[Sca-cooks] Recipe Books

[Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise]

> With regard to there being a Culinary Renaissance in 1600, I'm not  
> seeing it. While New World foods do begin to emerge as significant at  
> around this time in some parts of Europe, I'd have to say that the  
> changes in eating habits, at least those represented by written  
> recipes, are far more evident between, say, 1550 and 1590 CE than  
> they are in most of the actual 17th century. 

I can buy the argument that sometime between 1550 and 1700 a  number of 
large changes took place in European food, including the incorporation 
of New World foods, changes in dietary concerns, and changes in the way 
of serving. 

However, I would not under any circumstances call this a "Culinary 
Renaissance" in a historical sense. There is no re-birth here, but a 
change. There is certainly not a return to the Classical way of food. If 
there was such a return I'd have to date it to Platina. In English, the 
historical term "Renaissance" has a specific sense, relating to the 
rebirth of such classical sensibility-- " a. The great 
revival of art and letters, under the influence of classical models, 
which began in Italy in the 14th century and continued during the 15th 
and 16th; also, the period during which this movement was in progress." 
(Oxford English Dictionary)

>From the Encyclopedia Britannica:
"Renaissance:  literally .rebirth,. the period in European civilization 
immediately following the Middle Ages, conventionally held to have been 
characterized by a surge of interest in classical learning and values. 
...
The term Middle Ages was coined by scholars in the 15th century to 
designate the interval between the downfall of the classical world of 
Greece and Rome and its rediscovery at the beginning of their own 
century, a revival in which they felt they were participating. Indeed, 
the notion of a long period of cultural darkness had been expressed by 
Petrarch even earlier. Events at the end of the Middle Ages, 
particularly beginning in the 12th century, set in motion a series of 
social, political, and intellectual transformations that culminated in 
the Renaissance."



-- 
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 
"I thought you might need rescuing . . . We have a bunch of professors 
wandering around who need students." -- Dan Guernsey