Early French Cookery: Sources, History, Original Recipes and Modern Adaptations. by D.Eleanor Scully; Terence ScullyReview by: Corrie E. NormanThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring, 1997), pp. 346-348Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2543327 .

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346 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXVIII / 1 (1997)

a historical topic.While he relies on chronology in the exposition of his findings, it is imme- diately clear from the text that he approaches the material with a new and exciting perspec- tive, quite different from what one would expect from a more traditional historical analysis of the same material. It should probably be noted in this context that Nutini's data come from printed sources and not archival research.This is not surprising given the huge scope of the project. Perhaps a bit more disturbing is the relative absence of recent historical work. With some exceptions there are very few works consulted written after about 1980.Adniit- tedly studies in the last two decades have tended to focus more on indigenous peoples than the elite, but the bibliography is not as limited as one would conclude from looking at Nutini.

Nutini finds that although the Mexican aristocracy grew out of the Western experience which was dominant at the end of the fifteenth century, it developed in a way which caused it to digress from the mainstream.The experience of extending Spanish domination over the native peoples created a dichotomous system. This system remained surprisingly resilient over the course of the colonial period, some two and a half centuries. Moreover, in spite of two major upheavals, and countless political changes, certain aspects of the Mexican aristoc- racy have remained largely intact up until the modern day. As he notes, "there is an unbroken structural and ideological continuity." Of central importance for Nutini is that this aristoc- racy in large part today shares the imago mundi present at its inception.

This is a fascinating and comprehensive work. It deals with a sweep of two thousand years, while focusing on the Mexican aristocracy of the last 450 years. Nutini is to be cred- ited for having synthesized the wide range of materials upon which he has based his study. It is sure to cause additional scholarship to be initiated in the field. One can only await the appearance of the subsequent volumes.

John F. Schwaller ............ University of Montana

Early French Cookery: Sources, History, Original Recipes and Modern Adaptations. D. Eleanor Scully and Terence Scully. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995. xii + 377 pages. n.p.

The Scullys provide a useful introduction to the culinary history of late medieval France in more ways than one. Early French Cookery is a history but it is also a cookbook intended to provide guidelines for recreating medieval feasts in modern kitchens.The main sources for the history and the recipes are three French works that first appeared in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.The earliest of the three is the Viandier ofTaillevent, a fourteenth-century chef who was knighted by his employer, King Charles V, and took three stew pots as his heraldic motif. The Viandier became something of an early rnodernjoy of Cooking, with mul- tiple editions in the sixteenth century and the endorsement of Rabelais and others who appreciated a fine table.The second source, Dufait de cuisine, was commissioned by Amadeus VIII of Savoy in 1420. Amadeus, whose frequent guests included his father-in-law the duke of Burgundy, wanted his cook Chicquart "to write down all he knew about cooking and preparing a banquet" for the court records. According to the Scully's description, what Chicquart produced is a vivid picture of the social life at court and the chef's role therein. The final source, Menagier de Paris, is a household guide written by an elderly man for his young bride. Among the range of household advice it proffered, the Menagier gave haute- bourgeoisie housewives a variety of recipes for dishes "that could be served respectably and avoiding any possible sense of shame."

The almost exclusive reliance on these sources is both the strength and the weakness of

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Book Reviews 347

the book. On the one hand, the history is a bit light (only fifty or so pages) and draws little on literary and other sources in developing a picture of culinary life in medieval France. Given the intended audiences of the sources, the picture drawn from them is limited to the upper classes. On the other hand, the sources do provide the authors with an incredible amount of detail about medieval food habits which they deftly piece together into a lively book.

One of the most interesting factors that the sources reveal is the close connection between cooking and medicine. Cooking, at base, was a process of adjusting the balance of "humors" in various foods to the moist, dry human condition. Cooks did this primarily by using condiments and by applying appropriate cooking methods. For instance, the sources most often advise boiling beef to adjust its naturally dry quality while colder, moister pork was best roasted. Sugar not only tasted good, it also was considered "healthfood" because it was moist and dry like the humans who consumed it.

The authors attempt to debunk some popular modern notions about medieval food styles.They hold that medieval tastes were more similar to modern than has been believed. They find no evidence that "a modern individual of ... delicate gastronomic taste ... would have found the dishes anything but deliciously flavorfal." More specifically, they find no basis for the idea that medieval Europeans overspiced their foods. Spices were expensive commod- ities and were probably weakened by the conditions of travel. So using spices was always a trade-off between palate and pocketbook. Some spices and herbs now used for flavor, such as saffron and parsley, appear to have been used more for color, which concerned medieval chefs as much as taste.

