6 ms·

Search through historical cookbooks dating back to the Middle Ages

100 points by stiray 4y ago

dariosalvi78 4y ago
no recipes tho, only metadata
- stiray 4y ago
  Not necessary, depends on the source, for instance I got this one: https://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/12114/7 https://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/12114/7 (when you trigger the search or view the Works table, the links are in last column) But it does help if you know the language... :D
jdmtheNth 4y ago
Interesting, but not useful.
xwdv 4y ago
Useless if you’re expecting to find ancient recipes
- fedeb95 4y ago
  Wrong expectations lead to uselessness
  - vixen99 4y ago
    Given "Search through historical cookbooks dating back to the Middle Age", one might be forgiven for expecting to find the odd recipe.
    - jghn 4y ago
      Even in the best scenario, recipes back then weren't like recipes now. A modern cook would find them useless as well, they left quite a bit up to assumed knowledge & experience.
    - fedeb95 4y ago
      sure, the problem is that some comments aren't forgiving to the service for their expectations
  - xwdv 4y ago
    “Search through historical cookbooks!” *looks for recipes* “No not like that”
tokai 4y ago
For those that find this unuseful. Most of the works in the base has been digitized by google and others. Just look up any title you're interested in and you'll find the work.
- RajT88 4y ago
  I can see the complaints even then: "Useless cookbook! My local grocer has never heard of Silphium"
danielvaughn 4y ago
If I ever become fantastically wealthy, one thing I'd love to do is build a culinary museum. Imagine rotating exhibits where you can taste-test food from hundreds of years ago (or at least a close approximation).
- meee 4y ago
  City Tavern in Philadelphia serves food made from 18th century recipes, using the tools available at that time. The prices are in line with typical casual dining (Applebees for example). It's fun if you are in the area but some recipes have improved in the meantime. IMHO, creme brulee benefitted from the appropriation of the butane torch (I think City Tavern uses an iron).
  - teruakohatu 4y ago
    I just Googled and apparently it is closed: > After 26 years, Chef Staib has decided to not renew his contract with Independence National Historical Park as operator of City Tavern. He closed the doors to the patrons effective November 2, 2020 allowing time wrap up affairs before turning the building back over to the Park Service.
- thadk 4y ago
  The lunch cafeteria at the Museum of the American Indian in DC is fabulous sort of in this way.
fedeb95 4y ago
Very useful. I searched for "pasta" and almost nothing showed up but I think I am not yet very good at using the tool. Anyway it's very interesting to have a database of some old text about cooking to search.
- dom96 4y ago
  I just tried "chicken", lots of stuff came up
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  Pasta and its cognates is a real ball of culinary-taxonomic mud so that's a pretty unlucky first choice I think. The word pasta and etymological relatives are also the words for all dough, sausage (pâté), porridge, pastry (pâtisserie), pesto, etc etc in different european cuisines and that's just what I know off the top of my head, in use in the last few decades. If you expand it out a couple hundred years who fucking knows what will have been known by that word or its variants. I'm not even sure how long that usage dates in english either. Even as recently as mid-late 20th century american cookbooks referred to all noodles as macaroni and used that word generically the same way we use pasta now.
  - perihelions 4y ago
    I think pesto doesn't belong there: it comes from a different Latin word that seems unrelated. - "From Latin pistus (“crushed, pounded”), from Latin pīnsō (“to pound, beat, crush”), whose frequentative also gave Italian pestare (“to pound”)." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pesto#Italian https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pesto#Italian https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pasta#Latin https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pasta#Latin
- stonemetal12 4y ago
  >First attested in English in 1874, the word pasta comes from Italian pasta, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasta Evidently it is a young word relatively speaking.
  - 4y ago
dom96 4y ago
There are some really amazing books in here. Like this one from 1390 written in Old English https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433078975988&view=1up&seq=27 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433078975988&vi... Might give cooking a few of these a try
- macintux 4y ago
  Nitpick: that’s definitely not Old English, which is mostly incomprehensible to most readers today. That’s Middle English. Here’s an example of Old English. https://www.omniglot.com/images/langsamples/smp_oldenglish.gif https://www.omniglot.com/images/langsamples/smp_oldenglish.g...
  - dom96 4y ago
    Ahh! Thanks for the correction
Herodotus38 4y ago
I searched for beef, went through the list of results trying to find a recipe. I eventually got a link to a scanned google book called “Biscuits and Dried Beef, a Panacea” but then I started reading it and the first page had a quote from poetry. “Cool, these 1800 cookbooks were so well read”, but then as I continued it turned out to be a pleasant fictional work on the life of a poor young Episcopalian Priest with a young family. Nice find but seems like there’s a lot of noise in this.
- yamazakiwi 4y ago
  You found the old version of modern recipe sites.
  - Herodotus38 4y ago
    I wish I had made that connection, nicely done.
bakuninsbart 4y ago
Compared to some of these, it is not very old, but I regularly use a German cookbook from the 1800s. It was specifically crafted for young women learning to organize a household and contains detailed instructions about every necessary step to take. The other big advantage is that it almost entirely relies on local ingredients, so it is very cheap to cook, as long as you reduce the amounts suggested for butter and eggs.
- f001 4y ago
  What book is this? I’d be interested in adding it to my collection.
  - bakuninsbart 4y ago
    https://www.booklooker.de/B%C3%BCcher/Henriette-und-Marie-Hrsg-Walter-Davidis+Henriette-Davidis-Praktisches-Kochbuch-f%C3%BCr-die-gew%C3%B6hnliche/id/A02rzu1001ZZW?zid=q3veq1eibnn7i7o5m0jguj7pp9 https://www.booklooker.de/B%C3%BCcher/Henriette-und-Marie-Hr... I fear there won't be an English version of it though.
    - wernerzeigler2 4y ago
      Libgen has the 1897 and 1904 in German, the 1904 in English, second to last result on this search page: https://libgen.rs/search.php?req=Davidis&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=detailed&res=100&phrase=1&column=def https://libgen.rs/search.php?req=Davidis&lg_topic=libgen&ope... Compiled and adapted for the United States, according to the Thirty-fifth German Original, with Weights and Measures in American equivalents, and an Appendix of Selected Recipes of Peculiar American Dishes Embracing also a Topically arranged List of over 550 Characteristic German Dishes in German, with English translation, giving page where these Recipes can be found ; also a Vocabulary of Culinary Terms in both languages, with full table.
voytec 4y ago
There is a blog called Rare Cooking, which digs out old recipes, like John Locke's recipe for Pancakes[1]. [1] https://rarecooking.com/2021/12/14/john-lockes-recipe-for-pancakes/ https://rarecooking.com/2021/12/14/john-lockes-recipe-for-pa...
jwsteigerwalt 4y ago
The Townsends YouTube channel is a fantastic look into the mechanics of early American cooking. https://youtube.com/@townsends https://youtube.com/@townsends

