[Sca-cooks] cormarye

[johnna holloway]

If you examine a bibliography of cookery titles--
you will note that there was a definite division
as to who wrote what, just as there was a division
as to who prepared what. Confectioners were not the
general cooks; pastry was a separate field. Then
consider the aspect of guild secrets and oral methods
being passed along by instruction and not a written text.
You might want to check out Michael Symons'
A History of Cooks and Cooking or All Manners of Food
by Stephen Mennell. Both are available from the
University of Illinois. Or take a good look at
Peter Brears account of the Tudor kitchens and the
people who ran them in All the King's Cooks.

Johnna Holloway  Johnnae llyn Lewis

Stefan li Rous wrote:
> And again I would expect the cookbooks
> to have a heavier percentage of fancy, more difficult to fix recipes.
> If it is simple enough, or common enough, who needs to put it into
> a book?