SC - Apicius

[Jessica Tiffin]

hi, Sofonisba.

> with more books. :-)  One of today's finds was The Roman Cookery of Apicius:
> A Treasury of Gourmet Recipes & Herbal Cookery Translated and Adapted for
> the Modern Kitchen by John Edwards.   Have others had experience with this
> particular translation?  Comments?

It's the only one I've ever managed to get my hands on, actually... 
:<.  He gives you original recipes and his versions; no way of 
checking what his translation is like, since he doesn't give you the 
original Latin.  (Not that it would help, in my case... oh, well).  

His versions of the recipes are somewhat dicey - I tend to ignore 
them and go with the original, since he's pretty strong on the 
"adapted for the modern kitchen" and the whole, dubious "modern 
taste" thing.  I went through a major Apicius salad stage - these 
massive layered salads with all sorts of ingredients.   Edwards is 
capable of blithely advising you to serve the vegetable bits on a 
buttered roll, rather than layering them with oil-and-vinegar-soaked 
bread as the original specifies, because in his opinion the whole 
layered with bread effect would be too alienating to a modern taste.  

I seem to recollect someone on the list advising me that the actual 
translation was OK; just don't trust his reworking of the recipes.  
IIRC, he also includes quotes from other Latin works relating to food 
and eating - quite a lot of fun.  The book is basically a useful 
resource since he includes translations of the original Latin 
recipes.

Jehanne

Jehanne de Huguenin, called Melisant  *  Seneschal, Shire of Adamastor, Cape Town
(Jessica Tiffin, University of Cape Town)
Sable, three owls rising argent, each maintaining a willow slip vert.
users.iafrica.com/m/me/melisant/stidings.htm
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