Danielle T’s Reviews > History of Cookbooks: From Kitchen to Page over Seven Centuries > Status Update

Pushed passed the very nitty gritty section to get to the third section: "the text and its world" aka the contexts cookbooks have been used as- class markers, health, humor, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I do like getting into academic weeds! I'm just fascinated that something like classification of nouns used is a thing people study- there's an expert for everything.

Over halfway there to the end notes section! The chapter on the recipe got very granular, going into what infinitive recipes are written etc, as well as the way nouns are used etc used. Still interested finishing though as it's been in my currently to read for a while

In the chapter of paratexts- that is, title, preface, headings, illustrations, author's name, and index; the things that accompany the main text. Notaker points out that cookbooks are frequently just called simply that, "cookbook" with adjectives like modern/useful/etc. and teaching kind of descriptors like guide, manual, companion, etc.

did not update last week, apparently. end notes start around page 300ish, so I feel like I'm a third of the way through, so progress?

Made more progress last night, but none at work today. Still in establishing chapters- have discussed cooks and their place in various [European] societies, and then the publication of books and distinguishing between those who copied manuscripts vs. collecting recipes vs. commenting on copies etc., currently in chapter on organization of said recipes/structure

"For the printed literature—the main focus in this study—the contributors represrnt a wider variety of experiences and backgrounds." Aha, so as I thought this is academic lit turned book (but still very academic)

work progress from the weekend

though the Sarah J. Maas book had more pages, this text is denser, and with footnotes. Good ol' academic dissertation-turned-book! Been a while since I've read one of these- Temp back in June/July.

On a superficial note, the cover calligraphy reminds me of The Bad-ass Librarians of Timbuktu.