Some things are retro. Some things are antiques. Some people are geezers. Some perspectives are ageist. And some things are simply old. I bought a bok on old/antique cookbooks at the Flea Market in Wellfleet a while back and am struggling through it. It cost a measly little bit, and is in good shape.But, sometimes it is a struggle to read. Try these paragraphs from fairly early on (okay, the first few paragraphs of chapter 1):
The art of cookery stretches back in time to primordial man. It is as old as his first scientific discovery-- the knowledge that he had harnessed fire and made it a servant to do his will.
Together with Man's use of the earliest rudimentary methods of kindling flame came his awareness that cooked food often tastes better than raw. A bloody hunk of fresh-killed meat, accidentally or experimentally dropped into the crackling flames of the open fire at his cave's mouth, led to his realization that the flesh of animals, birds, and fishes was tenderized and rendered vastly more palatable when subjected to prolonged heat. Hooked out from the embers by an antler or smoking stick, it provided the first cooked meal prepared for human consumption. Cookery, the subtle art of rendering food appetizing and more attractive for eating, dates back to that sizzling episode. The aroma lingers as it is wafted by imagination back to us through hundreds of thousands of years of time.
Aeons were to pass before the first crude recipes forpreparation of food were painstakingly written on skins of parchment and vellum. Yet the basic rules of culinary good behavior were already being laid down, later to be etched in the traditions of the family and tribe. Rules and methods that endured for centuries were memorized, and were passed on orally and by example to succeeding generations struggling to exist in environments hostile to human survival. The most economical use of the available food and its short-term preservation by cooking were some of the earliest lessons learned, and how to tenderize a leg of bison without at the same time charring it to a cinder, or the broiling of the tribal steak of elk, came as naturally to Stone Age woman as the preparation of a mixed grill to her modern counterpart.
Source: Eric Quayle's Old Cookbooks: An Illustrated History (New York: E.P. Dutton, A brandywine Press Book, 1978), p. 9.
On reading the quotation, of course, you see my problem. And yet, who can resist a book with all these truly OLD recipes, including "Stuffed Dormice" ( a recipe from Imperial Rome).
