[Sca-cooks] MEDIEVAL Near Eastern Food, was The Priest Fainted

[johnna holloway]

What Dalby includes in Siren Feasts
on the later Greek foods and cookery
is more of an afterthought. There's not that much
there. Pp. 187-209 in fact.
Actually the work of more possible interest
is his new one that is in press at Prospect Books right now.

FLAVOURS OF BYZANTIUM is due out July, 2003.

The food that was eaten at the court and in the realm of Byzantium
in the Middle Ages has for centuries tempted and fascinated the West,
yet very little has been written in English on the subject.
 Andrew Dalby gives an entertaining account of
the dining customs of the Emperors as witnessed by the
foreign visitors (ever struck by the wealth and extravagance);
of the medical theories underlying   the diet; of the raw materials
available and the means by which they reached the table.
This is underpinned by translations from original texts;
an impressive word-list and glossary of medieval Greek
food words; and some actual recipes.

It's the work we have been waiting on.
(Dalby by the way reviews the Henry Marks volume in the
latest PPC.)

Johnnae llyn Lewis                 Johnna Holloway

          lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:

> Selene pondered:
>   What I want to find is some good solid sources from the eastern
> >Mediterranean between the 14th and 17th Centuries, for from Greece from
> >after Roman times to the 17th.

 lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:
Here's a book that might have some of what you're looking for... I've
only glanced at it, so i don't really recall how much detail there
is for the post-SCA, but pre-modern, period.

>
> Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece
> by Andrew Dalby Routledge snipped
> Also since Byzantium still existed until the mid-15th century, a look
> at a recent work on Byzantine food might have something useful...
> "Byzantine Cuisine"
> by Henry Marks
> Available from Poison Pen Press
> http://www.poisonpenpress.com/cookery.html
> Anahita