Description
Book SynopsisItaly’s best-known food historian travels back to the birth of “modern” cuisine and reveals the remarkable links between medieval tastes and our own. Massimo Montanari traces the development of medieval tastes—both culinary and cultural—and details how food transformed from a simple staple to a symbol of social and ideological standing.
Trade ReviewMassimo Montanari, one of the most renowned historians of cuisine, has produced a well-written volume covering a wide range of topics, from medieval recipe books to staple foodstuff. There was not one page that did not hold my complete attention. -- Massimo Ciavolella, University of California, Los Angeles Massimo Montanari is a master communicator of fascinating ideas. He proposes the intriguing concept of the Middle Ages as something at once close but also very distant. This work will prove appealing to more than just food historians, and I highly recommend it. -- David Gentilcore, University of Leicester With incisiveness and thoroughness, Massimo Montanari's Medieval Tastes redraws the contours of the central role food played in Italian society from the early centuries of the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and beyond. More than just an enthralling journey through medieval culinary tastes, regimens, and norms, this excellent volume probes the more hidden folds of the social and cultural discourses that undergirded culinary systems. -- Pina Palma, author of Savoring Power, Consuming the Times: The Metaphors of Food in Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature Medieval Tastes is an elaborately researched, sophisticated treatment of the topic... Highly recommended. Choice A monograph that will be of enormous use to scholars working in food studies and related cultural studies fields, while also promising delight for the general interst reader as well. Sixteenth Century Journal
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Invitation to the Voyage 1. Medieval Near, Medieval Far 2. Medieval Cookbooks 3. The Grammar of Food 4. The Times of Food 5. The Aroma of Civilization: Bread 6. Hunger for Meat 7. The Ambiguous Position of Fish 8. From Milk to Cheeses 9. Condiment/Fundament: The Battle of Oil, Lard, and Butter 10. The Bread Tree 11. The Flavor of Water 12. The Civilization of Wine 13. Rich Food, Poor Food 14. Monastic Cooking 15. The Pilgrim's Food 16. The Table as a Representation of the World 17. The Fork and the Hands 18. The Taste of Knowledge Notes Bibliography Index
