SC - "Dining with William Shakespeare"

[Huette von Ahrens]

In a message dated 7/3/00 4:15:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
oftraquair at hotmail.com writes:

<< 
 Yes, but . . .by 1604, Lady Fettiplace had been housekeeping for nearly 20 
 years if I recall correctly.  And likely some of the recipes came from her 
 mother or other older female relations, so I'd expect many of the collection 
 originated 'in period'. She sometimes does reference who gave her the 
 recipe, ok, she name drops, but that helps pin some of the recipe dates 
 down.>>>

    Yep--all that name-dropping is certainly part of the charm, viewed at 
this distance. :-) And yes, I've always assumed that a good portion of the 
recipes were indeed conceived before our cut-off date, and therefore could 
reasonably be assumed to be period. Risky, if you are entering a competition, 
perhaps, but for general use I have no problems with it at all.
 
>> I'd like access to a copy of the book you have, instead of the other, 
which 
 I like but which leaves everything to guess work as at least once, she 
 mentions in her introduction a recipe that was added much later (per the ink 
 and the handwritting) and then later uses the recipe in the text of the book 
 without making clear that it is NOT part of the receipt collection that was 
 written up for Lady F in 1604.
 
 Bonne
  >>
    What I have is a small booklet, supposedly the first of three, though I 
haven't seen any others listed for sale yet. It is a straight transcription 
from the manuscript, made by the book's ocurrent owner (John Spurling) 
However, it turns out that most of the original recipes were medicinal, 
rather than culinary! Not a problem for me, as I am also fascinated by that 
type of thing, but something to be aware of before ordering..........
    My copy came from Acanthus Books 
(http://www.acanthus-books.com/acanthus-books/antiquity.html) and cost 
$12.00. The blurb with the ordering info says that the next two volumes "will 
be available in Spring 1999". Oh, well............. ;-)

                        Ldy Diana