100 points by stiray 4y ago

dariosalvi78 4y ago

no recipes tho, only metadata

stiray 4y ago
Not necessary, depends on the source, for instance I got this one: https://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/12114/7 https://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/12114/7 (when you trigger the search or view the Works table, the links are in last column) But it does help if you know the language... :D

jdmtheNth 4y ago

Interesting, but not useful.

xwdv 4y ago

Useless if you’re expecting to find ancient recipes

fedeb95 4y ago
Wrong expectations lead to uselessness
- vixen99 4y ago
  Given "Search through historical cookbooks dating back to the Middle Age", one might be forgiven for expecting to find the odd recipe.
  - jghn 4y ago
    Even in the best scenario, recipes back then weren't like recipes now. A modern cook would find them useless as well, they left quite a bit up to assumed knowledge & experience.
  - fedeb95 4y ago
    sure, the problem is that some comments aren't forgiving to the service for their expectations
- xwdv 4y ago
  “Search through historical cookbooks!” *looks for recipes* “No not like that”

tokai 4y ago

For those that find this unuseful. Most of the works in the base has been digitized by google and others. Just look up any title you're interested in and you'll find the work.

RajT88 4y ago
I can see the complaints even then: "Useless cookbook! My local grocer has never heard of Silphium"

danielvaughn 4y ago

If I ever become fantastically wealthy, one thing I'd love to do is build a culinary museum. Imagine rotating exhibits where you can taste-test food from hundreds of years ago (or at least a close approximation).

meee 4y ago
City Tavern in Philadelphia serves food made from 18th century recipes, using the tools available at that time. The prices are in line with typical casual dining (Applebees for example). It's fun if you are in the area but some recipes have improved in the meantime. IMHO, creme brulee benefitted from the appropriation of the butane torch (I think City Tavern uses an iron).
- teruakohatu 4y ago
  I just Googled and apparently it is closed: > After 26 years, Chef Staib has decided to not renew his contract with Independence National Historical Park as operator of City Tavern. He closed the doors to the patrons effective November 2, 2020 allowing time wrap up affairs before turning the building back over to the Park Service.
thadk 4y ago
The lunch cafeteria at the Museum of the American Indian in DC is fabulous sort of in this way.

