Shakespeare's Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook - Hardcover

Segan, Francine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375509178 ISBN 13: 9780375509179

Publisher: Random House, 2003

Synopsis

“Shakespeare’s Kitchen not only reveals, sometimes surprisingly, what people were eating in Shakespeare’s time but also provides recipes that today’s cooks can easily re-create with readily available ingredients.”
—from the Foreword by Patrick O’Connell


Francine Segan introduces contemporary cooks to the foods of William Shakespeare’s world with recipes updated from classic sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cookbooks. Her easy-to-prepare adaptations shatter the myth that the Bard’s primary fare was boiled mutton. In fact, Shakespeare and his contemporaries dined on salads of fresh herbs and vegetables; fish, fowl, and meats of all kinds; and delicate broths. Dried Plums with Wine and Ginger-Zest Crostini, Winter Salad with Raisin and Caper Vinaigrette, and Lobster with Pistachio Stuffing and Seville Orange Butter are just a few of the delicious, aromatic, and gorgeous dishes that will surprise and delight. Segan’s delicate and careful renditions of these recipes have been thoroughly tested to ensure no-fail, standout results.

The tantalizing Renaissance recipes in Shakespeare’s Kitchen are enhanced with food-related quotes from the Bard, delightful morsels of culinary history, interesting facts on the customs and social etiquette of Shakespeare’s time, and the texts of the original recipes, complete with antiquated spellings and eccentric directions. Fifty color images by award-winning food photographer Tim Turner span the centuries with both old-world and contemporary treatments. Patrick O’Connell provides an enticing Foreword to this edible history from which food lovers and Shakespeare enthusiasts alike will derive nourishment. Want something new for dinner? Try something four hundred years old.

About this title

About the Author

Francine Segan is a psychologist, writes and lectures on food history, and consults on historic menu planning. Segan, her husband, Marc, an inventor and theater producer, and their two children, Samantha and Max, divide their time between New York City, the Berkshires, and Italy.

From the Back Cover

“Shakespeare’s Kitchen treats four-hundred-year-old recipes with a freshness that will keep this cookbook selling for years and years to come. As enlightening as they are appetizing, Segan’s recipes bring the exuberance of the Elizabethan era into the modern American kitchen. You’ll want to try them all.”
—Moira Hodgson, cookbook author and restaurant critic, The New York Observer 
 
“Francine Segan has employed the same intelligence and passion directors of plays and films use in making the Bard relevant to us and to our times. The fare she found and resuscitated is far more sophisticated than those cinematic visions of nobles gnawing on haunches of various animals had led us to believe. It is clear that all manner of appetites were stimulated at table in Shakespeare’s time, and, through Segan’s book, will be again.”
—William Rice, food and wine columnist, Chicago Tribune

“I’ve had the pleasure of dining at Francine’s table many times and have always walked away singing. I loved reading Shakespeare’s Kitchen. Maybe now I can learn to cook! A hit, a very palpable hit.”
—Betty Buckley, Tony Award–winning actress and singer

“Francine Segan reawakens our love of the Renaissance feast. William Shakespeare’s words find their feasting fellow in this joyous cookbook in which pleasures of the flesh and pleasures of the spirit cohabitate.”
—Tina Packer, artistic director, Shakespeare & Company, Lenox, Massachusetts

“Through Segan’s connection to Shakespeare’s delicious words and times she entices us with culinary delights that are sure to please any palate.”
—David A. Dreyfoos, producing director, Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Reviews

According to food historian Segan, we inherited much of what we now think of as "American" food from the English: "The Pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth Rock were Shakespeare's contemporaries and they brought their cookbooks from England." Updating dozens of classic Elizabethan recipes, Segan leads a culinary foray into Shakespeare's time. Each recipe is supplemented with a historical note that places the dish in context. For instance, Individual Meat Pies with Cointreau Marmalade were served by vendors catering to the theater crowd. The recipes have been adapted for the modern kitchen: all references to cauldrons have been removed. Section titles are in period English (Kickshaws instead of Appetizers, Fysshe instead of Fish, Pottage instead of Soups), but Renaissance scholars are not the only readers who will get a kick out of this book. Its playful tone, fascinating side-notes, and apt citations from the Bard's plays make this book as fun to read as it is to cook from. And for the person who spends time in the kitchen hoping to satisfy curiosity as well as appetite, recipes like Lemony Sweet Potatoes with Dates and Lobster Tails with Wildflowers are sure to appeal. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Not since Lynne Rossetto Kasper's lauded The Splendid Table (1992) introduced cooks to the world of the seventeenth-century Italian kitchen has a historical investigation turned up so many compelling recipes as has Francine Segan in Shakespeare's Kitchen. Although not a literal gleaning of recipes from Shakespeare's plays and poetry, this volume delves into sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English cookbooks and makes them accessible, reproducible, and attractive. Segan presents each original recipe in its quaint, abbreviated form. Working from that sketchy data, she faithfully converts the antique into instructions that an experienced cook can understand and can reproduce either for a special party or for an adventuresome family. Although reading the original recipe and comparing it with its modern version makes the process look virtually transparent, it's clear that Segan spent hours in a kitchen testing proportions and measurements to make dishes palatable. Simple cauliflower chowder or Italian pea pottage show the Elizabethan fascination with exotic spices such as mace and anise seed. Kids will get a giggle out of the scatological association in the original name of the airy dumplings floating in a thirteenth-century Portuguese soup. Royals watchers will delight in Queen Elizabeth's Fine Cake and the spicy scones named King James Biscuits. Renaissance "Apple" and Steak Pie may serve as a spectacular focus for an elegant dinner party. Segan's appendix gives clever ideas for wording invitations to dinner parties featuring the book's recipes. Students of both history and literature may mine Shakespeare's Kitchen for inspiration for class projects and celebrations. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0375509178
• ISBN 13: 9780375509179
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288