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Art, Culture, and Cuisine: Ancient and Medieval Gastronomy

Art, Culture, and Cuisine: Ancient and Medieval Gastronomy
By Phyllis Pray Bober

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Product Description

In Art, Culture, and Cuisine, Phyllis Pray Bober examines cooking through an assortment of recipes as well as the dual lens of archaeology and art history. Believing that the unity of a culture extends across all forms of expression, Bober seeks to understand the minds and hearts of those who practiced cookery or consumed it as reflected in the visual art of the time.

Bober draws on archaeology and art history to examine prehistoric eating customs in ancient Turkey; traditions of the great civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome; and rituals of the Middle Ages. Both elegant and entertaining, Art, Culture, and Cuisine reveals cuisine and dining's place at the heart of cultural, religious, and social activities that have shaped Western sensibilities.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #355573 in Books
  • Published on: 2001-06-01
  • Original language: English
  • Dimensions: 1.84 pounds
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 462 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Using gastronomy (not "cookery"!) as its focus, lacy language as its style, and illustrations to enchant, Art, Culture, and Cuisine researches exactly those subjects from the time of the "first hominids" to the 15th century. The chapters in this academic work by a humanities professor follow a time line: prehistory, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, the "Hellenic Experience," ancient Rome, the early Middle Ages, and "Late Gothic International Style," which covers the Crusades to 1400. There is so much historical fact that only Bober's steady fidelity to her theme keeps this book from being too diffuse. Although we are dealing with solid scholarship (there are many pages of notes and bibliography), the writing is extremely witty, and the dinner menus with recipes are esoteric, delightful, and mostly doableAeven if one must accept substitutes like sheep's stomach in the absence of an available "sow's womb." Highly recommended for large public, special, and academic libraries.AWendy Miller, Lexington P.L., KY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Inside Flap

Viewing cuisine through the dual lens of archaeology and art history, Phyllis Pray Bober uses Art, Culture, and Cuisine to take us on an elegant and entertaining tour through the early history of food and eating-from prehistoric dining habits through four great civilizations to the "Late Gothic International" period. Complete with menus and recipes for prehistoric, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Gothic repasts, Art, Culture, and Cuisine reveals cuisine and dining's place at the heart of the cultural, religious, and social activities that have shaped Western sensibilities.

About the Author

Phyllis Pray Bober is the Leslie Clark Professor Emerita in the Humanities at Bryn Mawr College and coauthor of Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture.