Although food historians can rely on written evidence to provide
them with early recipes and references to dishes that might have
been, the only other sources available to them are archaeology
(which never preserves a trifle intact), art history (which doesn't
go back that far) or the history of language - for the names of
things will often tell much about their origins. Food enthusiasts
will, therefore, spend much time recounting how a dish got its
name, but often they will be peddling nonsense or mythology and
what we really need is a historian of language. William Sayers is
just that and in this collection of essays and articles he explores
the riches of medieval English (and sometimes other tongues) to
tease out unfamiliar facts about our food heritage. He looks at a
wide range of topics: the bun; fish names; bee keeping;
breadmaking; the strawberry; the haggis; stock; kitchen staff;
frumenty; the pig and pork products. His approach is rigorously
linguistic, but the facts are always curious and amusing for the
engaged reader. Food history is a tremendously rich area of enquiry
and this book explores nooks and crannies that have not been
properly mapped up to now.
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