Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks, and: Early French Cookery: Sources, History, Original Recipes and Modern Adaptations (review)

Reviews I83 Hieatt, Constance B., Brenda Hosington and Sharon Butler, Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks, Toronto/Buffalo/London, University of Toronto Press, second edition., 1996; paper; pp. xxviii 172; R.R.P. US$17.95, £13.00. Scully, D. Eleanor and Terence Scully, Early French Cookery: Sources, History, Original Recipes and Modern Adaptations, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1995; cloth; pp. 337; R.R.P. US$29.95. On first coming to review these medieval cookbooks, I was struck by the strange position which books of this genre assume. As 'medieval' cookbooks they are avowedly 'historical' in nature; indeed, both place emphasis on the authenticity of the recipes they present. In the case of Hieatt and her coauthors "The emphasis of the book is on making medieval cookery accessible by enabling today's cooks to produce authentic medieval dishes with as much fidelity as possible . . . Authenticity of composition, taste, and appearance are the book's main concerns.' (p. i) Similarly, for the Scullys, 'Our criteria for the selection of recipes to be developed for inclusion in this book have always been authenticity and interest. The modernised version of the old recipe is in every case as authentically close to the original as is reasonably possible in order to produce a dish that a late-medieval diner would immediately recognise and enjoy. And each of the dishes we have chosen is interesting in and by itself, interesting both gastronomically and historically (p. 51). At the same time however, the books locate themselves in the market as modem cookbooks, rather than historical texts. In this capacity both stress the connections between medieval and m o d e m cookery, even the debt which we as m o d e m gastronomes, owe to this era. The Scullys refer to the middle ages as 'this not-really-so-distant period in the history of good cooking'. For Hieatt et al, 'The post-medieval revolution in tastes and cooking habits assumed by earlier writers on this subject is more a matter of emphases than of basic tastes and techniques . . . Almost everything that may seem alien to traditional British and North American cooking has modern descendants somewhere in European cuisine.' (pp. xv-xvi) It is perhaps in cookbooks that the m o d e m desire for a distinct and different historical past, yet one which is infinitely reproducible and comprehensible, and in this case actually edible, is most apparent. The merit of the books therefore rests on two bases, their historical presentation of the middle ages, and the value of the recipes which they offer to the individual for the m o d e m constmction of this period. 184 Reviews Both books take a similar format, of breaking the dishes offered down into categories for the m o d e m cook—hors d'oeuvres, entrees, main dishes, desserts—having first explained that such distinctions were almost meaningless in the middle ages in any case. Similarly, they both supply extracts from the original recipe before their m o d e m adaptation thereof, citing the manuscript or printed edition in which the original recipe can be found. The editors of Pleyn Delit have gone further afield in search of recipes than those of Early French Cookery, and include recipes from Italy, Catalonia and Arabia, as well as the majority which come from England and France. In each case the time period covered is roughly the twelfth to fifteenth centuries. Pleyn Delit is an excellent cookbook, and the publication of this second edition is a testament to its popularity. The book contains a wide range of recipes, the majority of which are simple to prepare and very well explained. Where written explanation does not suffice, the editors have provided clear illustrations to help in the construction of some of the more complicated recipes, such as Chastletes (no. 140). The focus of the book is really on gaining the best medieval tastes with the least effort on the part of the m o d e m cook. The historical detail supplied in the Introduction is interesting, but not surprising, and serves only to contextualise the recipes in a very general exposition of...