[Sca-cooks] Great Medieval Bake Off

[Johnna Holloway]

The folks behind the Medieval Manuscripts Blog at the British Library have been busy of late.

On offer for 
"24 AUGUST 2016
The Great Medieval Bake Off

The return of a certain baking contest to British television screens this evening marks the time of year when viewers are struck by a peculiar kind of ‘baking fever’. Typical symptoms include: massively overestimating your own baking talents; buying and using peculiar ingredients you would never usually use; and avidly discussing whose cake had more of a ‘soggy bottom’. This fascination with the baking process and an enjoyment of bread, cakes and pies has long been an important part of society. Baking is, after all, one of the world’s oldest professions, and baking guilds were among the earliest craftsmen guilds established in medieval Europe.

The high level of skill required in the baking craft was certainly recognised in medieval society. In the passage below, the Anglo-Saxon monk, Ælfric, implied that everyone can cook, but it took special skills to be a baker! 'You can live a long time with my skills', he described a baker saying, 'but you cannot live well without them.' "

http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2016/08/the-great-medieval-bake-off.html

http://tinyurl.com/h5sl3an


The other cute offering was the Medieval Pokeman Go edition.
"It is traditionally thought that Pikachu, Squirtle and their comrades originated in Japan in the 1990s. However, revolutionary research by the Medieval Manuscripts section has unearthed some familiar scenes among the British Library's collections."

http://tinyurl.com/jqgee4e

Johnnae