Cooking Across the Ages

What one can learn about different cultural groups through the lens of their cookbooks; looking at two chicken recipes 200 years and a continent apart; learning to cook dishes from a 1748 French cookbook and "The Can-Opener Cookbook" of 1953.

Whether the recipes in "De re coquinaria" are bizarre and disgusting, or they reflect a time of elegance and luxury; exploring its sala cattabia, minutal of apricots and botellum; finding three delicious, and even somewhat familiar, dishes.

Examining the Chinese Wei dynasty's "Qi Min Yao Shu"; learning about Chinese agricultural practices going back to antiquity; the fermentation practices of the time; following a scaled-down recipe to create a fermented black bean dish.

Exploring recipes from 14th-century Egypt that reflect the interchange between the many cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean of the time; learning to make himmas kassa and a light and flaky phyllo dough stretched to the size of a table.

Exploring the 13th century's "Libellus de arte coquinaria"; with its terse recipes, it seems to be written for a noble audience and not the common cook; learning to make "hunter-style" fish pie with animal bones, as well as beer.

Meeting Guillaume Tirel, the first celebrity chef who serves in the 14th century; his "Le Viandier" serves to help people remember how to cook the classics; diving into his recipe for a polysavory white stew of capons; individual tarts with banners.