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Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen

128 points by benbreen 12y ago

jack-r-abbit 12y ago
There is a group in San Francisco called the Guild of Cookery[1] that is doing this with old recipes and running pop-up dinners based on Game of Thrones feasts. I went to one and it was fascinating to hear them talk about finding old recipes and sourcing ingredients as authentic as they could get. Interesting stuff. [1] https://www.facebook.com/guildofcookery https://www.facebook.com/guildofcookery - sorry, they only have Facebook
gameshot911 12y ago
The image presentation on the site is beautiful. Is that a native feature of wordpress?
- rickyc091 12y ago
  It is indeed, you can pick from a number of image templates. They have single images, carousels, mosaics, grids among others off the top of my head.
- dbarlett 12y ago
  Sort of. WordPress provides the gallery; the carousel comes from the Jetpack plugin [1] which is included on wordpress.com sites and can be installed [2] on self-hosted sites. [1] http://jetpack.me/support/carousel/ http://jetpack.me/support/carousel/ [2] http://wordpress.org/plugins/jetpack/ http://wordpress.org/plugins/jetpack/
devindotcom 12y ago
Boy, that beef roll looks great. I definitely need to give that one a try. These kinds of historical recipes are always fascinating to me. Some survive and are still quite good - my girlfriend made a middle eastern dish that apparently hasn't changed in a long, long time (shakshouka) and it turned out surprisingly complex and wonderful.
- yincrash 12y ago
  I actually just cooked shaksouka tonight. It's interesting to note that tomatoes are natively American and didn't even make it to the middle east until the late 1700s.
  - vram22 12y ago
    >tomatoes are natively American So are chillies (chili peppers). Yes, Shakshouka is good.
wall_words 12y ago
If you like deciphering ancient recipes, you may interested in "The Forme of Cury: A Roll of Ancient English Cookery Compiled, about A.D. 1390": http://www.amazon.com/The-Forme-Cury-Ancient-Compiled/dp/1426425759 http://www.amazon.com/The-Forme-Cury-Ancient-Compiled/dp/142... It's remarkable that English written over six centuries ago is still more or less comprehensible, albeit with a little effort.
snori74 12y ago
The SCA do a lot of this sort of thing, so if you're interested, then the links at http://www.medievalcuisine.com/favorites/cookery-pages-by-people-of-the-sca http://www.medievalcuisine.com/favorites/cookery-pages-by-pe... might be to your liking.
kaji88 12y ago
I am not much of a cook but everytime I cook, recipes never work. Sometimes, it seems like that if you follow the receipes measurements exactly, your food almost never tastes like what you expect. There always needs a bit of human discretion. As such, I find video recipes to be far more effective. You can see them cook and get a feel of what "cook meat until brown" really means, or what is a "sprinkle of green onion"
- jghn 12y ago
  For a lot of ingredients it's simply not going to be possible to follow exactly. For instance, suppose it calls for "1 jalapeno, chopped" - jalapenos will vary greatly in size and heat. Other ingredients will lose potency over time, so who knows how yours compare to theirs. Another problem is that many recipes use the wrong metric for ingredients in the first place - most things should be done by weight, not volume. But yes, in terms of cooking (as opposed to baking) one should never expect to follow a recipe exactly, no matter what. Everything should be tasted and modified to adjust along the way. Eventually one gets a sense of what those phrases really mean, particularly if you see the same person's recipes repeatedly.
- kevinconroy 12y ago
  I've found that part of the problem is that there's a very bad user experience with recipe formats. They assume that one will get all ingredients out first and will only start to follow the instructions once everything is ready. Almost no one does that all of the time. The back and forth reading that you have to do results in errors because you lose your place, skip a step, add an ingredient in the wrong order, etc. That really impacts the results. In this vein, I've been working on a format that lets you just go top to bottom with much better results. Would love to hear your thoughts. http://www.makebetterfood.com/recipes/ http://www.makebetterfood.com/recipes/
  - jack-r-abbit 12y ago
    Your format is most certainly NOT for me. I am one of those people that do get all ingredients out first. I also get all my required measuring instruments out ahead of time. I also read the entire recipe so I can plan my steps. A normal recipe format is ideal for me. Your format is confusing to me. But everyone does things differently. I'm sure your format has an audience. Good luck.
deleted 12y ago
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deleted 12y ago
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jmenn 12y ago
The cutoff at 1800 seems odd given Louis Eustace Ude's _The French Cook_ comes out in French in 1813, and had a strong foothold in England prior to 1800. [1] If I understand correctly, he was also one of the first to bring what we now consider modern gastronomic techniques into British cooking. He may present an interesting case study for the period before Grimod and Brillat-Savarin. http://www.cooksinfo.com/louis-eustache-ude http://www.cooksinfo.com/louis-eustache-ude
Natsu 12y ago
Wow, mac & cheese has been around longer than I realized - http://rarecooking.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/maccarony-cheese/ http://rarecooking.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/maccarony-cheese...
idlewords 12y ago
It's frustrating how much they alter the recipes. Do it like the funny text says!
- Mikeb85 12y ago
  Yup. The fish custard may have actually turned out had they followed the recipe. And there are fish-custard-y recipes from other cultures that turn out and taste great...
ruricolist 12y ago
I imagine people who are interested in this would also be interested in the Silk Road Gourmet: www.silkroadgourmet.com. Everything from Babylonian recipes to reconstructions of Roman fish sauce.
kosmopolska 12y ago
Heston Blumenthal's London restaurant Dinner by Heston[1] has a similar theme, with British recipes from the 14th to 20th century. The only restaurant I've been to where the menu had a bibliography [1] http://www.dinnerbyheston.com http://www.dinnerbyheston.com
- evgen 12y ago
  And if you are into that, his cookbook Historical Heston contains a lot of the recipes and background for some of the items at Dinner. Eventually picked it up just for the tipsy cake recipe...
Squarel 12y ago
I liked this, I have some of the 1500s or so recipes from when I have been inspired watching historical cooking documentaries, but the problem for me has been figuring out how to translate them properly to modern ingredients.
cobralibre 12y ago
Of the recipes that I read, cherry brandy is the easiest by far — you macerate several pitted cherries in a jar for several days — and not alien at all to a contemporary reader with an interest in these things. But should it have been quite so easy? 'Brandy' is almost as general a term as 'wine' or 'beer'. Which brandy available to an American in 2014 would be most comparable to the brandy available to an English cook in 1601, I wonder?
carlob 12y ago
My grandmother had a cookbook from the 1920s and she claimed she had to update all the recipes to account for increased egg size. From the first recipe it doesn't look like that's the case here.
- aptwebapps 12y ago
  Some recipes are more sensitive than others. Also, they seem to just be feeling their way through with no real way to compare their results with the originals.
rare_cooking 12y ago
@rare_cooking, here. Thanks for checking our our project. Let us know if you try any of our recipes (as we cooked them or otherwise) and how it turns out.

