Tag Archives: Culinary Recipes

Stretching the Boundaries

By Lino Mioni

Roselli, G. d. Epulario quale tratta del modo de cucinare ogni carne, ucelli, pesci de ogni sorte, et fare sapori, torte, et pastelli al modo de tutte le provincie / [giovanni de roselli]. Venice: 1538. Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection.
Roselli, G. d. Epulario quale tratta del modo de cucinare ogni carne, ucelli, pesci de ogni sorte, et fare sapori, torte, et pastelli al modo de tutte le provincie / [giovanni de roselli]. Venice: 1538. Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection.

Collating together in one single volume the medical and culinary knowledge and recipes, or any other form of instructions, of food preservation and fermentation, is an activity that has been performed by many social groups, regardless of size (be it family, estate, professional association, church, congregation). Usually in manuscript form, these recipe collections are the essence of shared culinary traditions and common knowledge and, ultimately, they are brought into existence by a desire to protect and preserve that knowledge and traditions for future generations. 

Not having the tangible economic value and purpose of their printed counterparts, manuscript culinary recipe collections represent a type of text that can offer a wide range of analysis exactly because of their more intrinsically personal and variable nature. Due to their different origins, scope, and purpose, these manuscript recipe collections can assume varied forms; they can be prepared exclusively for personal use or for collective fruition; they can be prepared to be shared with individuals outside of the social group or not; they can be created for simply preserving the common shared knowledge of a specific social group or to praise and extol the social group that produced them; and they can also be considered as cultural objects. These different types of culinary recipe collections are the focus of Kernan’s and Müllneritsch’s edited volume Culinary Texts in Context, 1500-1800. The nine contributions to the edited volume focus on culinary texts: the way these nine contributions are organized within the edited volume richly illustrates the wide scope of the research being done on manuscript culinary texts while, and at the same time, it stretches the boundaries of the research field itself. 

Ultimately, culinary texts are fascinating due to the low degree of authorship they display. One can claim authorship of a story, of a poem, of a play, or an idea, but is it even conceivable claiming authorship of the set of instructions for a culinary preparation, which is, by definition, shared and common knowledge? Although a person might inscribe herself/himself as the initial compiler of a manuscript recipe collection, this person is just the organizer and editor of the chosen contents. Moreover, in case of family recipe collections more than one initial individual might collaborate by commenting on, adding to, and expanding the recipes of the original collection.

Two concepts that stand out throughout the volume are recipe collection and dissemination. Collecting recipes, when it comes to manuscripts culinary recipe compendia, at least in early modern and modern times, implies combining personal or household traditions with knowledge from attestors(such as geographical region or personal connection via recipes offered by friends, a person from another family, etc.), along with other information collated and collected from a variety of other sources: printed books, other publications, etc. In this latter case, although not impossible, the source of that recipe is not always easy to trace. Culinary recipe collections dissemination, although much easily detectable when it comes to printed cookbooks, is also present in the manuscript tradition. Recipes can be translated and transcribed in another language, giving access to culinary traditions of foreign countries. In this respect the chapters on Sir Martin’s Westcombe’s Iberian Recipes by Annamaria Valent and on Finnish manuscript recipe books by Maren Jonasson and Märtha Norrback are particularly interesting since, although in different social and historical contexts, they reveal how not only culinary recipes and food preparations but ingredients can be disseminated beyond geographical and regional boundaries.

I mentioned before that Culinary Texts in Context, 1500-1800 by Sarah Peters Kernan and Helga Müllneritsch stretches the boundaries of the research field that focuses on manuscript recipe books. By giving a wider geographical scope to the research being done, this volume will not only entice further research and investigation, but also, and hopefully, expand the representation of other culinary traditions within the European continent within the research community.

Lino Mioni is Subject Librarian for Romance Languages and Literatures, Latin American Studies, and Linguistics at Washington University in St Louis Libraries. In his PhD dissertation (Indiana University 2020), he analyzes the 14th and 15th century traditions of culinary recipe collections of the Italian peninsula and investigates how these recipe collections are reappropriated and disseminated in printed editions. The introduction of print changed, among many other things, how culinary knowledge was produced, shared, and, consequently, used. Maestro Martino, and the manuscripts attributed to him, are a paradigmatic example of how a culinary recipe collection in manuscript form were used and circulated through print and by print. The many printed editions of the Epulario, which take the text from the Maestro Martino’s tradition, shed light on the editorial success a culinary recipe collection can have once it is transposed from manuscript to printed form, as well as on the characteristics of 16th and 17th century popular print culture.

