The Most Excellent Book of Cookery

An edition and translation of the sixteenth-century 'Livre Fort Excellent De Cuysine'

by Timothy J. Tomasik and Ken Albala

Book cover: The Most Excellent Book of Cookery

Extent: 192 pages

Publisher: Prospect Books

Subjects: Early Modern & Renaissance Studies, Food & Drink, French Studies

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(December 2012)

ISBN: 9781903018965

139 x 215 inches

Price: $40.00

In stock

The Livre fort excellent de cuysine is one of a family of cookery books that first saw the light with Pierre Sergent’s La Fleur de toute cuysine (renamed Le Grand cuisinier de toute cuisine) of 1542. This edition of the Livre fort excellent was published in 1555. Scholars have often dismissed the printed cookbooks of 16th-century France as simple rehashes of the great medieval Viandier of Taillevent or as merely concentrating on marginal dishes such as sweets and sugarwork. True French cooking, they say, did not start until the publication of Le Cuisinier francois by La Varenne in 1651. While there is some truth in this, the translators and editors of this book would maintain that the change from medieval to modern (already under way in Italy and Spain for example) can be dated back to this book and its kindred. This edition comprises about 70 pages of original French, with an English translation on facing pages.

  • By (author) Ken Albala
  • By (author) Timothy J. Tomasik