(no subject)

[madbaker]

It feels good to occasionally, justifiably, let the snark run free.
My capsule review of a historic recipe cookbook:


Wood, Jacqui. Tasting the Past: Recipes from the Stone Age to the Present.
Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2009. Print. ISBN 978-0-7524-4794-0.

The author is a food historian for a British TV program. This may explain why her emphasis is on making modern-like, non-scary dishes rather than historically accurate ones. As she herself puts it:

"There was a school of thought arguing that, unless you found the actual residue of a particular meal in a pot, then you could not say categorically that our ancestors ate it. I, however, approached the subject in a different way. If we watch a TV documentary about an Amazonian tribe, we all assume that if there were tasty plants near them in the forest they would have known about then and eaten them. So I did not see why our ancestors should have been any different."

In other words, "making stuff up and calling it historical".
She does sometimes use actual recipes - for example, this one - but never with the original given, so that you could judge whether her interpretation is accurate. Hint: it isn't.

Comments

[ayeshadream.livejournal.com]

OMG- I've ocationally had dreams/ fantasies of doing historical food research for a living, maybe even having a show where we tackled a different dish or themed meal for each episode with lots of great back up and source information people can look at if they are interested in learning more. When I hear about crap like this it makes me want to scream " I promise I could do SO MUCH better!!".

I know it's a detail most people don't care about, but my question is, if you're going to hire someone claiming to be a "food historian" why not get someone who does? I know they probably want to make sure that they won't balk if the director wants to show Henry chowing messily on turkey legs then throwing them over his corpulant shoulder. Like the person doing the "historical costuming" for a certain god-aweful "Tudor" themed show who seems alergic to actual research. Bleck I say! :)