Customer Reviews

Fooles and Fricassees: Food in Shakespeare's England

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This is a catalogue that was prepared to accompany an exhibition of books and manuscripts that was shown at the Folger Shakespeare Library from September - December 1999. This is not a history of Tudor/Elizabethan food, nor is it a comprehensive bibliography of Tudor/Elizabethan cookbooks. It very much reflects what the Folger owns. The essay by Joan Thirsk is quite good, and it does contain a literal transcription of a c1610 manuscript belonging to a Mrs. Sarah Longe. If you like exhibition catalogues, it's quite a nice one, but certainly not as essential to food history as say C. Anne Wilson's Food and Drink in Britain.

A catalogue from an exhibition held at the Folger Library. Despite its name, many of the subjects are post-Bard: he died in 1616, and quite a few items are dated 1650 to 1700. The exhibition was very broadly focused - everything from plates and cups, recipe books, paintings of diners, and so forth. There are lots of good pictures. The appendix transcribes "Mrs. Sarah Longe her Receipt Booke", published around 1610. It combines recipes ("To make rice-puddings") and dubious medicinal tips ("To stop the bleeding of a wound: Take a peece of an Old hatt, and burne it in the fire to a Cole then grind it to powser, and straw it into the wound."

This is a lovely catalogue, filled with excellent commentary and beautiful illustrations from the collection of the Folger Library. There is much to cherish here for Shakespeare lovers as well as Shakespeare scholars -- and for anyone interested in the history of food and hospitality. It is not compendious -- keep in mind that it is a catalogue for an exhibition -- but it is well-designed and thoughtfully assembled.