
   Oxford University Press (London, New York, Toronto) 1985, 
   ISBN 0-19-722409-1 (Early English Text Society SS8).  Fourteenth 
   C English material. Middle English; includes an extensive glossary.

Scully, Terence, _Chicart's On Cookery: A fifteenth-century 
   Savoyard culinary treatise_.  Peter Lang (New York and Bern) 
   1986.  Translation of Chiqart's _Du Fait de Cuisine_, dated 
   1420; the original French, edited by Scully, is available in 
   _Vallesia_ v. 40 (1985) 101-231.

Scully, Terence, _The Viandier of Taillevent: An Edition of all 
   Extant Manuscripts_, University of Ottawa Press (Ottawa), 1988, 
   ISBN 0-7766-0174-1.  Manuscript dates vary; most of the material 
   probably originates from the mid to late 14th C, but at least 
   one of the manuscripts dates from the second half of the 13th C.

The books below are also English and French 14th and 15th Century 
material, but are less readily available.  They are, however, reproduced 
in Cariadoc's collection of Medieval and Renaissance cookbooks (the 
Hinson translation of the Menagier is in volume 2; the rest are in 
volume 1).  You may also be able to find some of them in libraries.
If you plan to go to Pennsic, you can buy Cariadoc's collections
there.  If not, if you email him, he will let you know how to get
them by mail.

Austin, Thomas, ed., _Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books_, Early 
   English Text Society OS 91 (London) 1888; reprinted for the 
   EETS by Oxford University Press (London, New York, Toronto), 
   1964.  Middle English; includes glossary.

Hinson, Janet, trans., Le Menagier de Paris (unpublished).

Napier, Robina, _Noble Boke of Cookry ffor a Prynce Houssolde or 
   eny other Estately Houssolde_.  Elliott Stock (London) 1882.  
   English, about 1470.  Middle English; includes glossary.

Nichols, John, ed., _Ancient Cookery_, London, 1790.  Contains 
   recipes from Arundel MS 344; English material, early 15th C.  
   No glossary.  (This MS is included in the Hieatt and Butler 
   volume above, so if you have that, this is redundant.)

Pegge, S., _The Forme of Cury. A Roll of Ancient English Cookery_, 
   London, 1780.  This is the earliest extant edition of the 
   largest collections in Hieatt and Butler's _Curye on Inglysch_, 
   referenced above.  The Hieatt and Butler edition is far better; 
   they had access to more manuscripts to compare, and their 
   scholarship is better.

Power, Eileen, trans., _The Goodman of Paris (Le Menagier de Paris, 
   abridged), London, 1928.  French material, c. 1395.

There is another, newer edition of the Goodman out, for which I do
not have the information offhand.

Cariadoc's collection also includes both Kenelm Digby and Hugh Platt,
the two volumes I've been quoting from repeatedly in recent days.

Hawkwood Press has published a number of cooking related books, 
including the Malinkrodt translation of Platina (but not the Latin),
as well as Epularius, both Italian, as well as several late English
works.  Unfortunately, the usefulness of their editions is limited, 
because they have an annoying tendency to eliminate the information 
you need to do any scholarly work.  For instance, in their reprint of 
the _Babee's Boke_, they retitle it (so if you don't know what you've
got, you can't look it up), _and_ omit all the front material on the
dating of the MSs.  Hence you wind up with a copy of John Russell's
Boke of Nurture, but no indication of its date.  And likewise for
the other MSs it includes.  Their version of Platina does not give 
the name of the translator or the copyright information (the translation 
is still under copyright); from what you get, if common sense didn't 
tell you otherwise, you might think that Platina titled his work in 
Latin, published it in Italy, and wrote it in -- modern -- English.

<Sigh>

But at least they have the texts.

-- Angharad/Terry

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: BDP at HOLONET.NET
Subject: Cooking refs
Date: Sun, 4 Jul 1993 19:38:12 GMT

  One other work which is now quite easy to find, and so I'm surprised
  I haven't seen it mentioned, is Maxime de la Falaise's _Seven Centuries
  of English Cooking_. (Barnes and Noble Press, 1992, ISBN 1-56619-112-2)

  de la Falaise's book covers from the 14th - 20th centuries.  The first
  100 or so pages of the book (which is sitting not six inches from my
  keyboard as I type this) are devoted to the 14th, 15th, 16th, and early
  17th centuries.  The author includes both the references and original
  form of each recipe, as well as her modern English translation and an
  explanation of the social and/or cultural relevance of each.

  I *have* used this to make dinner for friends and family, actually.
  The onion-almond soup got my roommate and I through the worst of the
  rainy season, the tri-color potato soup is simmering right now for my
  luncheon date in an hour, and the Roast Chicken with cold spiced
  chicken relish and onion tarts was an interesting way to cook dinner
  for my mother and her fiancee last week (proving to them both that the
  money my family spent on my undergraduate degree in Medieval History
  was NOT wasted...)

  As you can guess by the publisher's name, this book is available
  through Barnes and Noble bookstore.  I got it during an unadvertised
  sale clearance on Medieval and Renaissance reference texts for all
  of about 8 bucks.

  HIGHLY recommended, in fact, and if any of the recipes I've mentioned
  above has set mouths to watering, let me know and I'll send them to
  you.  :)

BDP/Malachi

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: AYLWIN at HOLONET.NET
Subject: Test Message/Lenten Feast
Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access System: 510-704-1058/modem
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 08:19:46 GMT

BA>     I am currently planning a Lenten Feast for an upcoming event, and
BA>     would like to know if anyone knows of primary sources for common
BA>     Lenten practices.  I have several recipes, but would be interested in
BA>     finding out more about what I can serve.  I wish to be as accurate as
BA>     possible - no meat, dairy, etc.  Of course, I have heard of the
BA>     elusive barnacle goose, and am expecting him to make an appearance for
BA>     the feast.  Please, if anyone can assist, please e-mail me directly at

   It's not a primary source, but the best one I can think of that
discusses Lenten practices and foods is _Fasts and Feasts_. Sorry, I'm
at work and don't recall the author. ILL should get it for you easily,
if your library doesn't have it.

