It’s hard not to admire Nika Standen Hazelton, an outspoken and opinionated food writer who, despite the 30 or so cookbooks she wrote, quipped that “… cookbooks are mostly bought as escape literature, not to cook from … .” Very much a prophetess! Born in Rome in 1908, to a German diplomat father and Italian … More Nika Standen Hazelton: Remembering a Food Writer Chronicling a Lost World
Since it looks like I won’t be sitting in a pub quaffing Guinness anytime soon, I decided to dig out a few of my British cookbooks and think of England. Thinking of England, especially if you’re a food-crazed blogger with a penchant for the past, means recalling food writer Elizabeth David, and of course, Alan … More Remembering Jane Grigson, a British Food Writer Gone Too Soon*
Let food be thy medicine, and let thy medicine be food. ~Hippocrates Food and medicine, always intertwined in the human imagination. Because – obviously – the earliest English settlers brought their food habits and medicinal beliefs with them to what is now the United States, I relish books that provide background to the English way … More Lessons from Medieval England: The Relationship Between the Sick Room and the Kitchen
Yer may talk of yer flummadiddlers and fiddlepad- dies, but when it comes down to gen-u-ine grub, there ain’t nothing like good old salt hoss that yer kin eat afore yer turns in and feel it all night a-Iaying in yer stummick and a-nourishin’ of yen.* Think of the seaside on a windy day, waves … More Oh, it’s a Sailor’s Life for Me! Lobscouse and Dandyfunk
With a name like that, of course, I couldn’t resist the recipe. “Mulacolong.” What on earth did that mean? It seems that no one else knew either, thanks to a Google search and more. So I decided to split up the word, to look at components rather the whole. One tantalizing bit of information kept … More Mulacolong, from Sarah Rutledge’s The Carolina Housewife:
Absolutely delicious, served with freshly baked bread: See recipe and discussion HERE. This is the kind of recipe you can make by following instructions and hints found in “A Hastiness of Cooks”.
If you’ve ever tried to read Chaucer in the original language, you know what you’re up against when you tackle a recipe dating from the poet’s time period. Actually, when you read The Canterbury Tales, you have it fairly easy, for there’s a multitude of resources to help you as you plunge through Chaucer’s Middle … More What’s That You Say??? Medieval Culinary Terminology Unmasked*
