Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine

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This is a tough one to review fairly. A lot of the book is incredibly dull, full of stodgy Victorian pseudo-academic ranting, and talks about the history of cookery books, not about cooking. I nearly gave up on this after half an hour because I was so bored.

However, the actual recipes scattered through the book are pure gold. They show you a style of cooking that is long gone, where our modern conventions of what ingredients constitute starters, main courses and desserts aren’t yet fully formed. They’re not like modern easy-to-follow recipes either - you require some ingenuity and understanding to figure out what to do.

I’ve cooked historical meals in the past with varying degrees of success. Sometimes what comes out is not at all to my taste; other times, you discover amazing new flavors and textures. If you like this kind of culinary experimentation, then you’ll find plenty in this book to stimulate your imagination, but be prepared to dig through mountains of turgid prose to get to it. (Matt Kelland)