Customer Reviews

Fabulous Feasts: Medieval Cookery and Ceremony

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Buy this book for the illustrations if you want, but don't be lured into believing that the scholarship is accurate! Cosman does NOT document her recipes (as a matter of fact, she has admitted in lectures to making some of them up), she does not give original recipes and sources, and she continually substitutes ingredients and methods unknown in Europe in the Renaissance. This book is old and the "fantasy" research is long outdated by the excellent work of Hieatt, Santich, Redon, Scully, and the like.

Lots of information about food preparation and laws in medieval Europe, including modern "adaptations" of medieval recipes. Unfortunately, many of these adaptations are extremely loose, e.g. not showing the original recipe being "adapted", and using ingredients that don't remotely resemble anything available in medieval Europe. Enormous bibliography, but no indication of which source any given recipe or statement came from, so there's no way to check their accuracy.

On the positive side, the book includes many quotations from sumptuary and sanitation laws, which give insight into medieval food practices.

Although this book claims to be a historical reference about 1500c cookery it is not an accurate reference. The recipies are not historically accurate, and the book does not provide the original recipes. [bad], "exploitive", "fantasy" are words that my wife (a food historian) uses to describe this book.

Recommend anything by terrance scully.

Most of the book is a disucssion of various aspects of food in medieval society. The writing style is light and quick to read while giving a lot of information. Her foot notes and bibliography are EXTENSIVE. The recipes at the end are not the main point ofthe book. Many of them are delicious but they are not what you want if complete authenticity is what you are looking for. If you want a "flavor" of the middle ages, they are fine. Again, the best thing about the book are the references.

My background is in Medieval History. I have always been fascinated with flavours and sounds in addition to kings and social movements. This, of course, led to the discovery of Fabulous Feasts.

Now as to the 100% accuracy of the recipes, I am unable to vouch. I can say, however, that they are all clearly discribed and easy to follow. I have a particular fondness for the arbolyetts and the parsley bread. I have cooked, at one time or another over the past 15 years, about 2/3 of the recipes -- some are definitely acquired tastes and some are pure show-stoppers.

Cosman also does a marvelous job of giving you food lore and manners of the latter half of the Middle Ages. From the salacious to the practical, all sorts of information is here. Her bibliography is helpful for those who want to follow further in her footsteps and her list of where to get the ingredients is good, but a bit dated. WARNING: at least one of the spice stores listed has shut since this book was first released.

This is a book for cooks and amateur historians. It is not a HISTORY book, but rather a cookbook that gets into a bit of history and allows you to sample the tastes of another time and place.

This delightful book not only provides unusual, and often excellent recipies, but a vivid rendition of life in medieval times and the roles that society and religious observances dictated during the times. While focusing on the delacies served at banquets, it also carefully details the drudgery of a castle kitchen, what we now know to be unsafe eating habits, as well as the manners and customs of the time.

The recipies are also excellent icebreakers to serve at festivities where the guests might not know each other.

Another reviewer has taken the author to task for not being absolutely authentic in every detail. I have been cooking from this book for 20 years and with very few exceptions each recipe has been very well received by the literally hundreds of people I have served. Some of my favorites - the Roste (a beef roast cooked in a lovely goo of fruits, honey and beef juices) the Fruytes Ryal Rice (sounds ghastly but beautiful and tasty), and the Blak Perys (my favorite dessert of any time or place).

I have used this book as the basis for classroom medieval feasts with great success, and students who have chosen medieval food and eating practices as a research subject have found the book very useful, one whose information fits well with that of other sources and is usually easier to understand. A wonderful addition to kitchen or library!

I cook, a lot. I am a historical interpreter and a 15th century re-enactor, and I love the taste of really good food. For those who don't care if this is historically accurate or not, then I think you've missed the point of owning a "medieval cookbook". If you like odd mixes of spices and experimentation, then have at it. For me, I'll pass having sampled several of these recipes that I found totally unpalatable.

So that you don't think it's all wine vinegar, I will offer up a few excellent titles for your approval. If you're interested in ceremony and how things are done at the table regarding manners and how to serve the high table, read the following:

The Babees Boke of Manners
The Boke of Keruynge (Book of Carving) 1508 (Southover Press Historic Cookery & Housekeeping): The Book of Carving (Wynkyn de Worde)

If you want real medieval cookbooks with the documentation to back up the recipes contained between the covers, then I'd like to suggest the following cook books:

Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks, an excellent beginners book (1996)
The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy (2000)
Early French Cookery: Sources, History, Original Recipes and Modern Adaptations(2002)

There are others, but these are the three that I use often, and most new comers to the world of medieval cookery will discover that many of the recipes are very pleasing to the modern palate.

As an author of historical fiction, I used this book for research. I found it very inspiring, especially the chapter "Sex, Smut, Sin and Spirit" but my research is strictly 12th century, and I would have found this book more helpful if it was more specific in its timelines. In the same chapter, you'll find references to the meals of kings who lived centuries apart. The bibliography is quite extensive, so others also using this book for research will find the additional references helpful. Great illustrations, definitely not a "dry" research book.