The Scullys also want to move the beginning of the haute cuisine tradition in France from the seventeenth century and chef-authors such as LaVarenne back to the late middle ages, Taillevent, and Chicquart. Their admiration for these early culinary giants is rendered in an imaginary "day in the life of" based on Chicquart at the Court of Savoy. The court chef was in charge of a large coterie of cooks, butchers, bakers, etc. and was responsible directly to the Steward and Lord. He worked with a large budget and controlled an enormous larder. Per- haps two of his tasks best indicate his importance to the court. The chef was ultimately responsible for seeing to the wholesomeness of food fed to the court and "proved" every- thing for poison beforehand. The chef was also charged with creating splendid representa- tions of the power and wealth of the court in the form of banquets.

The execution of a banquet was something of an organizational marvel. Chicquart began two months ahead of time to prepare a banquet for approximately 500 guests.The event typ- ically involved four meals over two days and was often held away from the castle, the regular kitchen, and batterie de cuisine. Such a banquet involved around forty courses and required among other things some 4000 serving plates (to be washed between courses!), a barnful of coal for the fires, and 12,000 eggs. Food preparation was labor intensive. Contrary to some modern depictions, medieval banqueters did not chomp on large pieces of roasted meat. Banquet food was primarily finger or spoon food that involved much chopping, mashing, and pureeing by medieval cooks. Chicquart also created larger-scale edible entrernets to impress the guests: peacocks roasted and then re-dressed in their plumage, "fire-breathing" roasted boar heads, and large pike separated into three sections, each receiving a different treatment before being reassembled.

Thirty pages are given over to instructions for executing medieval food fests today. Sev- eral different types of food events and appropriate menus are suggested, from a barbecue "medieval style" to a full-fledged medieval banquet. The authors think of everything: cos- tume-making, entertainment, an etiquette guide. What they aim for here is reasonable adap-

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348 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXVIII / 1 (1997)

tation based on authentic practice, not historical anachronism. Their detailed instructions provide a practical approach to exploring medieval culture through food with a reasonable amount of effort and expense.

Most of the book is comprised of recipes from the original sources organized in modern cookbook format. Of course, medieval recipes do not exactly fit into the standard appetizer to dessert menu, so the authors have cross-listed recipes that might serve more than one pur- pose. An introduction, plus three versions-a manuscript transcription, English translation, and modern adaptation-are provided for more than one hundred recipes. Many have sev- eral variations.VWhen comparing the transcriptions to the adaptations, one can only appreci- ate the authors' skill and ingenuity. Medieval recipes are basically lists of ingredients, that sometimes indicate which should predominate, and a cooking method. The adaptations attempt to balance authenticity with taste and practicability in a recognizable recipe form. Dishes likely to be unappealing or impossible to recreate, like the stuffed peacock, are omit- ted. For the ambitious, the authors do divulge the secret to Chicquart's three-part pike. For the most part, however, the recipes are easy to prepare and require few exotic ingredients. They provide enough detail for beginning cooks but also invite experimentation. And with the aid of a food processor, these dishes are generally quick work in a modern kitchen.The major weakness of the recipe adaptations is the scale. Most of the sauce recipes, for instance, yield around a cup and would not go far at a banquet.They tend to be easy to multiply, how- ever.

Since Early French Cookery intends to introduce medieval foodways through the experi- ence of them, the real proof of its value is in tasting the pudding. Recently, I organized a medieval "tasting" session for students in our European Studies Program based on informa- tion and recipes from the book. Students and colleagues overwhelmingly proclaimed it an informative, fun, and surprisingly tasty success.

Corrie E. Norman ............. University of the South

Moral Fiction in Milton and Spenser. John M. Steadman. Columbia: Univer- sity of Missouri Press, 1995. 200 pp. $29.95.

John Steadman's latest book presupposes a fairly extensive familiarity with Spenser and Milton although it focuses, for the most part, on Paradise Lost and The Faerie Queene;portions of the book have been set aside for explorations of the Fowre Hymnes and Paradise Regained, and to a much lesser extent Samson Agonistes and the minor poetry of both authors. Steadman also delves into Renaissance poetic theory and investigates Spenser's and Milton's debts to the epic and romance traditions promulgated by Homer, Virgil, Tasso, Ariosto, and Boiardo (though his analysis of these writers' epics in a section on epic and romance structures gets a bit overwhelmed by plot summary).

While the title of the book may imply some comparison between Milton and Spenser, very little direct comparison is actually carried out (nor does the author propose to do so), with the notable exception of the epilogue, which does a very fine job of bringing into sharp contrast the two authors' treatments of and attitudes toward poetic fiction and historical fact. Steadman maintains that Milton and Spenser "differed widely in their relationship to the principles of classical epic and Renaissance romance and in their attitudes toward the literary principles of verisimilitude and probability, the element of the marvelous, and the relation- ship of poetic narrative to allegory." Steadman argues that Milton distanced himself from the romance tradition as defined by Ariosto (with whom Spenser is associated) and that Milton was influenced more byTasso's concept of heroic poetry and the tradition of neo-Aristotelian

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