Culinary Texts in Context, 1500-1800: My Five Cents

By Thomas Gloning, University of Gießen, Germany

Leonhardt Thurneysser: Historia Vnnd Beschreibung Influentischer/ Elementischer vnd Natürlicher Wirckungen/ Aller fremden vnnd Heimischen Erdgewechssen (…). 1578; extract from page 76. BSB Munich, URN: urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10147818-8

Reading Culinary Texts in Context, 1500-1800 was immensely enriching for me. Coming from linguistics with a focus on Medieval and Early Modern culinary and medical texts, the volume has reminded and shown me how much research perspectives have evolved during the last two decades and how much research has been done both on food texts and on medical literature in Latin and in the vernaculars. Here, I want to highlight five aspects of the edited volume or of some of its contributions.

Firstly, the temporal range (16th to early 19th centuries), the broad geographical range, the spectrum on culinary, medical, cosmetic, confectionary recipes, the analysis of both private and professional manuscripts and the richness of research questions provide a complex and inspiring matrix of the research field. While reading, I often said to myself: “Now, this is something that you did not yet encounter in your own previous research.” Which made me wonder: Was it not there? Or could I just not see it? In the future, I will look at German culinary and medical manuscripts differently.

Secondly, the contributions are a treasure trove in respect of bibliographic documentation. Earlier in this century, I tried to provide a “Bibliography on the history of cookery, food, wine etc., mainly 1350-1800” on the web , a project I gave up around 2013. The bibliographic sections of our volume show how much the body of research has grown recently and that a multi-faceted (languages, fields of practice, regions, gender, digitized sources, …) bibliographical data-base would be a valuable research tool. Or does such a multi-faceted bibliographical tool already exist?

Thirdly, in several contributions, one or more manuscripts are under scrutiny. E.g., Isabel Braga gives a systematically structured account of Franciso Borges Henriques‘ Portuguese Cookbook from 1715. In other contributions, several manuscripts are characterised (e.g. Barbara Denicolò) or a specific aspect of a cookery text is highlighted (e.g. in “Sir Martin Westcombe’s Iberian Recipes”). Which made me think about the relation of “broad and systematically structured accounts” of culinary or medical manuscripts vs. strategies of highlighting specific aspects of manuscripts for certain purposes. In respect to a “broad and systematically structured account,” one might ask: What are obligatory and optional topics of such a “portrait” of a culinary (medical, confectionary) manuscript? This question is essential for everybody writing a praefatio to an edition of a culinary manuscript. But the question is: What has to be dealt with in an editorial praefatio, what can be outsourced to special investigations? Anyway: It is good to have an overview about the aspects to deal or not to deal with in a portrait of a culinary or medical text. The contributions in our volume provide good examples for different strategies.

Fourthly, the chapter on “How to Be a Perfect Confectioner?” by Marta Manzanares Mileo contributes to an intersection field of professional/private and culinary/medical interests. It is highly interesting to see how the guilds of Barcelona used knowledge texts, or “repertoires of artisanal knowledge” (p. 177) to organize both training in and access to their craft. In this chapter and in other places in the volume we find very useful references to the vernacular tradition on confectionary making (e.g. Hannah Wooley, Serrano Larráyoz), which would deserve a more in-depth comparative study in the future. German language sources on this topic include Walter Ryff’s Confect Buch und Hauß Apoteck of 1544 (mentioned on p. 80, later editions), the German translation of Michel Nostradamus of 1572, and the translation of Nicolas Bonnefons with the title Der Frantzösische Confitirer, Welcher handelt: Von der Manier/ die Früchte in ihrer natürlichen Art zu erhalten of 1665.

