One of the oldest known collections of European culinary recipes in a vernacular language is extant in four slightly different versions in Old Danish, Icelandic, and Low German. The manuscripts of 35 recipes dates not later than the end of the 13th century, but clearly goes back to an original perhaps as early as the 12th. Each of the four is prese

Maestro Martino of Como has been called the first celebrity chef, and his extraordinary treatise on Renaissance cookery, The Art of Cooking, is the first known culinary guide to specify ingredients, cooking times and techniques, utensils, and amounts. This vibrant document is also essential to understanding the forms of conviviality developed in Central Italy during the Renaissance, as well as their sociopolitical implications. In addition to the original text, this first complete English translation of the work includes a historical essay by Luigi Ballerini and fifty modernized recipes by acclaimed Italian chef Stefania Barzini. The Art of Cooking, unlike the culinary manuals of the time, is a true gastronomic lexicon, surprisingly like a modern cookbook in identifying the quantity and kinds of ingredients in each dish, the proper procedure for cooking them, and the time required, as well as including many of the secrets of a culinary expert. In his lively introduction, Luigi Ballerini places Maestro Martino in the complicated context of his time and place and guides the reader through the complexities of Italian and papal politics. Stefania Barzini's modernized recipes that follow the text bring the tastes of the original dishes into line with modern tastes. Her knowledgeable explanations of how she has adapted the recipes to the contemporary palate are models of their kind and will inspire readers to recreate these classic dishes in their own kitchens. Jeremy Parzen's translation is the first to gather the entire corpus of Martino's legacy.

Topics examined include not just the personal eating habits of kings, queens, and nobles but also those of the peasants, monks, and other social groups not generally considered in medieval food studies."--BOOK JACKET.

Extensively field-tested and fine-tuned over many years, and designed specifically for a one-year course, JC McKeown's Classical Latin: An Introductory Course offers a thorough, fascinating, and playful grounding in Latin that combines the traditional grammatical method with the reading approach. In addition to grammar, paradigms, and readings, each chapter includes a variety of extraordinarily well-crafted exercises that reinforce the grammar and morphology while encouraging the joy of linguistic and cultural discovery.

Prologue: a rendez-vous -- The cook -- Writer and author -- Origin and early development of modern cookbooks -- Printed cookbooks: diffusion, translation, and plagiarism -- Organizing the cookbook -- Naming the recipes -- Pedagogical and didactic aspects -- Paratexts in cookbooks -- The recipe form -- The cookbook genre -- Cookbooks for rich and poor -- Health and medicine in cookbooks -- Recipes for fat and lean days -- Vegetarian cookbooks -- Jewish cookbooks -- Cookbooks and aspects of nationalism -- Decoration, illusion, and entertainment -- Taste and pleasure -- Gender in cookbooks and household books -- Epilogue: cookbooks and the future