History of Cookbooks

 A History of Cookbooks provides a sweeping literary and historical overview of the cookbook genre, exploring its development as a part of food culture beginning in the Late Middle Ages. Studying cookbooks from various Western cultures and languages, Henry Notaker traces the transformation of recipes from brief notes with ingredients into detailed recipes with a specific structure, grammar, and vocabulary. In addition, he reveals that cookbooks go far beyond offering recipes: they tell us a great deal about nutrition, morals, manners, history, and menus while often providing entertaining reflections and commentaries. This innovative book demonstrates that cookbooks represent an interesting and important branch of nonfiction literature.

Review: "Notaker's impressive work of research calls for cookbooks to be read and valued the same as literature . . . . A History of Cookbooks also serves up a wonderful history of publishing, since that first printed Italian cookbook coincides with the advent of Gutenberg's press" * Print Magazine *

"This stirring work will enhance our engagement with the kitchens of our ancestors." * Times Literary Supplement *

"A complex and dense read, and the author is to be complimented on maintaining clarity throughout. For the food historian it is a useful reminder that cookbooks have scope beyond that of mere instruction, and for the literary historian it highlights the complexities that underlie apparently simple manuals. It is a book for serious students of both fields." * Petits Propos Culinaires *

"It is the work of a polyglot, a researcher passionate about his subject, and an indefatigable reader. . . . Henry Notaker's work is a reference book worth having in any good library." * Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies *

"Well-argued and researched work, taking a new and intriguing approach to a popular subject." * CHOICE *

"...a dense but well-argued and researched work, taking a new and intriguing approach to a popular subject." * CHOICE *

Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

PART ONE. FOOD AND TEXT-COOK AND WRITER

Prologue: A Rendezvous

1. The Cook

2. Writer and Author

PART TWO. THE TEXT AND ITS FORM

3. The Origin and Early Development of Modern Cookbooks

4. Printed Cookbooks: Diffusion, Translation, and Plagiarism

5. Organizing the Cookbook

6. Naming the Recipes

7. Pedagogical and Didactic Approaches

8. Paratexts in Cookbooks

9. The Recipe Form

10. The Cookbook Genre

PART THREE. THE TEXT AND ITS WORLD

11. Cookbooks for the Rich and the Poor

12. Health and Medicine in Cookbooks

13. Recipes for Fat Days and Lean Days

14. Vegetarian Cookbooks

15. Jewish Cookbooks

16. Cookbooks and Aspects of Nationalism

17. Decoration, Illusion, and Entertainment

18. Taste and Pleasure

19. Gender in Cookbooks and Household Books

Epilogue: Cookbooks and the Future

Notes

References

Index