Sir Aylwin.

From: jtn at nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Some cookery sources
Date: 12 Nov 1993 22:17:31 GMT

Greetings, all, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn.

Gawaine Kilgore asks,

>You state that you have collected over 400 recipes.  Could you share 
>these, or their sources, in a FAQ or on an FTP site, perchance?

Most of the recipes themselves I don't have in an on-line format.  (I 
have a spread sheet that lists ingredients, but that doesn't include 
any of the text of the recipes, so it doesn't tell you what to do with
them.)  I do have a little over a hundred in a macintosh word processing
format, but not readily FTPable.

What I can provide is the bibliographic information on the sources I'm 
working from, and some info on how to get them.

A lot of my work starts from Cariadoc's collection of period cookbooks,
which you can get by contacting him.  His collection includes a number
of sources that are not only out of print but no longer in copyright.
Some of these can be found in libraries, but some are relatively difficult
to get your hands on.
 
The more relevant volume in Cariadoc's collection to what I do include:

     Austin, Thomas, ed., _Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books_, Early 
        English Text Society OS 91 (London) 1888; reprinted for the EETS 
        by Oxford University Press (London, New York, Toronto), 1964.

     Nichols, John, ed., _Ancient Cookery_, London, 1790.  Contains 
	recipes from Arundel MS 344; English material, early 15th C.

     Power, Eileen, trans., _The Goodman of Paris_ (_Le Menagier de 
	Paris_, abridged), London, 1928.  French material, c. 1395.

     Napier, Mrs. Alexander, ed., _A Noble Boke off Cookry ffor a 
	Prynce Houssolde_, London, 1882.

     Frere, Catherine Frances, ed., _A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerie_, 
	Cambridge 1913.

The Frere is dated to 1562; I rarely dabble in the 16th C.  Cariadoc also
distributes Hugh Platt (1608) and Kennelm Digby (mid 17th C), and several
others.

The Power translation of the Menagier is only partial.  Cariadoc also 
distributes a translation by Janet Hinson.  It is in some ways less 
useful (it does not have the critical apparatus of even the earliest of 
the EETS works), but it has the strong virtue of reproducing all the 
recipes.

The collection also contains the Pegge edition of _Forme of Curye_, 
but I no longer use that.  Instead, I use the far more accurate (and 
complete) edition that is included, along with several other 14th C 
collections, in:

     Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler, eds, _Curye on Inglysch_, 
	published for the Early English Text Society by Oxford University 
	Press (London, New York, Toronto), 1985.  ISBN 0-19-722409-1
 
You can get this by ordering it from just about any bookstore.  (I 
actually got it by phoning 1-800-555-1212, asking for the phone 
number of Oxford University Press, and ordering by phone.  They 
take MasterCard and Visa.)

Constance Hieatt also has an edition of a 15th C cookbook:

     Hieatt, Constance B., ed., _An Ordinance of Pottage, Prospect 
	Books Ltd.  (London), 1988.  ISBN 0 907325 38 6.
 
The inside cover of _An Ordinance of Pottage_ claims that it is 
distributed in the US by the University Press of Virginia in 
Charlottesville.  It isn't; the deal never went through.  The 
American distributer is (or at least used to be) Books International, 
which has an 800 number that I also got by dialing 1-800-555-1212.  
They also take MasterCard and Visa.  

For 13th C, there is a collection (with a 14th C one) published in 
a journal that should be available in any research library:

     Hieatt, Constance B. and Robin F. Jones, Two Anglo-Norman 
	Culinary Collections Edited from British Library Manuscripts 
	Additional 32085 and Royal 12.C.xii, _Speculum_ vol. 61 # 4 
	(1986) 859-882.

For French cookery at about the same period, I rely heavily on

     Scully, Terence, ed., _The Viandier of Taillevent_, University 
	of Ottawa Press (Ottawa), 1988.  ISBN 0 7766 017401.

I also have Elizabeth of Dendermonde's translation of Chiquart's _Du 
Fait du Cuisine_ from Cariadoc.  If all you want is the recipes, it's 
great.  I do intend to buy Scully's edition of that too, though, when 
funds permit.  Scully knows not only the language and the cookery, but 
also darned near every French medieval cookbook and related document.  
He's worth it for the footnotes alone.  The reference on that is

     Scully, Terence, ed., _Chiquarts On Cookery: a fifteenth-century 
	Savoyard culinary treatise_.  Peter Lang (New York and Bern), 
	1986.

Platina's _De Honesta Voluptate_ and Epulario are both Italian basics. 
Falconwood Press publishes both, but has a long and disreputable history of
flagrant violation of copyright, so I am disinclined to suggest that anyone 
buy anything from them.  

-- Angharad/Terry

From: jlv at halcyon.com (Vifian(s))
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Feast Menus
Date: 18 Nov 1993 15:57:12 -0800
Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc.

0005290822 at mcimail.COM (Robert A. Goff) writes:

>Jean Louis, do you know of an
>edition of Fettiplace that I might find through my local library?

>Brother Crimthann
>rgoff at mcimail.com

Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book (Elizabethan Country Cooking)  Spurling, 
Hilary,  Elisabeth Sifton Books - Viking Penquin Inc., 1986,  ISBN 
0-670-81592-6

Jean Louis de Chambertin
jlv at halcyon.com

From: jlv at halcyon.com (Vifian(s))
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: turkeys
Date: 29 Nov 1993 16:48:57 -0800
Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc.

