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Book Review #10: The Well-Kept Kitchen
Title: The Well-Kept Kitchen
Author: Gervase Markham
Genre: Historical cookbook
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: An abridged version of a 1615 cookbook.
Thoughts: An invaluable historical resource, although (like many older texts) a bit difficult to follow in places.
It's entertaining to see what has changed and what has stayed the same over time. The explanation for how to make puff pastry is pretty much exactly what I would personally do in 2013. A few pages later is an explanation of how to roast a cow's udder--not only would I not roast a cow's udder, if I did, I would certainly flavor it with a large quantity of vinegar, sugar, and cinnamon. Actually, apparently everything should be flavored with sugar and cinnamon, including mutton, oysters, and pike.
There are a fair number of things listed here that I would not even particularly think of as food, like violet leaves (I didn't realize those were even edible), primroses and cowslips; things I know are edible but we really wouldn't eat now, like crabapple juice, acorns, and iris root; and enough uses for heads and trotters to keep Manhattan's gastropub staff busy for weeks. There are quite a few dubious uses for herbs and very suspicious medicine recipes, but a cheerful distribution of pennyroyal through recipes without a seeming awareness of its properties as a poison/abortificant.
Also, the author likes oats. Really. There is an entire chapter on the virtues of oats, which you should basically eat all the time and feed to every kind of livestock imaginable.
If you're looking for insight into housewives' duties (including baking, brewing, and herbal remedies), Renaissance cookery, or the ordering of a massive feast, this is the book for you. If you want to actually make any of these foods, well--they didn't include proportions in those days, so good luck to you. But you know your roast pig is done when the eyes fall out.
Author: Gervase Markham
Genre: Historical cookbook
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: An abridged version of a 1615 cookbook.
Thoughts: An invaluable historical resource, although (like many older texts) a bit difficult to follow in places.
It's entertaining to see what has changed and what has stayed the same over time. The explanation for how to make puff pastry is pretty much exactly what I would personally do in 2013. A few pages later is an explanation of how to roast a cow's udder--not only would I not roast a cow's udder, if I did, I would certainly flavor it with a large quantity of vinegar, sugar, and cinnamon. Actually, apparently everything should be flavored with sugar and cinnamon, including mutton, oysters, and pike.
There are a fair number of things listed here that I would not even particularly think of as food, like violet leaves (I didn't realize those were even edible), primroses and cowslips; things I know are edible but we really wouldn't eat now, like crabapple juice, acorns, and iris root; and enough uses for heads and trotters to keep Manhattan's gastropub staff busy for weeks. There are quite a few dubious uses for herbs and very suspicious medicine recipes, but a cheerful distribution of pennyroyal through recipes without a seeming awareness of its properties as a poison/abortificant.
Also, the author likes oats. Really. There is an entire chapter on the virtues of oats, which you should basically eat all the time and feed to every kind of livestock imaginable.
If you're looking for insight into housewives' duties (including baking, brewing, and herbal remedies), Renaissance cookery, or the ordering of a massive feast, this is the book for you. If you want to actually make any of these foods, well--they didn't include proportions in those days, so good luck to you. But you know your roast pig is done when the eyes fall out.