Description
Book SynopsisThe modern twenty-first century kitchen has an array of time saving equipment for preparing a meal: a state of the art stove and refrigerator, a microwave oven, a food processor, a blender and a variety of topnotch pots, pans and utensils. We take so much for granted as we prepare the modern meal not just in terms of equipment, but also the ingredients, without needing to worry about availability or seasonality. We cook with gas or electricity at the turn of the switch we have instant heat. But it wasn't always so. Just step back a few centuries to say the 1300s and we'd find quite a different kitchen, if there was one at all. We might only have a fireplace in the main living space of a small cottage. If we were lucky enough to have a kitchen, the majority of the cooking would be done over an open hearth, we'd build a fire of wood or coal and move a cauldron over the fire to prepare a stew or soup. A drink might be heated or kept warm in a long-handled saucepan, set on its own
Trade ReviewKatherine A. McIver’s Kitchens, Cooking, and Eating in Medieval Italy offers a multifaceted view of food preparation, consumption and organization in Medieval Italy. It is well-written and well-researched. It is a delightful prequel to her earlier work, Cooking and Eating in Renaissance Italy. -- Andrew F. Smith, culinary historian
Combining a novelist’s eye for evocative detail with an historian’s close study of primary sources, many of which are unavailable in English translation, Katherine McIver transports us to Italy’s late medieval kitchens and dining spaces. From the material culture needed for a meal, through the foodstuffs and culinary techniques employed, to the persons involved—whether as diners, supervisors, cooks, or scullery workers—the bustle, arduous labor, and often elegant results are vividly illuminated in this meticulous portrait of gastronomic life. -- Cathy Kaufman, president, Culinary Historians of New York; adjunct professor of Food Studies, The New School University
This remarkable book transports the reader's imagination back to the smells, tastes, and sounds of medieval kitchens. Focusing on the practical, technical needs of a late medieval cook, McIver reconstructs the fascinating world of practices, ingredients, and techniques used by cooks in a wide range of medieval kitchens. The book offers an especially valuable and detailed study of the kitchens and food ways of the Datini merchant family in Prato in the later fourteenth century. -- Alison A. Smith, Professor of History, Wagner College
Table of Contents1 Cooking in the Middle Ages: An Introduction The Cook and the Written Word: Medieval Cookbooks The Literary Sources: Poems, Short Stories, Household Inventories and Personal Letters 2 The Cook and his Staff Hierarchy in the Kitchen The Datini Cook or Women in the Kitchen 3 The Cook and his Kitchen The Kitchen Kitchen Equipment The Datini Kitchens 4 The Cook and his Resources The Ingredients Food Preparation Techniques Cooking Methods and Techniques 5 Bringing the Meal Together Planning and Making a Meal Orchestrating and Serving the Meal Cooking and Eating with the Datini
