[Sca-cooks] Period sources

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach jenne at fiedlerfamily.net:
>  > I do have a copy of Anthimus'  Epistula, which was written by the physician
>>  Anthimus to Theodoric, King of the Franks, on the regulation of diet. While
>>  possibly considered a medical text, during that period, medicine was an
>>  holistic science, where diet was considered as much a part of good health as
>>  we moderns are "discovering" today. It includes quite a few recipes,
>>  however, including the earliest known for honey butter (although it was a
>>  medicine, rather than a condiment), and one which Adamantius and I swear is
>>  a souffle.
>
>One of my Generic Winter Holiday presents was _Eating Right in the
>Renaissance_ by Ken Albala (fascinating book!) which claims that _De
>observatione ciborum_ was 'totally unknown by Renaissance Physicians and
>was not publised until modern times' (footnoting the Mark Grant/Prospect
>Books translation). I don't know how accurate that is-- anyone have any
>feedback?

Grant's is not the first published edition; I know HG Cariadoc has or
had an earlier edition from, IIRC, the 1930's. I believe there are
German translations from before that; check Thomas Gloning's website
for more info on that. Now, this source is, after all, a letter, and
not a published book as would know it, but that doesn't necessarily
mean it was totally unknown to Renaissance physicians. Certainly they
knew Galen and his ilk. Anthimus' views on humoral medicine seem to
be a little different, though, so perhaps his views as a common
school of thought had not really survived into the Renaissance as
Galen's did.

Adamantius (it's more like a really big quenelle than a souffle)