Dining With William Shakespeare, 1976 (OP?), Lorwin, Madge, Atheneum, 
isbn 0-689-10732-5 has a turkey recipe which is redacted from The 
Accomplisht Cook, Robert May, 1660.  Most? of the original is given.

Jean Louis de Chambertin
jlv at halcyon.com 

From: jtn at nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Cooking booklets
Date: 19 Jan 1994 18:59:52 GMT

Greetings, all, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn.

Having been deluged with individual requests for this information, I
am breaking down and posting it.  Anyone not interested in cooking
booklets, hit "n" now (or do whatever your system makes you do to
get to the next article without reading this one).

There are two booklets.  The "little book" is called "A Beginner's
Book of Meal Planning for the Current Middle Ages", and talks about
just about everything that is _not_ recipes and making them taste
good.  It's 26 single-spaced (and I'm afraid rather teeny type; I
was trying to keep physical size down; but the copy is clear) pages 
of information (plus cover, title pg., contents), in what I think of 
as standard Kingdom newsletter format (though Atlantia's newsletter, 
alas, has abandoned it), i.e., 8.5x11 pages folded and stapled 
lengthwise.  The "big book" is called "A Beginner's Book of Receipts 
for the Current Middle Ages: Twenty-Five Recipes from England and 
France in the 14th and 15th Centuries", and covers main dishes (beef 
and veal, chicken, pork), sauces, soups, and sweets, with an 
introduction and some final material.  Each recipe includes a full
reference, the original text, a conservative translation into modern
English, and then a step-by-step almost-idiot-proof set of directions
with amounts, etc., and any necessary notes.  It's 65 pages, same
format.

The price for the little book is $3 plus shipping, for the big one
$5 plus shipping.  Sadly, I have no clear notion what shipping should 
cost.  Say $1?  I also rather doubt that my bank will know what to make 
of foreign currency, though I can always give it a try.

My snail-mail address is:

	Terry Nutter
	2511 Manchester St.
	Blacksburg, VA 24060

If you have questions this doesn't answer, let me know.

Cheers,
-- Angharad/Terry

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Cooking booklets
From: schuldy at zariski.harvard.edu (Mark Schuldenfrei)
Date: 21 Jan 94 23:59:13 EST

Angharad posted purchasing information about her books.  Herewith follows an
unsolicited mini-review.

"A Beginner's Book of Meal Planning for the Current Middle Ages"
This is a very useful book on cooking meals in large quantity, and could
just as easily be used for church groups or other non-profits.  It is
accurate, insightful, and has many useful hints. I would recommend
supplementing this book with a quick read of _Kitchen_Science_ and
_How_To_Repair_Food_ if you wanted to be an expert, but if you merely want
to be competent in the feast kitchen the very first time you try, I highly
recommend this book.

"A Beginner's Book of Receipts or the Current Middle Ages: Twenty-Five
Recipes from England and France in the 14th and 15th Centuries"

A very nice collection of useful recipes, with redactions and sources
listed. Some of the local gentles had a great deal of fun comparing some of
the resulting redactions with our own. None of the differences were
unreasonable, yet sometimes the end result was recipes of wildly different
textures, flavors or sometimes ingredients.  Nevertheless, I would again
recommend this as a source: you can get perfectly fine, very authentic and
quite tasty results from this pamphlet.  If you are serious about
redactions, it is a nice place to start, but may make you unecessarily
complacent about checking your assumptions.

Certainly, if you are never going to perform your own redaction work, this
is a fine book. If you are going to perform your own redactions, I would
suggest doing some of your own experimentation and education before reading
Angharad's book: You might find yourself produce quite different, yet
equally plausible results. This is no slight on Angharad: redaction is an
inexact art, influenced by past experience and personal tastes.

	Tibor (And both well worth the price, I'm very glad to have them)
-- 
Mark Schuldenfrei (schuldy at math.harvard.edu)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: pat at cygnus.com (Patricia McGregor)
Subject: Re: Medieval cookbooks
Summary: a list of medieval cookbooks
Keywords: food, cookbooks, sources
Organization: Cygnus Support, Mountain View, CA
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 00:40:43 GMT

This article came from the rec.foods.historic list. I know there's a
significant overlap of those of us who do cooking and redacting in the 
SCA and that group, but I couldn't resist reposting it.

