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Dinner with Tom Jones: Eighteenth-Century Cookery Adapted for the Modern Kitchen
Lore, customs, manners, and recipes of 18th-century England.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
18 people want to read
About the author
Lorna J. Sass
23 books7 followersLorna Sass is fondly known as "the Queen of Pressure Cooking." She is also a widely published food writer and an award-winning cookbook author. Check out her new blog: www.pressurecookingwithlornasass.word...
Lorna became interested in pressure cooking during the mid-eighties when most Americans had either never heard of this magical appliance or were afraid of it! Her COOKING UNDER PRESSURE, published in 1989, became a best-seller with over 250,000 copies in print. The 20th-Anniversary revised edition of COOKING UNDER PRESSURE came out on November 3,2009.
Lorna followed COOKING UNDER PRESSURE with 3 other pressure cooker books: GREAT VEGETARIAN COOKING UNDER PRESSURE (VEGAN!), THE PRESSURED COOK, and PRESSURE PERFECT.
During the nineties, Lorna wrote numerous vegan cookbooks, recognizing that a vegan approach to food created a much smaller carbon footprint. This was decades before cookbook authors were writing about the connection between food and sustainability. Her RECIPES FROM AN ECOLOGICAL KITCHEN was published in 1992! Her NEW VEGAN COOKBOOK was nominated for an IACP Award and her latest title in this category is SHORT-CUT VEGAN.
Her fourteenth cookbook, WHOLE GRAINS EVERY DAY, EVERY WAY, published in 2006, was awarded the prestigious James Beard Award in the "healthy focus" category. Her latest cookbook, WHOLE GRAINS FOR BUSY PEOPLE, focuses on quick-cooking recipes for cooks on the go.
Lorna has often found herself ahead of her time. While studying for her PhD in medieval literature at Columbia University, she wrote four historical cookbooks that were published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art--decades before anyone was studying food history!
Lorna's food articles have been published in dozens of prominent newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Gourmet, and Bon Appetit. In addition to her own blogs, she has blogged for The Huffington Post and Green Fork, and wrote a monthly recipe column for localharvest.org.
She is a member of Slow Food, The Author's Guild, and the Women's Culinary Alliance and an alumna of Les Dames des Escoffier, an organization of the top women in the food industry.
Lorna's current passion is to make healthy food available to all, and she is especially eager to help people grow their own food on rooftops and in community gardens in NYC.
Lorna became interested in pressure cooking during the mid-eighties when most Americans had either never heard of this magical appliance or were afraid of it! Her COOKING UNDER PRESSURE, published in 1989, became a best-seller with over 250,000 copies in print. The 20th-Anniversary revised edition of COOKING UNDER PRESSURE came out on November 3,2009.
Lorna followed COOKING UNDER PRESSURE with 3 other pressure cooker books: GREAT VEGETARIAN COOKING UNDER PRESSURE (VEGAN!), THE PRESSURED COOK, and PRESSURE PERFECT.
During the nineties, Lorna wrote numerous vegan cookbooks, recognizing that a vegan approach to food created a much smaller carbon footprint. This was decades before cookbook authors were writing about the connection between food and sustainability. Her RECIPES FROM AN ECOLOGICAL KITCHEN was published in 1992! Her NEW VEGAN COOKBOOK was nominated for an IACP Award and her latest title in this category is SHORT-CUT VEGAN.
Her fourteenth cookbook, WHOLE GRAINS EVERY DAY, EVERY WAY, published in 2006, was awarded the prestigious James Beard Award in the "healthy focus" category. Her latest cookbook, WHOLE GRAINS FOR BUSY PEOPLE, focuses on quick-cooking recipes for cooks on the go.
Lorna has often found herself ahead of her time. While studying for her PhD in medieval literature at Columbia University, she wrote four historical cookbooks that were published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art--decades before anyone was studying food history!
