Cookbook Wish list

What books do I recommend to those interested in researching and/or cooking medieval & Renaissance food? I’ve been asked this question pretty often over the years, so I thought it would be a helpful topic during the gift-giving holiday season.

Why Books?
I will admit right up front that I repeatedly suggest that new cooks check out all the decent redactions (modern versions of period recipes) online, not to mention the free translations of period texts available at various academic websites.
Why? Frugality and accessibility, plain and simple. It’s scary, when investigating a new SCA activity, to shell out a wad of money up front for supplies when you don’t know if the activity is one you really want to pursue. When you’re talking about cooking, ingredients and kitchen equipment can be expensive enough on their own. So, having to buy super-expensive cookbooks from unusual publishers on top of that seems to have been a turnoff, from what I’ve read over the past decade on various food history forums and what I’ve seen in person. Therefore, I think the wealth of reputable, reliable, free online food texts and resources over the past six years definitely is encouraging to potential cooks.
That being said, there’s nothing like having a book in your hands. <smile>
Plus, if you want to give someone a great gift, you’re talking about a book rather than a webpage printout, aren’t you?

Where Can I Buy Them?
Most of the books I list below are available from common booksellers Amazon.com, Borders, and Barnes & Noble-- both online and sometimes occasionally in the stores. A few can bought directly from the academic publishers (notably, Prospect Books and Oxford University Press). Almost all are available from the SCA merchant Poison Pen Press.
Take a moment to think about the SCA cooks of the 1970s, most of whom had access to only a handful of texts on medieval and Renaissance food and most available from museum shops or academic publishers. We are truly blessed now with scores and scores of printed translations and analytical resources on the food of virtually all European countries during our period of study (not to mention several non-European cuisines). As I noted, many of these are now available from common booksellers… who have sales and used-book prices. No longer do you have to pay exorbitant prices from only academic booksellers! But how to choose? The point of this short column is to give you an idea as which ones you want to buy…

General Medieval Cooking (frugal choice)
Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks, 2d edition, by Constance B. Hieatt, et. al.
If you want a basic introduction to how and why food was prepared the way it was in medieval Europe and what makes it different from modern cuisine, this is the book to get. It contains an excellent overview of basic medieval cuisine, including the use of almond milk and spices like cubebs. It also has sample menus for feasts, a table of weights and measures, and an invaluable index that lists both the recipe titles and the individual ingredients. Most importantly, the book contains dozens of original period recipes translated into English and accompanied with explanatory text and clear, well-written modern redactions that consistently result in delicious dishes.
The recipes are drawn from various sources, including the Forme of Cury (English), Le Menagier de Paris (French), Kitab al-Tabikh (Arabic), Libro de sent sovi (Catalan), and De Honesta Voluptata et Valetudine (Italian), and are categorized as appetizers, soups, meat dishes, desserts… the way that a modern cook would look for recipes when planning a meal. Further, there is an excellent bibliography of all the sources used, which you can use to decide which period texts you want to pursue for further study. Considering that you can buy the paperback in a modern bookstore as well as at most SCA events where there are book merchants—and it’s usually $15 or less—I believe this is the first book to start your collection.

Medieval English (best buy)
Take A Thousand Eggs or more: A Collection of 15th Century Recipes, by Cindy Renfrow
Many American cooks want to start with English texts because that is familiar… although the inconsistent spellings, thorns, and other aspects of the language in the 1400s can look like a foreign language to a modern eye! This two-book collection draws recipes from several texts—the Harleian, Ashmole, Laud, and Douce Manuscripts—and has an invaluable tool for learning how to “translate” the recipes on your own. The author gives the original recipe in its original Middle English (“Take an Sethe Chykonys, & smyte hem to gobettys…”), then again in modern English (“Take and seethe chickens, and smite them to gobbets…”), followed by a clear, well-written, reliable modern recipe (“Simmer the chicken, then cut into 10 pieces…”). You thus have the choice of simply using the modern recipe, or doing your own redaction from the original, using the translation if you wish. By the way, these recipes really work and taste good!
As in Pleyn Delit, the recipes are divided into useful categories for a cook planning a feast (pottages, cheese dishes, vegetables, shellfish, fish, fowl, meat, etc.). The books also contain two glossaries of ingredients common in medieval recipes (saffron, costmary, etc.) as well as phrases (“when it is enough”). There is also a list of herb suppliers, a very thorough bibliography of sources, a fascinating appendix of sample menus from actual period feasts (such as a wedding banquet from 1404), and numerous wonderful illustrations from period texts of cooking and feasting scenes. Further, the author has a short afterword, So Now What?, that walks a beginner cook through the basic steps of creating and testing a redaction. The collection is available from the author’s website in paperback for $24.95, and is widely available at SCA merchants and on Amazon, often for less. This collection packs a LOT of information!