  siobhan medhbh o'roarke
=================================================
Robin Carroll-Mann <rcmann at delphi.com> wrote:
>    OK, here it is, by popular demand.  This list is guaranteed to be
>incomplete.  I am an amateur medieval cook, not an expert.  These are simply
>some titles that I have on my shelf or have heard recommended, and some
>sources for buying them.   Which ones are of interest to you depends on a
>number of factors.  How comfortable are you with archaic English?  Can you
>cook from recipes that give ingredients, but no quantities or cooking times?
>    If you can read Chaucer in the original (with the help of a glossary),
>than you can deal with the 14th and 15th century sources.  If you can read
>Shakespeare, you should be ok with the 16th century ones.
>    Most medieval recipes sound like your grandmother dictated them: "take
>some of this and a little of that, mix them together and bake until done."
> (Actually, a common phrase is "until it be enough" which I find amusing.)
>If you're not comfortable with that kind of unstructured recipe, then you
>might want to check out the cookbooks which contain redacted recipes in
>addition to the originals.
>
>Hieatt, Constance and Sharon Butler, _Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for
>Modern Cooks_, University of Toronto Press, 1976.
>    Hieatt is a scholar and knows her stuff.  The recipes come from various
>14th & 15th cent. sources.  Each recipe gives the original wording, and a
>modern redaction with quantities, etc.  The ones I've cooked have been
>pretty tasty.
>
>Hieatt, Constance, and Sharon Butler, eds., _Curye on Inglysche: English
>Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century_  Oxford Univ. Press.
>Original recipes, extensive notes and glossary.
>
>Renfrow, Cindy, _Take a Thousand Eggs or More_.  2 vol.  privately
>published.  These are transcribed from _Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks_ --
>a collection of recipe manuscripts.  Vol. 1 contains about 100 recipes:
>original recipes, modern translation, and redaction provided.  Vol. 2 has
>more recipes and translations, but no redactions.  There is a glossary, and
>intructions for attempting your own redactions.
>
>A BOOK TO AVOID: Cosman, Madeleine Pelner, _Fabulous Feasts_.  The first
>half of the book has some good info. on food history, laws, folklore and
>techniques in medieval England, but the recipes are inauthentic redactions
>WITHOUT the originals, and do not identify the source.
>
>Scully, Terence, ed., _Viander of Taillevent_.  University of Ottawa Press.
>Translation of classic 14th cent. French cookbook.  I don't own this one
>myself, but people I respect say it's good.  Some adapted recipes.
>
>The above books and others are available from:
>    Poison Pen Press
>    627 East 8th St.
>    Brooklyn, NY  11218
>
>Another good source of reprinted historic cookbooks is:
>    Falconwood Press
>    193 Colonie St.
>    Albany, NY  12210-2501
>
>They have a nice selection of early 17th century English cookbooks, spiral
>bound and fairly inexpensive.  Titles include:
>_A True Gentlewoman's Delight_ (1653)
>_The Good Huswife's Jewell_ (1596)
>_On Honest Indulgence and Health_ (1475) Italian, trans. into English.
>
>I hope this is helpful.  If you have any questions, feel free to
>e-mail me, though I am *FAR* from being an expert.  I am just starting to
>feel comfortable about adapting recipes myself, rather than using other
>people's redactions.  It's a lot of fun.  You should incidently, be able to
>get most of the above through inter-library loan, though possibly not the
>Renfrow books.
>
>Good luck!
> at   Robin Carroll-Mann   |  "Mostly harmless"                     at 
> at   RCMANN at DELPHI.COM    |  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy  at 

From: greg at bronze.lcs.mit.edu (Greg Rose)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Pre-1600 flower dishes
Date: 12 Mar 1994 11:58:10 -0500
Organization: MIT LCS guest machine

Greetings, all, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn.  Again, I'm posting from Hossein's
account (mine being uncommunicative), but speaking only for myself.

Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glavryn responded to Michael McKay:

>>	A friend of mine is planning on hosting a feast in July called
>>the "Feast of Flowers" and she wants me to cater it with pre-1600
>>dishes that employ flowers. Can any of you give me some recipes or sources?
>>Thank you.
>
>Look for a recipie called "Sambocade". In its original form (many later
>corrupted versions appear) it was a fritter of elder flowers. 

The scholarship I have seen agrees as to the origin, but no actual recipe
I have seen calls for elder flowers.  I'm not sure that such a recipe is
known, at least in English.  (Elder flowers are pretty much unique to
Anglo-Norman cuisine, at least partly because of where they grow.)

Before plunging into a list of recipes, a couple of words of caution.

I see essentially three difficulties with preparing period dishes of which
flowers are a major ingredient.  First, some of these are simply not available, 
at least in places I have lived.  After roses, the most common flowers in 
early English cuisine are hawthorne blossoms and elder blossoms.  Right.  Not
available at any price, at any time of year, in the quantities one would need
for even quite a small feast.

Second, many of these, while available, are most readily available in 
radically different forms.  "Rose" does _not_ mean "American Beauty": what we 
have around now are mostly hybrid tea roses.  It is possible to get eglantine, 
for instance, but it is not easy.  I have no idea what sort of violet was 
native to England, but I'm fair to middling sure it wasn't African violets, 
and I wouldn't want to bet it's the kind that show up wild in my yard in 
Virginia.  My point is not so much one of authenticity as that different
members of the a botanical family may differ wildly both in flavor and
in edibility.  (Nightshade and tomatoes are related.  The "berries" of the
latter are fine to eat....)

Third, unless you are growing the flowers yourself, you want to be _very_
careful about what comes with them.  Flowers that are grown commercially
for sale as pretty blossoms have frequently been treated with lots of 
chemicals that it is decidedly unwise to eat.

With those provisos:

Recipes calling for flowers are reasonably common in Anglo-Norman cuisine.
Recipes for rosee, spinee, and suade, which are sort of porridges of almond 
milk with roses, hawthorn blossoms, or elder flowers respectively, occur in 
the 13th C Anglo-Norman collection edited by Constance Hieatt in _Speculum_
(1986) and in all four of the complete MSs from the 14th C included in 
_Curye on Inglysch_ (including Forme of Curye), sometimes twice in a single
collection (_Diuersa Cibaria_ has two of each).  The recipe that Lady Tangwystl
included is a 15th C version of one of these dishes, which apparently were
both popular and persistent in the cuisine.  They occur early in collections,
indicating that they tended to be served in the first course, and were viewed
as hearty staples rather than delicacies (!).

In addition, Utilis Coquinaria has recipes for primerole, pyany, heppee and 
vyolet, which call for primroses, peony blossoms and seeds, roses and rose 
hips, and violets respectively.  Diuersa Servicia has a fritters recipe that 
calls for apple blossoms.

All of these are available in _Curye on Ignlysch_, Constance B. Hieatt and
Sharon Butler, editors, Oxford University Press (1985) ISBN 0-19-722409-1.

If one is willing to go very slightly out of period (1609, if I recall the
date correctly), there are several recipes for preserving and candying flower
blossoms in Hugh Platt's _Delights for Ladies_.  I got my copy of Hugh Platt
from Cariadoc, in the first volume of his collection of medieval cookbooks.

Good luck.
-- Angharad/Terry

From: DDF2 at cornell.edu (David Friedman)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Pre-1600 flower dishes
Date: 13 Mar 1994 04:11:10 GMT
Organization: Cornell Law School

Angharad  writes:

> If one is willing to go very slightly out of period (1609, if I recall the
> date correctly), there are several recipes for preserving and candying flower
> blossoms in Hugh Platt's _Delights for Ladies_. 

