Recipes

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Recipes

Part of understanding a culture is knowing about the food they ate, as this is linked to the way they viewed their world. Unfortunately no early Celtic 'recipe books' survive. However, we do have recipes from Roman times, from the later middle ages and from early Elizabethan times. I have attempted to collect as many of these as possible and as well as presenting the original recipe I also give a modern interpretaton that will work in your own kitchen and which is geared more towards modern culinary sensibilities. Give these recipes a go, you'll be amazed at the things which really havent changed and the gems which have been lost to us.

Ancient Recipes

The recipes in this section represent an attempt at recreating the cookery of the pre-literate peoples of north-western Europe. These are the foods of the Stone-age and Bronze-age peoples of Europe as well as the Iron-age Celts. Most of these recipes are reconsturcted either from archaeological evidence, the comments of Greek and Roman writers or from the artworks of these peoples. Some of the recipes are generated from the wild foods which are still available in the British Isles if one knows how to find them.

Recipes from the Roman Period

These are recipes of the 'ancient world', mostly Roman (though there are a few Greek and Greek-influenced recipes in the list). Most of our knowledge about Roman cooking comes from the eight-volume works of Marcus Gavius Apicus (his De Re Coquinaria a legendary gastronome who, when he fell on hard times took poison to end his own life rather than having to suffer the agonies of going hungry. Though there is no direct evidence, I'm certain that many of these recipes would have graced the tables of wealthy Romano-Britons and Romano-Gauls and probably survived in culinary practice long into the sub-Roman period. Here we have recipes that twould have spanned the period circa 300 BCE to 500 CE.

Recipes from the Medieval Period

Like most of the other arts, the written record of cooking disappears in the 'Dark Ages' only to re-emerge during the twelfth century. The recipes presented here therefore correspond mostly to the 'Late Medieval' period though there are some early examples of court quisine. The period covered is circa 1200 CE to 1450 CE.

Recipes from the Elizabethan Age

Considerable records remain from the Elizabethan period, both from court records and also for the first time from the homes of merchants. This was a time where food became heavily influenced by continental practices and spices, though expensive, were readly employed. The period of these recipes covers circa 1500 CE to 1650 CE.

Welsh Recipes

These are a collection of recipes from the various regions of Wales. Some are traditional, with a pedigree of 250 years, others are more modern, but use traditional ingredients.

Miscellaneous Recipes

These are modern recipes originating from my own personal collection of over 3000 recipes that I have been gathering and modifying for the past almost twenty years. They originate from the four corners of the world and I have both cooked and modifeid each and every single one of them. Some of the recipes here are also my owin inventions, often representing modern fusion cooking that's often derived from an ancient exemplar.

Brewing

No site including recipes from the Meideval or Elizabethan ages would be complete without some informaton on brewing. In this section I introduce the principles of home brewing (including both the easy and the hard way of brewing) and suggest some recipes for meads and ales.



You can also fetch and find recipes by:

  Alphabetical Listing   Recipe Search   Region of the World
  Historical Period   Meal Type   Guide to Herbs
  Guide to Spices   Glossary of Culinary Terms   

Or by Regions of the World:

  African Recipes   Recipes from the Americas   Arabian Recipes
  Asian Recipes   European Recipes   Fusion Recipes
  Indian Recipes   Oceanian Recipes   


You can also easily find any of the recipes on this site using the recipe search page.

If you are interested in recipes and cooking then you may want to join the Celtnet Recipes Discussion Forum for general recipe discussion, African recipe discussion and discussion of Ancient Recipes.

I am also making a number of conversion tables available for converting between Volumes, Mass/Weight and Temperatures.



If you're looking for a particular recipe, or a recipe using a particular ingredient or set of ingredients, why not try my recipe search facility. You can even use a combination of period and ingredient such as 'Elizabethan Lamb' or 'medieval eggs'.



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