The Book of Sent Soví: Medieval recipes from Catalonia

by Joan Santanach i Suñol (Editor)

The Book of Sent Sovi, composed around the middle of the fourteenth century, is the oldest surviving culinary text in Catalan. It is anonymous and, like the majority of medieval cookery books, is the product of a complex process of transmission, with multiple manuscript copies and readers who have left their mark on it. The contents are eminently practical. Successive cooks have recorded their own methods of preparing the dishes and recipes included, blending several culinary traditions in a single work. Sent Sovi is also a reliable source of information on the cookery of the territories of the Crown of Aragon before the revolution caused by the arrival of products from the Americas. This edition includes both an English translation, by Robin Vogelzang, and the original Catalan version. It has been the editor's aim to clarify the difficult passages in the book - sometimes corrupted because of the complex manuscript tradition - so that it can be understood as easily as possible by its twenty-first-century readers. JOAN SANTANACH lectures on medieval literature at the University of Barcelona. Published in association with Editorial Barcino.

Genres: Cookbooks, History, Cooking, Medieval, Reference

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1324

About the author

Joan Santanach i Suñol (Barcelona, 1973) és filòleg, editor i professor de la Universitat de Barcelona. Des de setembre de 2024 és secretari general de la Conselleria de Política lingüística de la generalitat de Catalunya.

Reviews

[Heather Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I don't have a specific interest in Iberian cookery, I do tend to collect editions of medieval cookbooks just out of habit. This one, I think I'm going to explore a bit (after I finish my current detailed exploration of Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks). It has a nice balance of meat, vegetable, and grain dishes and while the taste combinations follow familiar medieval templates, there is both a simplicity yet variety among the recipes that promises some fun explorations. While browsing through the section of "sauces" (salsa in the original) it struck me that the category isn't so much "a flavored topping for another dish" but something that ranges a bit further into "side dish" territory. There's a recipe for an eggplant casserole that looks absolutely scrumptious. So many cookbooks; so little time.

Since writing the above, I've had a chance to explore the recipes a bit more. I participate in historic re-creation activities and the following link describes some of my historic cooking experiments based on this text: http://hrj.livejournal.com/tag/sent%2...

[SFBlau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arrived