Title: The Medieval Cookbook
Author: Maggie Black
Genre: Historical cookbook, medieval
I am in the process of aranging a medieval feast as a larp event, so I am reading cookbooks. I have not yet tried any of the recipes in the book.
The book is a mixture of history book and historical cookbook as so many of this type of books. This is by fare the oldest (as in publishing year) I have read yet and that properly color my oppion of it.
Each chapter start with an introcuion on the type of cooking that is in the chapter and a bit of food history. Those are quite readable. Each recipe has a the original recipe, an ingrediance list and an instruction on how to cook it.
As for the recipies there are quite a few I want to try – it is full of sticky-notes. However I do have some points of critism:
- She is using a blender quite a lot which makes it harder to see how to use the recipe in a reenactment setting.
- I don’t read old english (as english is not my first language) so when she refers to the original recipe (printed at the top of each page) she looses me.
- I am really missing a introduction to each dish – many of them complacently foreign to me both because of the name and the age of the dish.
- I really wish for pictures of the dishes – luckly the internet can often help with that.
But it was an inspiring read and I read it all in a day.
The stats
Published: 2012 by British Museum Press (originally 1992)
Read: October 20, 2016
Format: Paperback
The author: Female, United Kingdoms