Medieval English
Curye on Inglysch, edited by Constance B. Hieatt, et. al.
Early English Text Society by Oxford University Press
If you’re ready to jump right into Middle English and do your own redactions, this book contains the original texts of several 14th Century sources, including Forme of Cury. There are no modern recipes in this book, as this was written from a linguist’s point of view, not a cook’s. The recipes are thus presented in the order in which they appeared in the original manuscripts, not listed in categories that a cook would search for a specific type of recipe.
As to expected with an academic text, it contains a lengthy introduction that explains how and why the manuscripts were transcripted, along with some information on 14th Century menus. There is an extremely detailed combination index & glossary that explains terms and ingredients used in the recipes (i.e., “Maumenee, a dish of meat…”) along with their origins, pronunciation, and variant spellings. There is also an appendix of the recipes and their originating manuscripts. At $28 (from the publisher and SCA merchants), it’s cheap by academic press standards.

Tudor English (splurge)
All The King’s Cooks: The Tudor Kitchens of King Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace, by Peter Brears
If you’re seriously interested in learning how a period kitchen functioned, as well as trying out some recipes, this IS the book to buy. It is the result of the renovation of the kitchens at King Henry’s estate. If you’re ever lucky enough to go to England, you can watch reenactors in period dress use period equipment to prepare Tudor recipes. The book is full of both modern photographs of these reenactments as well as period illustrations and modern diagrams, which accompany chapter after chapter on the functions of each part of the palace’s food preparation (the poultry, bakehouse, larders, boiling house, confectionary, woodyard, etc.). There are is extensive explanation of each room’s function, as the raw ingredients progressed to the dining table. There are a couple dozen recipes from Tudor-era cookbooks, but unfortunately only the modern recipe is listed, so there’s no immediate way to check the redaction against the original text. On the other hand, this book is one of the best resources on the making of eye-catching almondpaste and sugarplate subtleties. Finally, the book contains a solid bibliography and index, and copious notes on all the non-cookbook resources used to research the palace’s renovation. This is generally not a cheap book ($50 or more, on average), although you can find it on Amazon in addition to SCA merchants.

Elizabethan English (frugal)
Sallets Humbles & Shrewsbery Cakes: A Collection of Elizabethan Recipes, by Ruth Anne Beebe
If you’re interested in Renaissance-era recipes, this book has a range of very nice ones. Like other books I recommend, this lists the original recipe followed by a modern recipe (and it includes yields, which the other books often lack!). I do have one major quibble: although the recipes are drawn from The Good Huswife’s Jewell, The Good Handmaide for the Kitchin, The English Huswife, and Delightful daily exercise for ladies and gentlewomen, all of which range from 1594 to 1621, the specific source is not included with each original recipe. This is frustrating to the serious researcher who wants the exact source of each recipe.
Otherwise, the book is decent. The recipes are divided into the easily searched categories of vegetables, flesh, fowl, pies, sauces, sallets, and sweets & breads. It contains a brief introduction about Elizabethan cookery, some sample menus (although not from real feasts during our period of study, a decent glossary, and a basic index. For an average price of $12, from Amazon or SCA merchants, it’s worthwhile.

Non-English choices
For the purposes of brevity and finishing this column vaguely on time, I’ll sum up other choices (with their common prices) for now and go into more detail at a later date:
French/Italian: The Medieval Kitchen, by Odile Redon, et. al. $14 to $25
French: Early French Cookery by Terence Scully, $26
Italian/Spanish: The Original Mediterranean Cuisine, by Barbara Santich, $5
Italian: The Neapolitan Recipe Collection, by Terence Scully, $65
German: Sabina Welser’s Cookbook, translation by Valoise Armstrong, $40
Danish/Icelandic: Libellus de arte Coquinaria, edited and translated by Rudolf Grewe and Constance B. Hieatt, $30
Anglo-Saxon: Anglo-Saxon Food & Drink, Books 1 and 2, Ann Hagen, $20
Roman: Roman Cookery, Mark Grant, $10
Middle Eastern: Medieval Arab Cookery, Maxime Rodinson et. al., $50

Note from the webministers, here is the SCA Juried Merchants List for Booksellers