128 points by benbreen 12y ago

There is a group in San Francisco called the Guild of Cookery[1] that is doing this with old recipes and running pop-up dinners based on Game of Thrones feasts. I went to one and it was fascinating to hear them talk about finding old recipes and sourcing ingredients as authentic as they could get. Interesting stuff. [1] https://www.facebook.com/guildofcookery https://www.facebook.com/guildofcookery - sorry, they only have Facebook

gameshot911 12y ago

The image presentation on the site is beautiful. Is that a native feature of wordpress?

rickyc091 12y ago
It is indeed, you can pick from a number of image templates. They have single images, carousels, mosaics, grids among others off the top of my head.
dbarlett 12y ago
Sort of. WordPress provides the gallery; the carousel comes from the Jetpack plugin [1] which is included on wordpress.com sites and can be installed [2] on self-hosted sites. [1] http://jetpack.me/support/carousel/ http://jetpack.me/support/carousel/ [2] http://wordpress.org/plugins/jetpack/ http://wordpress.org/plugins/jetpack/

devindotcom 12y ago

Boy, that beef roll looks great. I definitely need to give that one a try. These kinds of historical recipes are always fascinating to me. Some survive and are still quite good - my girlfriend made a middle eastern dish that apparently hasn't changed in a long, long time (shakshouka) and it turned out surprisingly complex and wonderful.

yincrash 12y ago
I actually just cooked shaksouka tonight. It's interesting to note that tomatoes are natively American and didn't even make it to the middle east until the late 1700s.
- vram22 12y ago
  >tomatoes are natively American So are chillies (chili peppers). Yes, Shakshouka is good.

wall_words 12y ago

If you like deciphering ancient recipes, you may interested in "The Forme of Cury: A Roll of Ancient English Cookery Compiled, about A.D. 1390": http://www.amazon.com/The-Forme-Cury-Ancient-Compiled/dp/1426425759 http://www.amazon.com/The-Forme-Cury-Ancient-Compiled/dp/142... It's remarkable that English written over six centuries ago is still more or less comprehensible, albeit with a little effort.

snori74 12y ago

The SCA do a lot of this sort of thing, so if you're interested, then the links at http://www.medievalcuisine.com/favorites/cookery-pages-by-people-of-the-sca http://www.medievalcuisine.com/favorites/cookery-pages-by-pe... might be to your liking.

