Providing a unique perspective on a fascinating aspect of early modern culture, this volume focuses on the role of food and diet as represented in the works of a range of European authors, including Shakespeare, from the late medieval period to the mid seventeenth century. The volume is divided into several sections, the first of which is 'Eating in Early Modern Europe'; contributors consider cultural formations and cultural contexts for early modern attitudes to food and diet, moving from the more general consideration of European and English manners to the particular consideration of historical attitudes toward specific foodstuffs. The second section is 'Early Modern Cookbooks and Recipes', which takes readers into the kitchen and considers the development of the cultural artifact we now recognize as the cookbook, how early modern recipes might 'work' today, and whether cookery books specifically aimed at women might have shaped domestic creativity. Part Three, 'Food and Feeding in Early Modern Literature' offers analysis of the engagement with food and feeding in key literary European and English texts from the early sixteenth to the early seventeenth century: Francois Rabelais' "Quart livre", Shakespeare's plays, and seventeenth-century dramatic prologues. The essays included in this collection are international and interdisciplinary in their approach; they incorporate the perspectives of historians, cultural commentators, and literary critics who are leaders in the field of food and diet in early modern culture.
Table of Contents
1 Crammed with distressful bread? : bakers and the poor in early modern England, Diane Purkiss 11
2 Fishes, fowl, and La Fleur de toute cuysine : Gaster and gastronomy in Rabelais's Quart livre, Timothy J. Tomasik T J. 25
3 Recipes for knowledge : maker's knowledge traditions, Paracelsian recipes, and the invention of the cookbook, 1600-1660, Elizabeth Spiller 55
4 Cooking as research methodology : experiments in Renaissance cuisine Ken Albala Albala, Ken 73
5 Distillation : transformations in and out of the kitchen, Wendy Wall 89
6 Performances of the banquet course in early modern drama, Tracy Thong 107
7 'I must eat my dinner' : Shakespeare's foods from apples to walrus, Joan Fitzpatrick 127
8 Narrative and dramatic sauces : reflections upon creativity, cookery, and culinary metaphor in some early seventeenth-century dramatic prologues, Chris Meads 145
Index 167
