[Sca-cooks] Two pleasant announcements

[johnna holloway]

It seems far too early in the morning for this subject,
but let's see.
OED gives under dietary that
1655 Moufet & Bennet Health's Improvement from the edition of.
1746. page  71
Albeit there lived no dietary Physicians before the Flood.
Mouffet or Muffet composed the work in the 1590's prior to his
death in 1605.

Quotations before 1600 that refer to the meaning:
 course of diet prescribed or marked out; a book or treatise prescribing
such a course.
C. 1430 A Diatorie in Babees Bk. (1868) 54 To be rulid bi þis diatorie do þi
diligence, For it techiþ good diete & good gouernaunce;
1542 Boorde (title), A Compendyous Regyment or a Dyetary of Helth.
Boorde (1870 reprint says--) page 231 Here foloweth the dyetary or the
regyment of helth.
1570 Levins Manip. 104/1 A Dietarie, dietarium.

Diet of course might not always be what was eaten but might also
refer to a "Course of life: way of living or thinking." It also
meant food as a collective whole, especially in relation to their quality
and effects
or the allowance of food in given circumstances. (rations)
A. 1225 Ancr. R. 112 Vnderstondeð, hwuc was his diete
þet dei, iðen ilke blodletunge! So baluhful & so bitter!

A secondary meeaning of diet comes from the idea that it
was "a day's work or wage or journey"
C. 1440 Gesta Rom. xix. 67 (Harl. MS.)
Also how many daies iourneys... This terme or this dyet, is not ellis but
the terme of thi lyfe.

(which reminds of the television soap opera The Days of Our Lives)
It's also a court setting or session.
1587 Sc. Acts Jas. VI (1599) 82
Called..before the justice or his deputes at iustice aires, or particular
diettes.

OED gives die'titian. Also dietician. prop. dietician,
1846 Worcester, Dietitian, one skilled in diet; a dietist. Qu. Rev.

The actual older term might be dietist.
dietist dietist di.etist.  meaning
One who professes or practises dietetics or some theory of diet.
1607 Walkington Opt. Glass 16 Reasonable appetite, the Cynosura of the wiser
dietist.

1655 Moufet & Bennet Health's Improv. (1746) 227 Not lately devised by our
Country Pudding-wrights, or curious Sauce-makers, as..foolish Dietists have
imagined.
Again this would have been composed by Mouffet prior to 1605.

I would suggest you might want to get hold of Ken Albala's
Eating Right in the Renaissance if you want a good interesting
account of what they ate and what they were being told to eat
in the various texts of the times. It's a good read.

Johnnae llyn Lewis   Johnna Holloway



> > > What about dieticians? 20th century invention :)?
> >> Yes. Avraham

------------
Huh. Buttes' "Dyets Dry Dinner", isn't that 16th or 17th century?
Andrew Boorde, whose "Dyetery of Helth" (1542?) concerns, as its name
suggests, achieving good health through diet rather than addressing
prescriptions or surgery. Adamantius
------------------------------
jenne at fiedlerfamily.net wrote:

> Avraham, you're making my head hurt...
>
> Modern dieticians fufill the role that medieval court physicians did in
> period... that's why there's so many medical commentaries and diet books
> in period. But yes, the term 'dietician' is modern.
>
> -- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika   jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
> "Our whole American way of life is a great war of ideas, and librarians
> are the arms dealers selling weapons to both sides." -- James Quinn