[Sca-cooks] Pynson's Book was The Tiniest Little Gloat

[Johnna Holloway]

As regards the "book" known as "The boke of cokery"
 it's not to be expected that The Marquess of Bath
would let them examine the only surviving copy of the cookbook printed
by Pynson in 1500. This is not a culinary manuscript. This is an actual 
printed book!
Almost twenty years ago now a project was begun
to publish this very first English printed cookbook. There have been 
numerous delays, including the death
of the former Marquess, but sometime in the next year or two, a two 
volume set
will be appearing. Constance Hieatt and Brenda Hosington have done the 
recipe work.
It's been finished for a number of years and we make mention to it in 
the Concordance of English Recipes.

I have actually done work and given numerous sessions on the actual 1500 
text for a number of years.
The work has been available on microfilm through UMI for decades and is 
now part of
EEBO. Due to print show through, that's not a very good version. However 
in 2001
I was able to purchase another microfilm edition (filmed by a different 
company) and those scans are mostly readable.
One cannot of course do anything with the recipes since the microfilm 
copies carry explicit
copyright warnings that the work is owned by Longleat.

Johnnae


silverr0se at aol.com wrote:
> Marc's cohort Richard is attempting to decipher a 1502 (or was it 1602, Selene?) manuscript recipe book, whose owner the Marquis of bath will not let them see the original. He's working from a 1950's microfiche that has the backside of the pages showing thru, so he is going somewhat nuts.
>
> It was a great evening, well worth staying out past bedtime.
>
> Renata
>