Fabulous Feasts

by Madeleine Pelner Cosman

Book Overview

What did people who lived during the Middle Ages eat? How did they eat? Dr. Cosman proves just how endlessly intriguing the answers to these questions are in this fascinating exploration of medieval food habits in service, table manners, menu, and courtly magnificence. Also provided are tempting recipes for the modern-day host and hostess who would like to delight their guests with a medieval feast. Fabulous Feasts received nominations for...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080760898X
• ISBN13: 9780807608982
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: George Braziller
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.49 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.2" x 10.1"
• Age Range: 10 to 14 years
• Grade Range: Grades 5 to 9

Customer Reviews

Excellent, tasty, enjoyable!

I am no means a medieval scholar, but while I was studying Chaucer in high school we had to study and perform everything there is about a medieval feast. I had been searching online for medieval recipes since I had lost the ones I used in high school. I found some and tried them out, but they just weren't as good as the ones before. Thankfully, my teacher told me the title and I immediately purchase this book. The descriptions and history are fantastic and the recipes are excellent! If you like history, get this book. If you like trying out recipes, get this book! :-)

Buy it for the Bibliography

Most of the book is a disucssion of various aspects of food in medieval society. The writing style is light and quick to read while giving a lot of information. Her foot notes and bibliography are EXTENSIVE. The recipes at the end are not the main point ofthe book. Many of them are delicious but they are not what you want if complete authenticity is what you are looking for. If you want a "flavor" of the middle ages, they are fine. Again, the best thing about the book are the references.

Who cares if it is absolutely authentic?

Another reviewer has taken the author to task for not being absolutely authentic in every detail. I have been cooking from this book for 20 years and with very few exceptions each recipe has been very well received by the literally hundreds of people I have served. Some of my favorites - the Roste (a beef roast cooked in a lovely goo of fruits, honey and beef juices) the Fruytes Ryal Rice (sounds ghastly but beautiful and tasty), and the Blak Perys (my favorite dessert of any time or place).

Great Book

This is a wonderful book in terms of both recipes and historical perspective. There are several recipes in this book that are good for modern day recipes. There are a great deal of recipes for sauces, meats, and several for desserts. The recipe for fried oranges alone is worth the price of this book. If you are looking for a book to expand your selection on mideval recipes, or even to start one this book is written for the average reader, with enough thrown in to make the more advanced mideval scholar happy.

What good eating is all about (for Chaucer...)

My background is in Medieval History. I have always been fascinated with flavours and sounds in addition to kings and social movements. This, of course, led to the discovery of Fabulous Feasts.Now as to the 100% accuracy of the recipes, I am unable to vouch. I can say, however, that they are all clearly discribed and easy to follow. I have a particular fondness for the arbolyetts and the parsley bread. I have cooked, at one time or another over the past 15 years, about 2/3 of the recipes -- some are definitely acquired tastes and some are pure show-stoppers.Cosman also does a marvelous job of giving you food lore and manners of the latter half of the Middle Ages. From the salacious to the practical, all sorts of information is here. Her bibliography is helpful for those who want to follow further in her footsteps and her list of where to get the ingredients is good, but a bit dated. WARNING: at least one of the spice stores listed has shut since this book was first released.This is a book for cooks and amateur historians. It is not a HISTORY book, but rather a cookbook that gets into a bit of history and allows you to sample the tastes of another time and place.