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Recipes

In this section I will share some unusual recipes that I’ve discovered during the course of my research – historical, religious, or otherwise!

Parsnip Cake ‘without eyther spice or sugar’

Hardanger Lefse (09/07/19)

Hamantaschen – Purim (20/03/19)

Epiphany Cake (6/01/19)

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Fave dei Morti- All Soul’s Day (2/11/18)

Halloween Soul Cakes (31/10/18)

Bartlemas Beef – St Bartholomew’s Day (24/08/18)

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Hungarian Goulash (July 2018)

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Torta degli Addobbi – Corpus Christi (31/05/18)

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Notices

Edited Series – Waste Not, Want Not!

Our edited collection ‘Waste Not, Want Not’ – on the history of food waste, thrift, and sustainability – is now live on The Recipes Project! We’ll be posting twice a week all of February!

Upcoming Talk: ‘Eating with Heretics: Protestant and Jewish Food in the Venetian Inquisition’

30 January, 1-2pm Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge.

Feast & Fast: The Art of Food in Europe, 1500 – 1800

New exhibition and book of the same name – to which it was a pleasure to contribute to – now at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge!

New blog post: ‘Reforming Food and Eating in Protestant England’

A summary of my article in the Historical Journal!

Article Published!

‘Reforming Food and Eating in Protestant England, c. 1560 – c. 1640’ published – open access – in the Historical Journal!

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One of my favourite finds from Copenhagen: Cornelius Norbetys Gysbrechts, Trompe l'oeil, 1670/1 🎨 Swipe to zoom out to see all the layers of this painting! It's several paintings of food within one, and including a pipe and knife🍊🍑🍇 Trompe l'oeil was an artistic genre intended to trick the viewer into thinking two dimensional illusions were three dimensional! 🤔 Gysbrechts was employed as the court painter by the Danish King Christian V, who kept his works in his renowned Cabinet of Curiosities. In the first detail you can see the commissioning note painted inside the painting 👀

Papaya and Watermelon by Agostinho da Mota, 1860 🍉🥭 Happy Monday!

Casta painting 9. by Miguel Cabrera (1763), showing an interracial family with a range of fruits on the right and vegetables on the left. The foods are labelled, for example 'xicama', meaning 'jicama', a Mexican turnip 🥕 Casta paintings were created in the 18th century in Mexico, and depicted the imagined hierarchy of races in the colonial era. They often contained 16 images of different couples, and are an important source for thinking about race relations in the early modern period. They also often contained local foods alongside human subjects, which were perhaps also reflective of racial identities🍇

'So with you I don't breakfast - nor yet do I dine, Mrs Glutton, for me you are no Valentine.' A sassy Victorian Valentine's Day card, addressed to 'Mrs Glutton'! 🤣 Offensive cards like this one were given as quick jokes, often telling the reader how they were unlikely to ever find romantic love! 💕 This one was meant to be sent to a woman. It reads: 'Well done, Mrs Glutton. Stick fast to the mutton, And having devoured that first, Pitch in it again, And, perhaps, you may then Try to manage the whole of the crust. Billy Shakespeare said that- "Give me men that grow fat;" And it went by Philosophy' s rules, That the glutton of life, Whether husband or wife, Was always the greatest of fools So with you I don't breakfast - nor yet do I dine, Mrs Glutton, for me you are no Valentine.' ❤️🍛🥪🍱🍨🥙 Image ©Museum of London

Birth Tray: The Triumph of Love 💕 In 15th century Florence, these trays were used to serve food to a woman in bed after giving birth, and may have also been given as a wedding gift 🍛 The decoration on this tray mirrors a poem by the fourteenth-century Italian poet Petrarch, which describes ‘The Triumph of Love’. The winged cherub at the top is shooting down the people below to fall in love. At the bottom, Aristotle is shown being riden by his love Phyllis. To their right an almost-naked man is also humiliated by a woman who cuts off his hair with a pair of golden shears. This is in reference to the biblical story of Samson and Delilah 👩 I wonder how the misogynistic references to these stories would have affected the woman who ate from the tray? 🤔 Our fourth post on romantic love and food ♥️ from the workshop of Apollonio di Giovanni and Workshop of Marco del Buono © National Gallery, London

Venus Verticordia by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1864-8), depicting the goddess Venus holding a golden apple. The title means 'Venus Changer of the Heart' 🍎 In Greek mythology, the golden apple refers to the prize won by Aphrodite (Venus) in a beauty contest (the Judgement of Paris), in which Paris was swayed by the love of the beautiful Helen of Troy 🏆 The honeysuckle and roses are also symbols of love and lust, as is also clear in Cupid's arrow that Venus holds towards her heart 💕 Our third post on food and romantic love ♥️ The artist actually wrote a poem to explain the allegory: 'VENUS VERTICORDIA. (For a Picture.) She hath the apple in her hand for thee, Yet almost in her heart would hold it back; She muses, with her eyes upon the track Of that which in thy spirit they can see. Haply, ‘Behold, he is at peace,’ saith she; ‘Alas! the apple for his lips,—the dart That follows its brief sweetness to his heart,— The wandering of his feet perpetually!’ A little space her glance is still and coy; But if she give the fruit that works her spell, Those eyes shall flame as for her Phrygian boy. Then shall her bird's strained throat the woe foretell, And her far seas moan as a single shell, And through her dark grove strike the light of Troy.'

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