By Florence Swan Whilst digging through medieval English cookery collections for my thesis I came across a curious fifteenth-century recipe that suggests using ale to make pastry short and supple: ‘Yf ye will have your past short and sopill that ye bake with, knede hit with good ale and it will be short’.[1] Intrigued by … Continue reading Food for Thought: A Medieval Experiment with Ale Pastry→
By James Brown The HERA-funded research project Intoxicating Spaces (2019–22), on which I was fortunate enough to work and which explored material environments for the production, trafficking, and consumption of new intoxicants in Amsterdam, Hamburg, London, and Stockholm 1600–1850, coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and its attendant lockdowns. An avid user of bars, cafes, and … Continue reading Outside Issues: Tea Gardens in Early Modern London→
By Érika Wicky If the decorative arts of the eighteenth century shine so brightly, it is thanks to the innovation and mastering of techniques such as gilding and varnishing.[i] While the latter may have given surfaces the shiny appearance that was particularly desirable at the time, both were above all essential to protect wood, especially … Continue reading Roubo and Watin: The Sweet Scent of Early Modern Varnishes→
By Sora (Skye) Osuka Tofu Hyakuchin (豆腐百珍, One Hundred Delightful Tastes of Tofu Recipes), originally published in 1782, is often considered the first cookbook that only focuses on one ingredient and the beginning of the Hyakuchin-mono (百珍物, One Hundred Recipes of Delightful Tastes) series. Harada Nobuo, Eric Rath, and other historians of Japan have argued … Continue reading One Hundred Delightful Tastes of Tofu: How Doable Was an Early Modern Japanese Recipe?→