I believe that is the date of the 2nd edition of Hugh Platt. If I remember
correctly, the first edition is just pre 1600. Of course, I don't have the
first edition--but if the recipes are in it, they are (I think) period.

Platina/Martino/Epulario (three cookbooks with a lot of overlap, obviously
related) have some flower dishes too.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
DDF2 at Cornell.Edu

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: ua923 at freenet.Victoria.BC.CA (Mark Shier)
Subject: Re: Pre-1600 flower dishes
Organization: Camosun College, Victoria, B.C.
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 03:09:51 GMT

There are a number of early flower recipes to be found in 
"An Ordinance of Pottage" by Constance Hieatt. Prospect Books 1988.
They are from a 15C English manuscript. Included is recipe 108,
   "Samacays", an elderflower fritter, and number 75, "Floreye",
a chicken pate with roses. Dried elderflowers can be found in
some health-food stores.
This is another of Constance Hieatt's excellent works.
				Mark der Gaukler

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: marian at world.std.com (marian walke)
Subject: Re: Fabulous Feasts (was: Re: veggie feasts)
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Thu, 7 Apr 1994 06:54:26 GMT

For a long time I thought, well the recipes in FF are bogus, but at least 
there are all those great illustrations....

Then one day I started reading the small print next to the illos and 
realized some of THEM are bogus, too - attributed to a 19th C. forger!

Really: Plein Delyte, Curye on Inglysch, etc - anything that gives you 
all the ORIGINAL recipes so that you can judge the reconstructions - 
these are the books to go with if you need other people's versions of 
Medieval cookery (and Dining with Will Shakespeare, if you can find it, 
for 16/17th C recipes).  

If you're willing to dispense with the 
reconstructions, Duke Cariodoc's cookbook collections are the best 
because they have more recipes in one volume than anyone else's. If you 
can't get those, try Falconwood Press, 1983 Colonic Street, Albany NY 
12210-2501; they've put out quite a few (mostly 16th/17th C) cookery 
books (retyped from original publications, usually).  They'll send you a 
catalogue if you send an SASE.   

--Old Marian
(marian at world.std.com)

From: sbloch at ms.uky.edu (Stephen Bloch)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca,rec.food.historic
Subject: Re: Translating Spanish cookbook
Date: 9 Apr 1994 15:39:11 -0400
Organization: University Of Kentucky, Dept. of Math Sciences

I'm cross-posting this to rec.food.historic, and will therefore refer to
people both by modern and by SCA names.

Robin Carroll-Mann  <rcmann at delphi.com> wrote:
>    I've found a modern reprint of a 16th century Spanish cookbook
>which I beieve has not been translated into English.  It is the
>_Libro de Guisados, Manjares y Potajes Intitulado Libro de Cozina_
>by Ruperto de Nola, originally published in the Catalan language
>around 1520.  I have a reprint of the 1529 Castillian edition...

The Catalan version, I believe, is the _Llibre del Coch_.  I haven't seen
it, but my lady has a copy.  We're working more on the earlier Catalan
_Llibre de Sent Sovi_; I'd like to hear from other people working on it.

There are at least two people here in Lexington working on the book you
mention; I think they have the Castilian version and are trying to ILL the
Catalan version for comparison.  One is Elbe Cheek (Osric Umbra, in the
SCA) and the other is Basilicus Phocas, in the SCA; I don't remember his
real name.  I don't know whether either has email; I'll check when next I
see them.

>    This is an ambitious project, and I would love to hear from
>anyone who has done something similar.  Things I would like to
>discuss include: how literal should a translation be? which terms
>should be left in Spanish? when are explanatory footnotes needed? etc.

Around 1985 David Friedman (Cariadoc) announced in newsletters that he
was looking for translators to help with a 13th-century Arabo-Andalusian
cookbook, which had been edited and translated into Spanish some twenty
years ago by a guy named Huici Miranda.  I was among the volunteers, to
whom David sent photocopies of twenty-page sections of Spanish text (to
make sure different people weren't duplicating effort on the same section
while completely missing other sections).  Over the course of several
years, I and perhaps a dozen others finished the whole book, and then one
of us, Elise Fleming (Alys Katharine) took the job of proofreading and
editing the whole thing for some semblance of consistency.  Shortly after
she finished, David persuaded his friend Charles Perry, who not only is
interested in historical cookery but reads Arabic, to check the whole 
thing against Miranda's published Arabic edition.  He corrected numerous
errors that had crept into the two-stage translation, and that version is
now included in Volume II of David's _Collection of Medieval and
Renaissance Cookbooks_.  (David may have corrections to this account.)

I don't think we ever came up with an explicit statement of how literal a
translation should be, and what should be left in Spanish (or, in our case,
Arabic!)  But in the end, we produced a reasonably consistent and readable
result.  I believe we all felt free to rearrange word order and sentence
structure, introduce and delete articles, to get properly-flowing English
sentences and paragraphs.  I, at least, on encountering an ambiguity in
the Spanish, tried to reorder things to give the same ambiguity in English.
Sometimes there was an ambiguity that could be partially resolved only by
gender-agreement in the Spanish; I indicated this in footnotes, and I think
Charles Perry fixed these ambiguities.

