Spices and Comfits: Collected Papers on Medieval Food Book

Throughout a long academic career in Holland, Johanna Maria van Winter has specialized in the study of food and drink in the Middle Ages. She has contributed several papers to learned journals and specialist conferences are gathered here within a single volume. The papers are printed for the most part in English but with some German and French texts. The subjects break down into four groups: Medieval Food Habits; The Netherlands and their Neighbours; Fasting and Feasting; Food and Health. Invariably the work is founded on a close study of written sources, either the medieval records of towns and feudal lords of The Netherlands, early printed cookery books, or the best international scholarship. Some of the topics discussed in this volume are: Fasting and asceticism in the Middle Ages; Fish recipes in late medieval and early modern cookery books; The use of cannabis in two cookery books of the fifteenth century; Green salads in the Renaissance; Invalid food in the fifteenth century; Regional cookery of the Low Countries in the later Middle Ages; Festive meals; Dining as a means of communication; The role of preserved food in Dutch medieval households.