Let's See That Food!

June 1, 2017 7:03 AM

A lovely historical exposition of the first illustrated cookbook.
posted by MovableBookLady (6 comments total)

"Get four of your friends to hoist a pot over a fire."
posted by juniper at 7:21 AM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

If you'd like to flip through Scappi's Opera, archive.org has a scan of the 1570 copy from the Getty.

Martha Carlin has a pretty comprehensive listing of other Early Modern and Medieval culinary texts.
posted by zamboni at 8:07 AM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

There's a lot more in there besides the first illustrated cookbook. Behold the fork:

The appearance of the first printed cookbooks in the fifteenth century coincided with increased use of the fork. Although the fork had been known prior to antiquity, its use was mostly restricted to the kitchen for carving and serving. One story of its introduction to the European table credits an eleventh-century Byzantine princess who came to Venice to marry. Her use of a fork at the table caused quite a stir, with one observer noting that such a thing was “luxurious beyond belief”; and Venetian Church leaders condemned such gross affectations, declaiming, “God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks – his fingers. Therefore it is an insult to Him to substitute artificial metallic forks for them when eating.” (Giblin, p. 46) By the fifteenth century its use in Italy was common. It spread to France via Catherine de Médici who brought them to Paris in 1533, and was in common use throughout much of Europe by the late seventeenth century.

Quibble: it's either Catherine de' Medici or Catherine de Médicis; you can't mix and match. Also, I now want an apparatus for removing a large cauldron for my own kitchen; do the four operators come with it?
posted by languagehat at 8:36 AM on June 1, 2017

quibble quibble: de medicis w/the accent is French; de medici or de' medici or d'medici is Italian. So take your choice but always put the stress on "me" not on the "di" which I have heard and think barbaric. I think the "de'medici" is wrong because "de" is a complete word and there's nothing missing as the apostrophe would suggest. End quibble quibble.
posted by MovableBookLady at 12:12 PM on June 1, 2017

> So take your choice but always put the stress on "me"

Mais non, but eef you are using zee French form you must put zee stress on zee final syllable: Médi-CISSSS! (Needless to say, you are entirely correct about putting it on the penult. *shudder*)

End quibble quibble quibble.
posted by languagehat at 1:53 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

I love the bit about the fork. "What, does she think she's BETTER than us with her fancy metallic FORK? If God meant for us to use forks he wouldn't have given us fingers. Heathen."
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:34 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]