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A History of Cookbooks

From Kitchen to Page over Seven Centuries
  • Henry Notaker
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2017
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About this book

A History of Cookbooks provides a sweeping literary and historical overview of the cookbook genre, exploring its development as a part of food culture beginning in the Late Middle Ages. Studying cookbooks from various Western cultures and languages, Henry Notaker traces the transformation of recipes from brief notes with ingredients into detailed recipes with a specific structure, grammar, and vocabulary. In addition, he reveals that cookbooks go far beyond offering recipes: they tell us a great deal about nutrition, morals, manners, history, and menus while often providing entertaining reflections and commentaries. This innovative book demonstrates that cookbooks represent an interesting and important branch of nonfiction literature.

Author / Editor information

Contributor: Henry Notaker Henry Notaker is a literary historian who taught courses in food culture and history for over a decade. He was a foreign correspondent for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and a TV host of arts and letters shows and documentaries. He is the author of numerous books and articles on European and Latin American contemporary history, food history, and culinary literature.

Topics

  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    i
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    Contents

    v
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    Illustrations

    vii
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    Preface

    ix
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    Acknowledgments

    xiii
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  • Part One. Food and Text - Cook and Writer
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    Prologue: A Rendezvous

    3
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    1. The Cook

    7
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    2. Writer and Author

    28
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  • Part Two. The Text and Its Form
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    3. The Origin and Early Development of Modern Cookbooks

    49
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    4. Printed Cookbooks: Diffusion, Translation, and Plagiarism

    65
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    5. Organizing the Cookbook

    81
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    6. Naming the Recipes

    98
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    7. Pedagogical and Didactic Approaches

    112
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    8. Paratexts in Cookbooks

    130
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    9. The Recipe Form

    144
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    10. The Cookbook Genre

    164
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  • Part Three. The Text and Its World
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    11. Cookbooks for the Rich and the Poor

    187
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    12. Health and Medicine in Cookbooks

    201
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    13. Recipes for Fat Days and Lean Days

    213
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    14. Vegetarian Cookbooks

    223
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    15. Jewish Cookbooks

    233
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    16. Cookbooks and Aspects of Nationalism

    245
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    17. Decoration, Illusion, and Entertainment

    264
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    18. Taste and Pleasure

    277
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    19. Gender in Cookbooks and Household Books

    288
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    Epilogue: Cookbooks and the Future

    299
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    Notes

    303
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    References

    353
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    Index

    375
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
April 15, 2019
eBook ISBN:
9780520967281
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
368
https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520967281
eBook ISBN: 9780520967281
Keywords for this book
food and cooking; food culture; foodies; gastronomist; detailed recipe; best recipe; plan a menu; analyzing nutrition; detailed recipes; western diet; cultural heritage; late middle ages; recipe book history; history
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