SC - The Pantropheon

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Lilinah biti-Anat wrote:
> 
> I was tooling around on line and found this title:
> The Pantropheon or a History of Food and Its Preparation in Ancient
> Times by Alexis Soyer
> 
> I am assuming it covers cuisine a bit before the usual SCA time.
> 
> Anyone here familiar with it?
> 
> Thanks for any comments.

AAAK!

It contains about every pitfall bad Victorian scholarship can scare up.
An interesting read, but it's kind of like a cross between the Larousse
Gastronomique's articles on Asian cookery and the English translation of
Vehling's Apicius. It ridiculously presupposes a French supremacy as the
wellspring of all creativity in matters culinary, and appears to have a
fair amount of outright fantasy as the basis for some of the material. A
complete, entire, pan-global culinary timeline as seen through the eyes
of someone who comprehends nothing but the cooking of 19th-century
France. Soyer definitely did understand that, but then he _also_ felt
that the main reason there were so many poor, starving people in
late-19th-century Europe was that too few of these poor devils
understood how to make a good, cheap soup. To that end he wrote a famous
pamphlet designed to end world hunger through soup. He was kind of a nut.

A very interesting literary document, though, and I always enjoyed
reading it. I think, though, that it's not a very good tool for learning
about culinary history. Others' mileage may vary.  

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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