For a modern-day reader, the language remains rich and succulent: she prescribes Eel Soop for those that “have a Stew-hole”; dishes are given names like “pigeons transmogrified”; the cookbook genre’s imperative voice gets put to memorable use: “Take fine young beans, gather them of a very fine day, have a large stone jar ready, clean and dry, lay a layer of salt at the bottom, and then a layer of beans, then salt, and then beans, and go on.” The dishes themselves may prove less appetizing, depending on your palate. The first recipe, for example, is for a kind of ersatz Noah’s Ark, as animal after animal proceeds into the pot. We start with a half-pound of untrimmed bacon, then a pound of veal, then coarse beef cut thin, then more bacon, then “a pigeon beat all to pieces”, then more beef, and, as an optional topper, an old cock, also beat to pieces. The aromatics are no less weighty: mace, cloves, pepper (white and black), nutmeg, truffles and morels, a few carrots and onions. The gravy is spartan: drippings, wine, and a couple spoonfuls of “catchup”. A Mediterranean diet this is not.
