From Vinaigrettes to Virtual Cookbooks: Culinary Discourses in Early Modern France

Why study cookbooks?  Early modern French cookbooks have gotten a bad rap.  They have been plagued by misconceptions, stereotypes and outright errors that have held on with uncommon tenacity. One of the most pervasive myths is that all cookbooks printed in France in the sixteenth century were mere reprints of medieval texts or slavish continuations of medieval style and taste.  Contrary to what many culinary historians asserted in the past, the French Renaissance actually did have a thriving trade in homegrown, contemporary cookbooks. By analyzing title pages, woodcuts, and prefatory remarks in these various texts, I will demonstrate that cookbooks in early modern France were being marketed to a wide spectrum of social stations and potential readerships.