The Shakespeare Cookbook

by Andrew Dalby

Shakespeare's working life, from about 1590 to 1615, was not only a period of rich activity on the London stage, but also one of prolific writing and publishing about food. Shakespeare himself used food in many of his from memorable banquet scenes, to the use of food and feasting as metaphor. This fascinating book explores the plays alongside contemporary recipes to offer modern day cooks a unique insight into daily life and gastronomy in Shakespeare's London.

Genres: History, Cookbooks, Cooking, Nonfiction, Shakespeare, Food

144 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2012

About the author

Andrew Dalby (born Liverpool, 1947) is an English linguist, translator and historian who most often writes about food history.

Dalby studied at the Bristol Grammar School, where he learned some Latin, French and Greek; then at the University of Cambridge. There he studied Latin and Greek at first, afterwards Romance languages and linguistics. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1970. Dalby then worked for fifteen years at Cambridge University Library, eventually specializing in Southern Asia. He gained familiarity with some other languages because of his work there, where he had to work with foreign serials and afterwards with South and Southeast Asian materials. In 1982 and 1983 he collaborated with Sao Saimong in cataloguing the Scott Collection of manuscripts and documents from Burma (especially the Shan States) and Indochina; He was later to publish a short biography of the colonial civil servant and explorer J. G. Scott, who formed the collection.[1] To help him with this task, he took classes in Cambridge again in Sanskrit, Hindi and Pali and in London in Burmese and Thai.

Reviews

[Redsteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book tries to address several related topics simultaneously – it gives the reader a general history of food and drink, cooking and dining in the later Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods; it discusses literary references to the above in the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries; and also presents a selection of recipes from that period. Since it is a fairly slim volume, it doesn’t do any of them deeply. Not badly, but The Shakespeare Cookbook is definitely an introduction to these subjects. As in many modern editions of period cookbooks, this one includes original (Early Modern English) versions as well as adaptions for a modern kitchen. Even though the authors make it clear that this is not intended for reenactors, I felt that they took too many liberties with the “modern kitchen” versions of the recipes. In most books of this sort, changes are made for clarity, use of a reasonably equipped modern kitchen, and substitutions of toxic and or difficult-to-obtain ingredients. In The Shakespeare Cookbook, there’s excessive modernization of the recipes and, in some cases, recipes were changed to a similar (but obviously different) dish (e.g. changing “boiled stockfish” to estocaficada). The book is readable and is a good starting point for readers interested in late 16th/early 17th Century cooking (the suggested reading and source materials sections are also excellent), but I advise anyone to be wary of the modern versions of the recipes and compare them to the originals.

[Heather Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a book aimed at serious food history geeks, except insofar as serious food history geeks who are completists will no doubt enjoy picking up a copy to grace their shelves. This is meant as a "gateway drug" to historic food geekery. The name Dalby is generally associated with a quality product and up to a certain point, this is what the book delivers. Past that point ... well, but I'll get to that.

The basic premise here is to introduce the reader to the basic ideas of culinary and dining history in the late 16th century in a palatable [you see what I did there?] manner by tying the subjects in at regular intervals to themes and dialogs in Shakespeare's plays. With the wealth of the British Museum holdings at their disposal, it comes plentifully illustrated with artwork and artifacts relevant to the topics. In fact, solely as a single source for images of Elizabethan dinners and dining arrangements (of varied levels of formality, class, and scope) this would be a valuable starting point. In addition, there are discussions of common (and some uncommon) ingredients and staple foods.

And, of course, there are recipes. Like all good "gateway drug" cookbooks, the text provides a literary context mentioning a dish, then provides a recipe from a historic cookbook that has some connection with the literary context, and then provides a modern measured-and-step-by-step recipe for the novice to follow. Very disappointingly though, these last are not merely modern in format but have been changed significantly from the historic recipes to make them modern in taste and form as well.

As a typical example, a 16th century recipe for "Capon with oranges or lemons" which can be summarized as "boil a capon, then make a sauce by simmering some of the broth with oranges, mace, and sugar, thickened with wine and egg yolks" gets turned into "oven-braise chicken pieces with onions, carrots, and dill, then make a sauce from lemon juice and a minute amount of the cooking liquid, thickened with whole eggs and cornstarch". Well, they overlap in the use of poultry, citrus, and eggs I guess. This is, alas, fairly typical of the lack of confidence the authors have in the ability of modern readers to both follow and enjoy more authentic recipes. And some have an even more tenuous connection between the two (like the deep-fried apple fritters that get turned into a baked apple coffee cake, or the simple spinach tart for which a spanikopita recipe is substituted).

In short, the book works as a gateway drug to historic cooking all the way up to the point when the reader wants to start cooking, at which point there is a bait and switch and they are deprived of the chance to learn anything true or real about the food of Shakespeare's day. This is quite disappointing (and I look forward with trepidation to someone presenting the results of the modernized recipes as "an authentic Shakespearean banquet"). The book is hardly without value, but the recipes make it deeply flawed in what it purports to be.