We kept most of the names of dishes in Arabic or Spanish, to avoid confusing
them with modern ones.  There was something called "isfunj" in Arabic,
which Miranda translated as "esponja" and I further translated as "sponge
cake".  However, the recipe had no resemblance to a sponge cake, so it is
back to "isfunj" in the published version.  Similarly, the Arabic "mujabbana"
became the cognate "almojabana" in Spanish, then "cheesecake" in English
(based on Miranda's footnote about the etymology of "almojabana"); this was
misleading, so it is back to "mujabbana" in the published version.
-- 
				mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib
					Stephen Bloch
				     sbloch at s.ms.uky.edu

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: ddfr at quads.uchicago.edu (david director friedman)
Subject: Re: Arabian event questions
Organization: University of Chicago
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 1994 04:14:49 GMT

There are three period Islamic cookbooks that I know of available in
English translations. Al-Baghdadi is 13th century middle eastern, Ibn
Al-Mubarrad is 15th century middle eastern, Manuscrito Anonimo is
13th century Andalusian. The first two are included in Volume I of
the cookbook collection I sell; the third is in Volume II. Quite a
lot of worked out period Islamic recipes are in the Miscellany, a
book my lady wife and I wrote and self publish; someone in your area
may have a copy. Incidentally, Manuscrito Anonimo also has a
discussion of what a feast should be like. There is also a book
called (I think) _From a Caliph's Kitchen_ that has worked out period
islamic recipes.

Feel free to correspond by EMail if you wish.

David/Cariadoc
DDFR at Midway.UChicago.Edu

From: fp458 at cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Elise A. Fleming)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: "remove" vs. "course" documentation
Date: 29 Nov 1994 11:33:03 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)

Greetings from a fussy Dame.  I found the documentation about
"remove" and "course" after my posting.  In _The Appetite and the
Eye_, edited by C. Anne Wilson, Edinburgh University Press, 1991,
Ms. Wilson writes in the chapter "Ideal Meals and their Menus":

"...There is even the recently adopted usage of the 'remove' (a
dish to be succeeded by another).  The circle at the head of the
first-course table is inscribed: 'A pottage, for a remove to be 
replaced on the diagrammatic table-settings by one of the new thin-
ner soups) was served out to everyone present, and its large 
serving-bowl or tureen was then removed.  In its place was set the 
item of meat or fish written in the lower half of the circle.  
The soup and its 'remove' or replacement marked the first step
towards a different division of the courses which led eventually, 
after the coming of Russian service early in the nineteenth cen-
tury, to the usual sequence of courses at today's formal dinners."

The book in which the table diagram appeared is the 1708 second
edition of Henry Howard's _England's Newest Way in All Sorts of
Cookery, Pastry, and All Pickles that are Fit to be Used_.

If you are reading this post and are interested in attempting more
medieval or Elizabethan re-creations of dining, _The Appetite and
the Eye_ will give you some fascinating information.  Four of the
seven chapters pertain to "our" period and this fifth one contaied
the above information.  ISBN # is 0 7486 0101 5.  Happy hunting!

Alys Katharine/Elise

From: epsteine at spot.Colorado.EDU (Emily Epstein)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Period cookbooks not published as books (was: Period plants)
Date: 13 Jan 95 00:16:54 GMT
Organization: University of Colorado at Boulder

Greetings from Alix Mont de fer.

Angharad gave citations for Curye on Inglysch and Two Anglo-Norman Culinary
Collections. For those who're interested, I dipped into my files for a 
slightly more complete list of cookbooks that were published in a periodical 
or as part of some other kind of collection. Even if you're local library
doesn't have them, you should be able to get them via interlibrary loan.
In the case of periodicals, they'll often send a photocopy instead of the
bound volume. You usually don't have to return the photocopy, which will save
you some expense and a trip to Kinko's. Copy centers such as Kinko's will do
an inexpensive spiral binding, however, which I find very useful.

I apologize for some of the quick and dirty abbreviations and spacing. I
lifted this from a working handlist. I hope you can find it of some use.

Alix Mont de fer
epsteine at spot.colorado.edu

Anonimo Meridionale. Due libri di cucina. ed.Ingemar Bostrom.
Stockholm : Almqvist & Wiksell, 1985.

Arberry, A.J. "A Baghdad cookery-book", Islamic Culture 13:1 Jan
     1939 p.21-47 & 13:2 Apr. 1939 p.189-214.   

Birlinger, Anton. "Kalender und Kochbuchlein aus Tegernsee",
     Germania. Vierteljahresschrift fur deutsche Alterthumskunde,
     9 (1864) pp.132-207.

Eberhard von Landshut. "Das Kochbuch des Eberhard von Landshut
     (erste Halfe des 15 Jhs." ed. Anita Feyl. Ostbairischen
     Grenzmarken, 5 (1961) pp.352-366.

Grewe, Rudolf. "An Early  XIII Century Northern-European
     Cookbook" A Conference on Current Research in Culinary
     History: Sources, Topics and Methods: Proceedings. (Culinary
     Historians of Boston, 1986) p.27-45.

Hieatt, Constance B., and Robin F. Jones. "Two Anglo-Norman
     culinary collections edited from British Library Manuscripts
     additional 32085 and Royal 12.C.xii." Speculum 61:4 (1986)
     p.859-882. 
 
Merle, J. Osset. "Un libro de cocina del siglo XIV". Boletin de
     la sociedad castellonense de cultura 17(1935) pp.156-177.

Mulon, Marianne. "Deux traites inedits d'art culinaire medieval.
     Bulletin Philologique et Historique du Comite des Travaux
     Historiques et Scientifiques 1968 v.1 p.368-435.

Scully, Terence. "Du fait de cuisine par Maistre Chiquart, 1420.:
     Vallesia 40 (1985) p. 101-231. (This was later published with an English 
     translation, index and extensive prefatory material by the University
     of Toronto) 

Thorndike, Lynn. "A mediaeval sauce-book". Speculum, 9 (1934),
     pp.183-190. Commentary and first publication of Opusculum de
     saporibus of Magninus Mediolanensis (in Latin)

From: bronwynnob at aol.com (BronwynNob)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Help Needed: Midieval Cooking
Date: 13 Feb 1995 19:07:21 -0500

Greetings to Tatiana Novgorod!

A good place to start is the book PLEYN DELIT:  Medieval Cookery for
Modern Cooks by Constance B. Hieatt and Sharon Butler (University of
Toronto Press, 1976), which has a couple of nice sausage recipes.

Also try CURYE ON INGLYSCH:  English culinary manuscripts of the fourteen
century (including THE FORME OF CURY) edited by Hieatt and Butler (Oxford
University Press, 1985)

Another good period source is ON HONEST INDULGENCE (De honesta volaptate)
by Platina (1475) (Falconwood Press, Susan J. Evans, 193 Colonie Street,
Albant NY 12210-2501)

That should be enough to start you off.  Good luck!
Bronwyn ferch Gwyn ap Rhys
Middle Kingdom, Barony of Jararvellir
                            where the motto is "Carpe Carp!"
Per pale azure and gules a tabby cat sejant guardant,
on a chief Or, three hawkbells azure

From: AIGRAN00 at ukcc.uky.EDU (Alison Ingrid Grande)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Disgusting Recipes
Date: 27 Feb 1995 09:47:36 -0500

In response to the lady who wanted to find out about some disgusting recipes--

I believe that in the Libro de Cocina, there are at least two recipes on how
to cook cats. Blech. Carnivore meat. :P

Alison of Windy Fields

From: Lwagner <lwagner at merlin.nando.net>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Feasts & the Decameron
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 17:34:00 -0500 (EST)

	I found a good book on cooking in my local (Cary, N.C.) library. 
It's name is The Literary Gourmet by Linda Wolfe. On page 44, is a feast 
based on one of the tales from The Decameron. The recipes are based on 
period cookbooks and tell how to make them today. Granted the recipes are 
serve only 4, but they can be expended. The book goes from the Bible up 
to 1938. The menus are based on works from literature and are from cook 
books that are contempuary cook books, so are good sources for recipes.

	If you are interested in this menu and can not find the book, let 
me know and I will copy the recipes for you and get them to you.

	In Service to Society,
	
	Lady Anastasia von Anspach
	formerly of Trimaris, now of Atlantia
	mka Lee Ann Wagner lwagner at nando.net

From: Lwagner <lwagner at merlin.nando.net>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Feasts & the Decameron
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 23:37:11 -0500 (EST)
Organization: News & Observer Public Access

	The Literary Gourmet does include the original recipes and 
directions for cooking them. Then when the author felt it was necessary, 
modern instructions are included. I forgot to mention this in my original 
posting....oops!

		Yours in service to the SCA,

		Lady Anastasia von Anspach
		mka Lee Ann Wagner (lwagner at nando.net)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: DDFr at Midway.UChicago.edu (David Friedman)
Subject: Re: Feast help!
Organization: University of Chicago Law School
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 22:25:47 GMT

4bdh at qlink.queensu.ca (Howell Bailey D) wrote:

> 	I have been thoughtfully volunteered for the position of head 
> cook for our (Canton of Greyfells) fall event. The theme deals with the 
> return of Marco Polo. I'm looking for sources for recipes of basically 
> anything Italian and period, or anything that he might have brought back 
> with him (apart from VD and the clap) :) Any help would be greatly 
> appreciated.

1. I believe the earliest Italian cookbooks in English translation are
Platina (late 15th century) and the book that was translated under the
title Epulario in (I think) the late 16th century; the original of that is
probably 15th century as well. If you have access to someone who reads
Italian, there are somewhat earlier untranslated Italian cookbooks.

2. There are surviving Islamic cookbooks, in translation, from the 13th
century, if you are interested; Marco Polo traveled through Islamic
territory.

3. Recipes from both Platina and the Islamic cookbooks, in original and
worked out forms, can be found in the Miscellany that my lady wife and I
produce; there is a version on the web, linked to various SCA pages. 
-- 
David/Cariadoc
DDFr at Midway.UChicago.Edu

From: steindler at aol.com (Steindler)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Feast help!
Date: 5 Jun 1995 15:57:54 -0400

Regarding your request for recipes from Italy and far Cathay during the
time of the return of Marco Polo, I have some suggestions and add to your
request.

1. His Grace, Duke Cariadoc, correctly points out that the 13th c. arabic
recipes he cited were known and available in Italy at that time. I believe
HE is the best source for this cookbook, ask, no beg, him. However, I
believe that the cookbook he refers to is Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Razin, 13th
c. Fann al-tabkh fi alAndalus wa-al-Maghrib fi bidayat 'ar bani Marin
(etc.)'

2. I have looked and not found any TRANSLATIONS of medieval chinese
cookbooks. However, I know that at least two exsit. (I ya ii (Shaung hsia
chuan / Hau I pieu, & chou Lu Chin chiao (This is 14th c.), and Hung Lin;
Shan chiu ch'ig Kung (16th - 17th c.).)  If anyone out there reads either
of the dialects that these cookbooks are in, please E-mail me. I'll send
you a copy if you send me the translation!

3. Platina is OK as far as it goes. It is really to late, even for Marco
Polo.

4. However, many other sources for Italian early renaissance cooking (just
after Polo) exist, but are not translated. My lady and I are working on
translations of some of these works for publication, but they are not
ready yet and until they are published, I cannot give out the
translations. However, some of the sources are Due Livro de Cucina
(Anonimo Meridionale) and two other anonymous works, one Venetian, one
Toscan that are included in the colleted volumn, Faccioli, L'Arte della
Cucina. If you speak italian there should be no problem getting these
works.

5. A period translation of Messibugo into English exists, but I can't
remeber the title.

All for now.

Etienne Pelerin du Fauconeau (Yes, there is life after Caid; just not
much.)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: DDFr at Midway.UChicago.edu (David Friedman)
Subject: Re: Feast help!
Organization: University of Chicago Law School
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 03:52:39 GMT

steindler at aol.com (Steindler) wrote:

> 1. His Grace, Duke Cariadoc, correctly points out that the 13th c. arabic
> recipes he cited were known and available in Italy at that time. 

