Cooking in Europe, 1250-1650

Name: Cooking in Europe, 1250-1650
Price: 58.00 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780313330964

✍️ Albala, Ken

Reader Score

4.4

(1 review)

$58.00

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📜

Food Writing & History

📚 EDITORIAL REVIEW

“This tome is for the time-traveling historian who enjoys recreating medieval feasts with cast iron pots and patience. It suits those comfortable with archaic techniques. If you seek quick, modern weeknight dinners or require metric measurements, you will be profoundly disappointed by its historical focus.

— Editorial Team

Author

Albala, Ken

📚 all books by this author (7) →

🏛 Greenwood 📅 2006 📔 Hardcover ISBN: 9780313330964

📚 This Book in Collections

🎁 Hardcovers worth giving

📝 Description: Cooking in Europe, 1250-1650

Provides recipes and other information about cooking in Europe 1250-1650.

💎 Expert review

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🍳

Eatbook Family editorial team

Cookbook desk

Ken Albala's work offers a focused look at European cooking from 1250 to 1650, supplying both recipes and contextual information for the era. Casual cooks looking for quick weeknight dinners or modern culinary inspiration will find this text ill-suited to their needs, as it leans heavily into historical documentation and period-specific methods rather than streamlined modern home cooking. Instead, it is best suited for dedicated culinary historians, researchers, and specialists willing to engage with the realities of pre-modern kitchen techniques.

✓ EDITOR'S REVIEW

⭐ Reader reviews

The starting rating comes from the team Eatbook Family —

⭐ eatbookfamily.com editorial review Editorial rating 4.5/5

★★★★★

This tome is for the time-traveling historian who enjoys recreating medieval feasts with cast iron pots and patience. It suits those comfortable with archaic techniques. If you seek quick, modern weeknight dinners or require metric measurements, you will be profoundly disappointed by its historical…

Reader rating

4.4

Based on 1 reviews

Eatbook Family editorial team

Ken Albala's work offers a focused look at European cooking from 1250 to 1650, supplying both recipes and contextual information for the era. Casual cooks looking for quick weeknight dinners or modern culinary inspiration will find this text ill-suited to their needs, as it leans heavily into historical documentation and period-specific methods rather than streamlined modern home cooking. Instead, it is best suited for dedicated culinary historians, researchers, and specialists willing to engage with the realities of pre-modern kitchen techniques.

❓ Frequently asked questions

The book uses historical measurements like grains, ounces, or volume estimates common to the era rather than modern standardized cups or grams. You will need to convert these yourself.

Many ingredients are obscure or require substitution, such as specific medieval spices, verjuice, or aged cheeses. While some components are accessible, you may need a specialty shop for authentic results.

📖 Who should read this

📜 Historical context

The text explores the culinary landscape of Europe across four centuries, from the late Middle Ages through the early Renaissance. It examines how ingredients like sugar, spices, and new world crops began to influence European tables after 1492. The focus is on domestic cooking traditions and the evolution of flavor profiles during a period of significant social and economic change in households.