[Sca-cooks] Transition of Cuisine

[johnna holloway]

> Luanne Bartholomew wrote:>
> > Here's a question for all you students of food history: What caused
> > the transition from medieval to modern cooking methods? snipped---
  There was a lot of discussion about the changes in cooking by
the time of La Varenne. But what caused the changes?
>Philip Troy replied:
> In no particular order, some of the factors would include:>
> Printed cookbooks - idea exchange becomes a bit easier>
> Protestantism - different dietary rules for parts of Europe>
> Exploration - cheaper spices, sugar, and new domestic and game animals,
> fruits and vegetables>
> Economic changes / rise of a wealthy middle class in towns etc.,
> Adamantius

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I think probably that one factor that enters into play here is
that historians like to have a date for ending the Middle Ages/
Renaissance and a date for the beginning of the Modern Era.
And within cookery there comes a point as to when did the transition
come about? Was it 1460-1500 with the use of printed books coming
into widespread use? Was it 1490-1530 for the Voyages of Discovery?
Was it the 1520's- on with the Reformation? Economic change?
Or can it be traced to one cookbook and one person? Was Le Cuisinier
Francois so influential that medieval cookery ceased and modern
cookery began with its publication in 1651? Some culinary scholars
have thought so. You might want to read All Manners of Food. Eating
and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present
by Stephen Mennell. It wasn't cited in French Food in the Renaissance
as a source, but it's very good on this question of change and modern
styles. Leonard Beck's Two "Loaf-Givers" [Library of Congress, 1984]
gives a detailed account of La Varenne's place in culinary literature
by examing French cookbooks prior to and after La Varenne.

Johnnae llyn Lewis  Johnna Holloway