kaji88 12y ago

I am not much of a cook but everytime I cook, recipes never work. Sometimes, it seems like that if you follow the receipes measurements exactly, your food almost never tastes like what you expect. There always needs a bit of human discretion. As such, I find video recipes to be far more effective. You can see them cook and get a feel of what "cook meat until brown" really means, or what is a "sprinkle of green onion"

jghn 12y ago
For a lot of ingredients it's simply not going to be possible to follow exactly. For instance, suppose it calls for "1 jalapeno, chopped" - jalapenos will vary greatly in size and heat. Other ingredients will lose potency over time, so who knows how yours compare to theirs. Another problem is that many recipes use the wrong metric for ingredients in the first place - most things should be done by weight, not volume. But yes, in terms of cooking (as opposed to baking) one should never expect to follow a recipe exactly, no matter what. Everything should be tasted and modified to adjust along the way. Eventually one gets a sense of what those phrases really mean, particularly if you see the same person's recipes repeatedly.
kevinconroy 12y ago
I've found that part of the problem is that there's a very bad user experience with recipe formats. They assume that one will get all ingredients out first and will only start to follow the instructions once everything is ready. Almost no one does that all of the time. The back and forth reading that you have to do results in errors because you lose your place, skip a step, add an ingredient in the wrong order, etc. That really impacts the results. In this vein, I've been working on a format that lets you just go top to bottom with much better results. Would love to hear your thoughts. http://www.makebetterfood.com/recipes/ http://www.makebetterfood.com/recipes/
- jack-r-abbit 12y ago
  Your format is most certainly NOT for me. I am one of those people that do get all ingredients out first. I also get all my required measuring instruments out ahead of time. I also read the entire recipe so I can plan my steps. A normal recipe format is ideal for me. Your format is confusing to me. But everyone does things differently. I'm sure your format has an audience. Good luck.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

jmenn 12y ago

The cutoff at 1800 seems odd given Louis Eustace Ude's _The French Cook_ comes out in French in 1813, and had a strong foothold in England prior to 1800. [1] If I understand correctly, he was also one of the first to bring what we now consider modern gastronomic techniques into British cooking. He may present an interesting case study for the period before Grimod and Brillat-Savarin. http://www.cooksinfo.com/louis-eustache-ude http://www.cooksinfo.com/louis-eustache-ude

Natsu 12y ago

Wow, mac & cheese has been around longer than I realized - http://rarecooking.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/maccarony-cheese/ http://rarecooking.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/maccarony-cheese...

idlewords 12y ago

It's frustrating how much they alter the recipes. Do it like the funny text says!

Mikeb85 12y ago
Yup. The fish custard may have actually turned out had they followed the recipe. And there are fish-custard-y recipes from other cultures that turn out and taste great...

ruricolist 12y ago

I imagine people who are interested in this would also be interested in the Silk Road Gourmet: www.silkroadgourmet.com. Everything from Babylonian recipes to reconstructions of Roman fish sauce.

kosmopolska 12y ago

Heston Blumenthal's London restaurant Dinner by Heston[1] has a similar theme, with British recipes from the 14th to 20th century. The only restaurant I've been to where the menu had a bibliography [1] http://www.dinnerbyheston.com http://www.dinnerbyheston.com

evgen 12y ago
And if you are into that, his cookbook Historical Heston contains a lot of the recipes and background for some of the items at Dinner. Eventually picked it up just for the tipsy cake recipe...

Squarel 12y ago

I liked this, I have some of the 1500s or so recipes from when I have been inspired watching historical cooking documentaries, but the problem for me has been figuring out how to translate them properly to modern ingredients.

cobralibre 12y ago

Of the recipes that I read, cherry brandy is the easiest by far — you macerate several pitted cherries in a jar for several days — and not alien at all to a contemporary reader with an interest in these things. But should it have been quite so easy? 'Brandy' is almost as general a term as 'wine' or 'beer'. Which brandy available to an American in 2014 would be most comparable to the brandy available to an English cook in 1601, I wonder?

carlob 12y ago

My grandmother had a cookbook from the 1920s and she claimed she had to update all the recipes to account for increased egg size. From the first recipe it doesn't look like that's the case here.

aptwebapps 12y ago
Some recipes are more sensitive than others. Also, they seem to just be feeling their way through with no real way to compare their results with the originals.

rare_cooking 12y ago

@rare_cooking, here. Thanks for checking our our project. Let us know if you try any of our recipes (as we cooked them or otherwise) and how it turns out.