I’ve been listening to a Great Courses series about food and cooking through the ages and it’s got me [del]hungry[/del] inspired. I’d like some recommendations on one or more dishes to make from whatever era you’d care to throw at me.
I’m particularly interested in experiencing different flavor profiles from other periods in time, more than in authentic presentation or processes. So while I’m willing to hunt down ingredients (within reason), I won’t be getting any specialized equipment.
I’m also interested in hearing about favorite dishes that don’t meet my criteria. What got you into the hobby in the first place? Do you do reenactments or just generally enjoy putzing around the kitchen with old cookbooks?
Way back in high school I followed an Elizabethan rtecipe for Chicken with Grapes – it was pretty good.
More recently, I researched ancient recipes for a story. If you want to know what Romans ate, have a look at Apicius. It’s available from Dover books, and contains a lot of unusual Roman foods. Be aware, though, that you’ll have to use some imagination – the recipes in Apicius aren’t given I a detailed form
(I also used things I found in Petronius’ Satyricon, but Trimalchio’s feast was luxury – definitely not typical Rioman dining.)
Not quite the same, but in the ballpark: I’ve been really enjoying Townsend’s 18th Century Cooking channel on YouTube. There’s a ton of content on there, and I’d imagine a good amount of it could be translated to ancient or medieval settings with few changes.
Personally, I’d be very interested in ancient or medieval cooking, but I’m not aware of as many resources for learning about it. Hell, I just learned about Apicius today (thanks, Cal). I do plan on building an earthen oven this summer, and I have a fair amount of experience cooking over an open wood/charcoal fire with cast iron (we did a whole thanksgiving dinner cooked outside over the fire one year, minus the turkey, which we deep fried). So anyway, I’m hoping to get deeper into this hobby soon.
On another note, I really only realized recently by watching the 18th Century Cooking channel that there are other types of historical reenactors than just the US Civil War. I’ve literally never seen anything else. Well, except for Colonial Williamsburg and Renaissance Fairs, I guess, but those seem more like full time jobs than a hobby.
CalMeacham: thanks for the resources! I’m admittedly hoping that somebody who has already gone through the “use some imagination” bit will wander through here and save me the trouble. The series I’m listening to now actually mentioned Apicius and the Satyricon. The feast story is awesome.
There are places that “translate” Apicius into modern recipe form. There apparently used to be one linked in the Wikipedia article, but it’s dead. Nevertheless, the first search I did turned up this site:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/ethnic/historical/ant-rom-coll.html
Lots more of them out there. Personally, I found some of the recipes kinda disgusting (brain and other organ meat pies), but then you stumble across something like “cheese basted in wine” and it restores your faith.
Been into SCA cooking for decades, a couple of resources: Stefan’s Florilegium Archive, Stefan li Rous has been compiling info from usenet and email lists for various SCA interest groups for around 20 years, and one of his interests is in cooking, so there are a fair number of recipes, commentaries and conversations about various aspects of cooking. Searchable.
Cariadoc’s Miscellaney, Duke Sir Cariadoc is a real old timer in the SCA, and his real life is almost as interesting, he is David Friedman the economist. He and his wife love cooking, and work on interpreting the recipes into a form that is like a modern cookbook, with commentary on what they have done. He has stuff from Europe and the East.
I got into it because I found a bunch of people in armor whacking on each other at a college campus, and sort of fell into the SCA. I have always liked to cook, so playing around with the extant ‘cookbooks’ came naturally.
I will make an interesting comment on period cookbooks - they were not like modern ones, they are more of an aide memoire for the professional chef as they tended to be written by chefs for chefs. Sometimes it will give a really skewed viewpoint to what people think [ everything was highly spiced to cover the rotting meat … no, just because it may list 20 seasonings doesn’t mean they just dumped handsfuls of each one in, just like a BBQ rub recipe may call for lots of ingredients each one in small amounts, and they had different flavor profiles, we don’t normally think of cinnamon as a savory meat pie spice but a sweet dessert pie spice.] So if you do get into playing with old recipes [and Townsends videos are GREAT for the time periods foods!] and have questions, ask them here and one of us will chime in. Though there is an SCA cooks group on facebook you can join.
A friend wrote two books about a cook in ancient Rome, very well researched and well written. She has a bunch of recipes available, and free cook book you can get as well.
For dipping your toes in, rather than hardcore research, I find the Book Of Gode Cookery to be a good start.
I learned to cook medieval in the SCA. From this Lady, mostly.
Cool recipe for an unusual Roman dessert, for an idea of a different taste profile: roast peaches in cumin sauce. Modern version using canned peaches here but trust me, it’s way better with fresh peaches, honey and fish sauce, as detailed here - try the ostrich, too, that’s my contribution to that particular feast. Venison or beef fillet are OK substitutes for ostrich.
My bog-standard, go-to generic Medieval recipes for feasts - some things I can cook without a recipe and know the populace will want more of - are blanc manger , chawettys, ember day tart, mushroom pasties, poumes, and baked mete (a pear custard tart) for dessert (all those last are sketched here, but more comprehensive recipes can be Googled easily enough.)
While the flavour profiles of medieval food can be a bit unusual for some people, I found it at once familiar and comforting - the CapeMalaycooking I grew up with has a very similar sweet-savoury approach.