fedeb95 4y ago

Very useful. I searched for "pasta" and almost nothing showed up but I think I am not yet very good at using the tool. Anyway it's very interesting to have a database of some old text about cooking to search.

dom96 4y ago
I just tried "chicken", lots of stuff came up
giraffe_lady 4y ago
Pasta and its cognates is a real ball of culinary-taxonomic mud so that's a pretty unlucky first choice I think. The word pasta and etymological relatives are also the words for all dough, sausage (pâté), porridge, pastry (pâtisserie), pesto, etc etc in different european cuisines and that's just what I know off the top of my head, in use in the last few decades. If you expand it out a couple hundred years who fucking knows what will have been known by that word or its variants. I'm not even sure how long that usage dates in english either. Even as recently as mid-late 20th century american cookbooks referred to all noodles as macaroni and used that word generically the same way we use pasta now.
- perihelions 4y ago
  I think pesto doesn't belong there: it comes from a different Latin word that seems unrelated. - "From Latin pistus (“crushed, pounded”), from Latin pīnsō (“to pound, beat, crush”), whose frequentative also gave Italian pestare (“to pound”)." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pesto#Italian https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pesto#Italian https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pasta#Latin https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pasta#Latin
stonemetal12 4y ago
>First attested in English in 1874, the word pasta comes from Italian pasta, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasta Evidently it is a young word relatively speaking.
- 4y ago

dom96 4y ago

There are some really amazing books in here. Like this one from 1390 written in Old English https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433078975988&view=1up&seq=27 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433078975988&vi... Might give cooking a few of these a try

macintux 4y ago
Nitpick: that’s definitely not Old English, which is mostly incomprehensible to most readers today. That’s Middle English. Here’s an example of Old English. https://www.omniglot.com/images/langsamples/smp_oldenglish.gif https://www.omniglot.com/images/langsamples/smp_oldenglish.g...
- dom96 4y ago
  Ahh! Thanks for the correction

Herodotus38 4y ago

I searched for beef, went through the list of results trying to find a recipe. I eventually got a link to a scanned google book called “Biscuits and Dried Beef, a Panacea” but then I started reading it and the first page had a quote from poetry. “Cool, these 1800 cookbooks were so well read”, but then as I continued it turned out to be a pleasant fictional work on the life of a poor young Episcopalian Priest with a young family. Nice find but seems like there’s a lot of noise in this.

yamazakiwi 4y ago
You found the old version of modern recipe sites.
- Herodotus38 4y ago
  I wish I had made that connection, nicely done.

bakuninsbart 4y ago

Compared to some of these, it is not very old, but I regularly use a German cookbook from the 1800s. It was specifically crafted for young women learning to organize a household and contains detailed instructions about every necessary step to take. The other big advantage is that it almost entirely relies on local ingredients, so it is very cheap to cook, as long as you reduce the amounts suggested for butter and eggs.

f001 4y ago
What book is this? I’d be interested in adding it to my collection.
- bakuninsbart 4y ago
  https://www.booklooker.de/B%C3%BCcher/Henriette-und-Marie-Hrsg-Walter-Davidis+Henriette-Davidis-Praktisches-Kochbuch-f%C3%BCr-die-gew%C3%B6hnliche/id/A02rzu1001ZZW?zid=q3veq1eibnn7i7o5m0jguj7pp9 https://www.booklooker.de/B%C3%BCcher/Henriette-und-Marie-Hr... I fear there won't be an English version of it though.
  - wernerzeigler2 4y ago
    Libgen has the 1897 and 1904 in German, the 1904 in English, second to last result on this search page: https://libgen.rs/search.php?req=Davidis&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=detailed&res=100&phrase=1&column=def https://libgen.rs/search.php?req=Davidis&lg_topic=libgen&ope... Compiled and adapted for the United States, according to the Thirty-fifth German Original, with Weights and Measures in American equivalents, and an Appendix of Selected Recipes of Peculiar American Dishes Embracing also a Topically arranged List of over 550 Characteristic German Dishes in German, with English translation, giving page where these Recipes can be found ; also a Vocabulary of Culinary Terms in both languages, with full table.

voytec 4y ago

There is a blog called Rare Cooking, which digs out old recipes, like John Locke's recipe for Pancakes[1]. [1] https://rarecooking.com/2021/12/14/john-lockes-recipe-for-pancakes/ https://rarecooking.com/2021/12/14/john-lockes-recipe-for-pa...

jwsteigerwalt 4y ago

The Townsends YouTube channel is a fantastic look into the mechanics of early American cooking. https://youtube.com/@townsends https://youtube.com/@townsends