Fifthly, in an edited volume with nine contributions on such a wide temporal, geographical and textual (culinary, medical) scope, it is clear that there must be lacunae relative to one’s own interests. From my point of view, the question of linguistic and multimodal organization of the manuscripts in question is not prominent (see the image from Thurneysser’s printed herbal, 1578, above, including a recipe for the medical use of fennel). And there are – of course – a few minor points of criticism related to some passages in the book. Quibbles aside, the volume’s contributions were immensely enriching for me.

Thomas Gloning is Professor of German Linguistics at Gießen University, Germany. His research includes text linguistics, multimodality, semantics, theory of meaning, lexicography, historical linguistics, the history of forms of communication, and the history of specialized texts in German (e.g. culinary texts, medical texts, herbals, balneological texts) among others. He tries to keep up with and now and then contributes to research on old culinary texts.

Images: coin icon is taken from Elizabeth I gold pound, 1594-1596, Coin Env. 100, Folger Shakespeare Library.

Call for Editors: Social Media and Acquisitions

The Recipes Project is looking for new editors to grow our readership and expand the range of scholarship we feature on the blog. Are you a savvy Tweeter who loves the back-and-forth exchange of social media? Are you a regular reader with ideas about what you’d like to see us feature on the blog? Do you love thinking about recipes in all their myriad forms? Then you might make a great social media or acquisitions editor, and we would love to hear from you!

Editorial duties include:

Social Media Editors

  • Amplifying, sharing, and promoting writing on recipes, especially by underrepresented groups 
  • Running our social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter)
  • Regular liaising with co-editors about site development, content, and promotion

Acquisitions Editors

  • Engaging with underrepresented groups and areas of study related to recipes, especially among underrepresented groups and non-Western societies
  • Connecting with and inviting potential contributors 
  • Organizing, editing, and uploading posts in rotation with other co-editors 
  • Regular liaising with co-editors about site development, content, and promotion 

About Us

The Recipes Project is an interdisciplinary, volunteer organization. This work is the unpaid product of a community of passionate scholars of recipes.

We welcome candidates from all backgrounds, including those engaged with the culinary arts, creative food writing, and academic research. We welcome scholars from a variety of disciplines: anthropology, comparative literature, classics, history, linguistics, literary criticism, sociology, and more. Graduate students are valued members of our community.  We particularly invite submissions from those from underrepresented groups and non-Western societies. 

The Recipes Project has an international reach that explores recipes of all kinds: medical, culinary, scientific, magical. Our posts cover a range of topics relating to historic cookbooks, instructions, ingredients, guidelines, and methods of cultivation and production across time and place. We value new writers and early career researchers, giving them a platform for new writing and supporting and amplifying their work. We have a broad audience—in 2021, we averaged 18,000 unique site visitors per month, and we have over 11.5K Twitter followers. We look forward to expanding further, with your help!

Application Details

To apply, please include a CV and one-page pitch describing what you wish to bring to the team. Acquisitions Editors: include two ideas for a month-long series and how you might expand our reach to new audiences. Social Media Editors: include two ideas for a week-long social media campaign that reaches distinct and diverse groups. Have other ideas? Send them our way! 

Please submit applications via email to recipesproject@brocku.ca. First review will begin on Feb. 1, 2022 and will continue until positions are filled.

Current Editorial Team

  • Clare Gordon Bettencourt
  • Jessica Clark
  • Amanda Herbert
  • R.A. Kashanipour
  • Sarah Peters Kernan
  • Melissa Reynolds
  • Joshua Schlachet
  • Miles Wilkerson

Around the Table: Bookseller Chat

This month on Around the Table, I am chatting with Don Lindgren, founder of Rabelais Inc., Fine Books on Food & Drink, located in Biddeford, Maine. Don has curated one of the largest selections of rare and out-of-print cookbooks in the United States at Rabelais, along with other food and drink materials including manuscripts, menus, prints, photographs, and other ephemera. Items sold at Rabelais date from the sixteenth century to the present.

Interior of Rabelais Books. Photo by Rabelais Inc.

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat! First, could you tell us how you got involved in the antiquarian culinary book trade?

