This collection of essays provides an overview of new scholarship on recipe books, one of the most popular non-fiction printed texts in, and one of the most common forms of manuscript compilation to survive from, the pre-modern era (c.1550–1800). This is the first book to collect together the wide variety of scholarly approaches to pre-modern recipe books written in English, drawing on varying approaches to reveal their culinary, medical, scientific, linguistic, religious and material meanings. Ten scholars from the fields of culinary history, history of medicine and science, divinity, archaeology and material culture, and English literature and linguistics contribute to a vibrant mapping of the aspirations invested in, and uses of, recipes and recipe books. By exploring areas as various as the knowledge economies of medicine, Anglican feasting and fasting practices, the material culture of the kitchen and table, London publishing and concepts of authorship and the aesthetics of culinary styles, these eleven essays (including a critical introduction to recipe books and their historiography) position recipe texts in the wider culture of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They illuminate their importance to both their original compilers and users, and modern scholars and graduate students alike.
Excerpt from Notes From a Collectors Catalogue: With a Bibliography of English Cookery Books I Must keep three rules if I wish to collect wisely - (1) Collect only what is beautiful or of great human interest. I must never let myself be carried away by a love of freaky, such as coins wrongly stamped, or books with mistakes in their title-pages, which were withdrawn from circulation as soon as the mistake was discovered. (2) Collect only things which are scarce; let there be a clear limit to whatever is being collected. I have often found things common which at first seemed very rare. Now, before I go far in collecting a new thing, I ask myself, "Can a millionaire overtake me in a week?" If it is probable he can, I send the collection to a salesroom, and start on something else. Moreover, I must not start on any branch which is too vast for modest means, but must call to mind how heedlessly I began collecting old china without any idea of the extent of the subject. (3) Give special attention to things which museums would be glad to possess. Even collectors have more or less of a socialist conscience, which needs at times to be comforted. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.