Sallets, Humbles & Shrewsbery Cakes: A Collection of Elizabethan Recipes Adapted for the Modern Kitchen

Rating:
Summary: Less adaptation than imagination
Review: While the author of this work seems as if she means to be sincere, sincerity is not enough when your purported goal is to "adapt Elizabethan recipes for modern kitchens". More attention to accuracy in the redactions (conversion to modern recipes) and authenticity of the results would have been a better goal. The individual recipes quote "originals" with no notation as to where the original source came from (which book?), leaving no idea as to whether they have been quoted accurately. The adapted recipes not only jump to some pretty wild conclusions as to what the finished dish was intended to be, but in some cases contain wildly different ingredients than were quoted in the original recipe, with no explanation. There are also giant leaps from a baked dish (in the original) to a boiled one (in the adaptation), or vice versa. This might pass muster as a "popular" book for those who have no serious interest in authenticity in historical recreation of recipes, if it were not for the author's repeated claims as to scholarship and accuracy. Not recommended for the serious food history buff or re-enactor. I might give this to someone with a mild interest in the subject, but only with a warning about lack of historical accuracy. She even manages to perpetuate the tired, old myth of spices being used "to cover up the taste of bad meat". Nothing could be further from the truth.

Rating:
Summary: Less adaptation than imagination
Review: While the author of this work seems as if she means to be sincere, sincerity is not enough when your purported goal is to "adapt Elizabethan recipes for modern kitchens". More attention to accuracy in the redactions (conversion to modern recipes) and authenticity of the results would have been a better goal. The individual recipes quote "originals" with no notation as to where the original source came from (which book?), leaving no idea as to whether they have been quoted accurately. The adapted recipes not only jump to some pretty wild conclusions as to what the finished dish was intended to be, but in some cases contain wildly different ingredients than were quoted in the original recipe, with no explanation. There are also giant leaps from a baked dish (in the original) to a boiled one (in the adaptation), or vice versa. This might pass muster as a "popular" book for those who have no serious interest in authenticity in historical recreation of recipes, if it were not for the author's repeated claims as to scholarship and accuracy. Not recommended for the serious food history buff or re-enactor. I might give this to someone with a mild interest in the subject, but only with a warning about lack of historical accuracy. She even manages to perpetuate the tired, old myth of spices being used "to cover up the taste of bad meat". Nothing could be further from the truth.