I started in working in bookshops while still in high school in the late 1970s. When I arrived at college, I sought a job in a bookshop and stumbled into the Chicago Powell’s (the original!) where I was “educated” in an excellent scholarly used and rare shop. For the next twenty years I plodded my way up the ladder of the antiquarian trade, but never dealing with culinary materials. My field was always modern thought, which included philosophy, psychology, social theory, etc., as well as modern art, design, and architecture. My more narrow specialty was historical avant-gardism and the little magazines. It wasn’t until my wife (at the time), Samantha Hoyt Lindgren, and I moved to Maine that the idea of food and drink as our specialty arose. Samantha was a pastry cook at the time; we put the books and food together, and voila!

You handle a wide range of books on food and drink. How do you acquire your inventory? Could you share any interesting places you have found books?

Champignons de l’Ain, a manuscript study of the mycology of the Rhone-Alpes region, with forty-nine original watercolors of mushrooms (circa 1870). Photo by Greta Rybus.

I am interested in any type of material that is part of the wider world of food and drink culture, that includes cookbooks, but also books on subjects like wild foods and foraging, distilling, the history of packaging, food art, etc. Not just printed books, but also manuscript cookery books, and ephemera of all sorts that is part of food culture (menus, trade cards, advertising art, trade catalogues, etc.). My inventory comes from all of the various sources booksellers use: online listings, auctions, book scouts, book fairs, other, non-specialized booksellers, etc. My preferred type of purchase is a large collection from a seasoned collector, which is where I am most likely to run across books I have never seen before. Great books can be found everywhere; I once purchased a number of rare Elizabethan cookbooks from a small dealer in the Catskills. The books had come out of a private home along with other, mostly unremarkable books. 

Tell us a bit about the sale of books at your shop. How do you develop relationships with your customers and how do you know what books to match to their needs, budget, etc.? How much of your business is with institutional collections compared to private collectors?

I love selling books in the shop, because I can have a real conversation with the client. And best of all I can put a special item in their hands and see them react to holding something that might be a true piece of history, or just react to the materiality of it. But only a small percentage of my sales (less than 5%) occur in the shop. And 10% cover all sales in the shop and through online listings. The other 90% is what I’d call private client business—clients who know us and we know them. It’s a small number of individuals and institutions (about 50/50 institutions to private collectors) that make up the bulk of the sales. I like selling to both, but not just because I need sales from both to keep the business going. Institutions buy a broader range of materials, looking for subject quality, specific collections, archives, and other materials that contain a wider historical narrative. 

Athenaeus Naucratites; Bedrott, Jakob. Athenaiou Deipnosophiston biblia pentekaideka. Athenaei Dipnosophistarvm, hoc est argute sciteque conuiuio disserentum. Lib. XV, quibus nunc quantum operae ac diligentiae adhibitum sit satis fiedei erit. Basileae: Joannes Valderus, 1535. Photo by Knack Factory.

What is your process for researching, cataloguing, and pricing your inventory?

By choice I am definitely a “scholarly bookseller” even though most people don’t think of cookery, or even food history, as a particularly scholarly subject. I have a very large library of food history reference materials (over 2000 volumes) and another library of reference books on bibliography and book history (about the same size) and I use the collections as well as online sources in my daily research. The degree of detail in my cataloguing depends on the nature of the item. A well-known book, even if rare, doesn’t necessarily need the level of detail required by a less famous, but unrecognized, work. My cataloguing of early community cookbooks, for example, is extremely detailed, as almost no one has given the genre the attention it deserves. Pricing is complex and depends a great deal on the type of book: How common is it in today’s marketplace? Does it have relevant auction records? And do I have a client in mind for it? Examples of my detailed cataloguing can be found in the linked pdfs in the next response.

What are some of your favorite items you have carried in Rabelais Books over the years?

Hmmm. A tough one… but here goes.

  • An immaculate copy of Irma Rombauer’s original self-published Joy of Cooking (1931), in a pristine dust jacket, likely the best copy in existence. 

Thank you, Don, for chatting about Rabelais and the antiquarian culinary book trade! You can find Rabelais Books on Facebook @RabelaisBooks and Instagram @rabelaisbooks. If you would like to feature a project, scholar, or institution on Around the Table, please email Sarah Kernan.