Customer Reviews

Savoring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789

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If you are obsessed with cooking and want a sense of the history of French cooking and cookbooks, this is the book for you. Don't buy it if you are looking for a fun dramatic read. I give it 4 stars, mostly for not contextualizing the cooking enough within the times; it's more a scholarly paper on cookbooks. She is more focused on recipes, origins of recipes, and history of recipes. However it is fun and very cool to have the 25 transcribed recipes in the back. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

You know, I just finished this book last night. It's a good book. Not a great book, but definately a good book.

The subject matter is French cooking and techniques (duh!), with the greatest emphasis on cookbooks throughout the ages that were published in or for France.

The author really knows her stuff and is a good writer. Yes, there are recipes. Not too many, 25 or so, I would guess, most of which would be orphans in today's kitchen. They would be considered too cumberson; too labor intensive (avoid any recipe whose preperations begins with "Day 1"); too expensive (As one can see from some of the ingredients for "Everyday Boullon": 4 pounds beef, a 6 pound chicken, 5 pounds boneless veal...); or maybe just too, er, "unique" i.e. Iced Cheese (sort of a cheese flavored slushy, without the cheese), or Strained Eggs in Wine Syrup.

But heck yeah, of you like reading books on cookery, if you like history, if you like bits and pieces of odd knowledge but all means, treat yourself to this book.