Medieval Tastes

Acclaimed historian Massimo Montanari traces the development of medieval tastes—both culinary and cultural—from raw materials to market and captures their reflections in today's food trends. Tying the ingredients of our diet to the growth of human civilization, he details how food transformed from a simple staple to a symbol of social and ideological standing. Montanari shows how people adopted new attitudes toward food, investing as much in its pleasure and possibilities as in its acquisition.

Italy’s best-known food historian travels back to the birth of “modern” cuisine and reveals the remarkable links between medieval tastes and our own. Massimo Montanari traces the development of medieval tastes—both culinary and cultural—and details how food transformed from a simple staple to a symbol of social and ideological standing.

Massimo Montanari is professor of medieval history and the history of food at the Institute of Paleography and Medieval Studies, University of Bologna. He has authored and coauthored more than a dozen books on the history of cuisine and the cultural values of food, including Let the Meatballs Rest: And Other Stories About Food and Culture; Cheese, Pears, and History in a Proverb; Food Is Culture; Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History; Food: A Culinary History; and Famine and Plenty: The History of Food in Europe.

Beth Archer Brombert is the author of two widely acclaimed biographies: Cristina: Portraits of a Princess and Edouard Manet: Rebel in a Frock Coat, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her most recent work is a memoir of her decades of living, traveling, and cooking in Italy, Journey to the World of the Black Rooster. Her many translations from French and Italian include Italo Svevo's Senilità (Emilio's Carnival) and Erri De Luca's Tu, Mio (You, Mine).

A monograph that will be of enormous use to scholars working in food studies and related cultural studies fields, while also promising delight for the general interst reader as well.

Medieval Tastes is an elaborately researched, sophisticated treatment of the topic.... Highly recommended.

Pina Palma, author of Savoring Power, Consuming the Times: The Metaphors of Food in Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature:
With incisiveness and thoroughness, Massimo Montanari's Medieval Tastes redraws the contours of the central role food played in Italian society from the early centuries of the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and beyond. More than just an enthralling journey through medieval culinary tastes, regimens, and norms, this excellent volume probes the more hidden folds of the social and cultural discourses that undergirded culinary systems.

David Gentilcore, University of Leicester:
Massimo Montanari is a master communicator of fascinating ideas. He proposes the intriguing concept of the Middle Ages as something at once close but also very distant. This work will prove appealing to more than just food historians, and I highly recommend it.

Massimo Ciavolella, University of California, Los Angeles:
Massimo Montanari, one of the most renowned historians of cuisine, has produced a well-written volume covering a wide range of topics, from medieval recipe books to staple foodstuff. There was not one page that did not hold my complete attention.