It might be true; Italy had more influence from the civilized world than
most of Frangistan. But it is not what I said. My point was only that Marco
Polo passed through Islamic territory going to and from China.

> However, I
> believe that the cookbook he refers to is Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Razin, 13th
> c. Fann al-tabkh fi alAndalus wa-al-Maghrib fi bidayat 'ar bani Marin
> (etc.)'

I was referring to the cookbook that Ambrosio Huici Miranda published as
Manuscrito Anonimo; unless you have more recent information than I do on
the author he is still unknown. 

So far as I know there is no published full translation of the (roughly
contemporary) Andalusian cookbook by Abu l-Hasan ‘Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Abi
l-Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr ibn Razin al-Tuyibi al-Andalusi. A
Spanish translation was apparently done as a doctoral thesis, but the only
published version I have seen contains only selections from that. An
English translation of those was included in some early versions of my
cookbook collection, but I removed it when I realized that there were
potential copyright problems with a translation of a translation and I have
not succeeded in getting into communication with the Spanish translator to
get his permission.

I hope that clarifies things; there are at least two surviving Andalusian
cookbooks from about the 13th century, but only Manuscrito Anonimo has been
translated into English in full, so far as I know.

> 2. I have looked and not found any TRANSLATIONS of medieval chinese
> cookbooks. However, I know that at least two exsit. (I ya ii (Shaung hsia
> chuan / Hau I pieu, & chou Lu Chin chiao (This is 14th c.), and Hung Lin;
> Shan chiu ch'ig Kung (16th - 17th c.).)  If anyone out there reads either
> of the dialects that these cookbooks are in, please E-mail me. I'll send
> you a copy if you send me the translation!

You are ahead of me on this; I'm still looking for Chinese sources. But I
have what may well be a period Indian cookbook in Sanskrit with Hindi
commentary, if you know any suitable translators interested in the project.

> 4. However, many other sources for Italian early renaissance cooking (just
> after Polo) exist, but are not translated. My lady and I are working on
> translations of some of these works for publication, but they are not
> ready yet and until they are published, I cannot give out the
> translations. However, some of the sources are Due Livro de Cucina
> (Anonimo Meridionale) and two other anonymous works, one Venetian, one
> Toscan that are included in the colleted volumn, Faccioli, L'Arte della
> Cucina.

Someone (perhaps you) told me that the Faccioli editions were very
unreliable--that his version of Martino differed quite substantially from
the manuscrcipt.

> 5. A period translation of Messibugo into English exists, but I can't
> remeber the title.

Is it Epilario (sp?)? That is clearly a translation of something closely
related to Martino and Platina, but I don't know what.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
DDFr at Midway.UChicago.Edu

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: kira at eskimo.com (Kira Gray)
Subject: Help! Finding Late Period Culinary Source
Organization: Eskimo North (206) For-Ever
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 18:02:43 GMT

Can anyone help me find a copy of this late period culinary source?
I've looked all over and no one I've asked (including anyone at the
University of Washington Library) has even *heard* of it.  Please, please,
please! Gotta have it!

   Cristoforo di Messisbugo's "Banchetti, Compositioni di Vivande et
Apparecchio Generale" (1549)

   The author was the Maitre d'hotel in Ferrara to the Dukes d'Este and
his work includes three volumes: #1 is the tools he used in his kitchens,
#2 is descriptions of 16 or so actual feasts prepared in those kitchens,
and #3 is 315 of his recipies. 
   Any help you can give will be very much appreciated!

   -Cassia

From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming )
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Help! Finding Late Period Culinary Source
Date: 22 Aug 1995 19:23:39 GMT

kira at eskimo.com (Kira Gray) writes: 
>   Can anyone help me find a copy of this late period culinary source?
>I've looked all over and no one I've asked (including anyone at the
>University of Washington Library) has even *heard* of it.  Please,
>please! Gotta have it!
>
>   Cristoforo di Messisbugo's "Banchetti, Compositioni di Vivande et
>Apparecchio Generale" (1549)
>
>   The author was the Maitre d'hotel in Ferrara to the Dukes d'Este and
>his work includes three volumes: #1 is the tools he used in his kitchens,
>#2 is descriptions of 16 or so actual feasts prepared in those kitchens,
>and #3 is 315 of his recipies. 
>   Any help you can give will be very much appreciated!
>
>   -Cassia

I have a copy sitting in front of me.  It is, I believe, included in
_Arte della Cucina_, (edited?) by Emilio Faccioli, Edizioni il
Polifilo, Milano, 1966, Volume I.  Got my copy from Master Basilicus
Phocas in Kentucky.  Volume I also contains a number of other texts
such as Platina and Martino.  The Messiburgo section is 52 pages,
single-side copy.  If you can't find it in the library, let me know by
e-mail and I can try to photocopy what I have.

Alys K.

From: jtn at newsserver.uconn.edu (Terry Nutter)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Help! Finding Late Period Culinary Source
Date: 23 Aug 1995 01:13:06 GMT
Organization: University of Connecticut

Greetings, all, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn

Cassia asks for a source for Messibugo's "Banchetti".  It is one of the
many period Italian collections reproduced in 

	Faccioli, Emilio, _Arte Della Cucina.  LKibri de Ricette Testi
	  Sopra lo Scalco il Trinciante e i Vini Dal XIV al XIX Secolo_,
	  Edizioni il Polifilo (Milan) 1966.

Most (maybe all) of the period stuff is in volume 1.

I know UConn has this in its collection.  Let me know if you can't find
it but have access to ILL, and I'll fish a few online catalogs for you.

Cheers,
-- Angharad/Terry

<the end>