14th Century Cookbook Coming Online

[Daniel Rogov]

The Guardian today reports that the John Rylands University Library of the University of Manchester is digitalizing the entire 14th century manuscript of the Forme of Cury. The book, perhaps the oldest extant cookbook in the English language was written in the 14th century by the chefs of King Richard II.

The entire book will be made freely available on the internet and this for all food historians and buffs of food history this is a major project indeed, as this was the first English language book to use ingredients such as olives, olive oil, cloves and cinnamon amongst others. More than that, the book gives tremendous insight into the cookery and manners of what many still like to think of as the "Dark Ages".

The Guardian article can be read at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/sep/22/10 and quite a few of the pages of a somewhat later edition of the book can be found at http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/foc/
The current online version will be somewhat easier to read for many as it is in at least somewhat more modern English while the original is in Middle-English.

Best
Rogov

[Shel T]

FYI, The Forme of Cury has been online for years and can be downloaded as a text file from Gutenberg or as a PDF file from Cindy Renfrow's website:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/foc/

[Daniel Rogov]

Shel, Hi....

Indeed you are correct but the existing online version (to which I also linked above) is a far more modern-day edition and transliteration, set by Gutenberg methodology. The new contribution is the hand-written folio and thus offers new room for interpretation.

Best
Rogov

[Shel T]

Shel, Hi....

Indeed you are correct but the existing online version (to which I also linked above) is a far more modern-day edition and transliteration, set by Gutenberg methodology. The new contribution is the hand-written folio and thus offers new room for interpretation.

Best
Rogov

Oops, didn't see your other link.

[Matilda L]

This is great news! The history of food, and of cook-books, travel guides and all the other paraphernalia of "food life" fascinates me.

Matilda

[Bill Spohn]

The more readable version is certainly easier to work with. Neat to have this available to all.

It took me ages to translate from a page of the original to get this: "two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun".......