Lorna's food articles have been published in dozens of prominent newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Gourmet, and Bon Appetit. In addition to her own blogs, she has blogged for The Huffington Post and Green Fork, and wrote a monthly recipe column for localharvest.org.
She is a member of Slow Food, The Author's Guild, and the Women's Culinary Alliance and an alumna of Les Dames des Escoffier, an organization of the top women in the food industry.
Lorna's current passion is to make healthy food available to all, and she is especially eager to help people grow their own food on rooftops and in community gardens in NYC.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 21, 2014
This cookbook has over 100 historical recipes from the approximate era of the novel "Tom Jones", all chosen for both period flavors and techniques, and ingredients that are mostly accessible and- importantly- not toxic. Even the Victorians used some pretty toxic stuff in their cooking, especially when it came to coloring the food. (Some of that was discussed in the book I read recently on the Victorian home.)
This was particularly interesting to me because while the timespan it covered was a minimum of 50 years earlier than the Victorian era, a lot had not changed. In particular the traditional way of serving meals was very similar, and the diagrams from one book on where to place the 8+ dishes per "remove"- and there were usually a couple of "removes"- are quite similar.
Plus- the recipes look tasty! This is not always the case for historical recipes. I have not yet tried to make any of them, but I admit I am eying one of the first ones, the almond soup- though to me it looks more like a dessert than an appetizer!
The ingredients in the various recipes are fascinating, both in whet is similar, and what is really different for us. For example, oysters were almost considered filler... and now they're luxurious! It makes me wonder what foods that we take for granted now might be exotic and "fancy" in 100 years or so...
There was a good amount of context throughout. Each recipe had the original first, then notes and comments, then the modernized version. Note that since this book was published in 1977 it predated food processors, which would make many of the recipes far easier!
It is not as hardcore as a couple of "modernized" historical cookbooks have been, but it's also more accessible, and more of the recipes had me saying "Ooo! I want to try that!" I am impressed by the curating.
Very recommended, especially for those of us who are not into hardcore historical cooking, but would like to try some of the flavors and techniques.
This was particularly interesting to me because while the timespan it covered was a minimum of 50 years earlier than the Victorian era, a lot had not changed. In particular the traditional way of serving meals was very similar, and the diagrams from one book on where to place the 8+ dishes per "remove"- and there were usually a couple of "removes"- are quite similar.
Plus- the recipes look tasty! This is not always the case for historical recipes. I have not yet tried to make any of them, but I admit I am eying one of the first ones, the almond soup- though to me it looks more like a dessert than an appetizer!
The ingredients in the various recipes are fascinating, both in whet is similar, and what is really different for us. For example, oysters were almost considered filler... and now they're luxurious! It makes me wonder what foods that we take for granted now might be exotic and "fancy" in 100 years or so...
There was a good amount of context throughout. Each recipe had the original first, then notes and comments, then the modernized version. Note that since this book was published in 1977 it predated food processors, which would make many of the recipes far easier!
It is not as hardcore as a couple of "modernized" historical cookbooks have been, but it's also more accessible, and more of the recipes had me saying "Ooo! I want to try that!" I am impressed by the curating.
Very recommended, especially for those of us who are not into hardcore historical cooking, but would like to try some of the flavors and techniques.
March 26, 2016
Entertaining recipe and history book about the English cooking arts of the 1700s. Little bits of linguistics, sociology, history, and--of course--culinary anthropology. I'm interested in finding her other books even if I never cook any of the recipes!
The book is also very pretty. I have a new-looking 1977 hardback edition from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and you would swear it had just been published. In other words, it's nicely designed, with a deliberately antique feel. The illustrations are taken from the 1700s and, though most people would probably prefer photos of the dishes, are a lot of fun.
The book is also very pretty. I have a new-looking 1977 hardback edition from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and you would swear it had just been published. In other words, it's nicely designed, with a deliberately antique feel. The illustrations are taken from the 1700s and, though most people would probably prefer photos of the dishes, are a lot of fun.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews