Ivan Day

Ivan Day

Food historian

https://foodhistorjottings.blogspot.co.uk
Ivan is a food historian, broadcaster and curator who specialises in the reconstruction ofperiod kitchens and historic table displays. My work has been exhibited in many institutions in Britain, Europe and the US, including the Museum of London,Metropolitan Museum in NYC and Getty Research Institute in LA. I am the author of many books and papers and also work in TV and radio. Recipes are of course essential for an understanding of how our ancestors cooked and dined – they are culinary musical scores. However my approach to food history places just as much emphasis on what we can learn from objects, both from the kitchen and the dining table. If recipes are the musical notation of the kitchen, culinary utensils are the equivalent of instruments upon which the music is performed. In order to get closer to an understanding the food of the past, my approach is to cook using appropriate technologies and equipment. The results are often a revelation.

Most popular

Ivan's favorite cookbooks

Coming to ckbk soon
A Delightfull Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen

A Delightfull Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen

An extraordinary collection of Jacobean sweet dishes, confectionery and preserves. Murrell wrote another recipe book with a very similar title - A Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen, published in 1617, but its content is completely different, but also very good.

Coming to ckbk soon
A Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin

A Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin

A tiny collection of English Renaissance recipes - lovely tarts of damsons stewed in wine, gooseberries etc. Unfortunately, the cheese tart is made with the celebrated Banbury Cheese, now sadly extinct. One of the best insights into the cookery of Shakespeare's period.

Coming to ckbk soon
The Professed Cook

The Professed Cook

This is an English translation of Menon's magisterial Soupers de la Cour. Recipes for some of the greatest French dishes from the period of Louis XVI, but in English.

Coming to ckbk soon
Coming to ckbk soon
The Lady's Companion

The Lady's Companion

An encyclopaedic collection of English recipes in two volumes, which started life as The Whole Duty of a Woman in 1737, but which cloned into the largest collection of recipes in 18th century Britain.

Coming to ckbk soon
The British Housewife

The British Housewife

A two volume masterpiece of a cookery book. Wonderful recipes, insightful illustrations and revealing asides and comments on the lost practices of the English Georgian kitchen.

Coming to ckbk soon
The Italian Confectioner

The Italian Confectioner

William Jarrin

Completely unknown in Italy, Jarrin published this collection of confectionery, ice cream and preserve recipes in London in English. It has the earliest printed recipes for spongata, predating any of the Italian ones. A remarkable insight into the skills and equipment of the early confectioner.

Coming to ckbk soon
The Cook's and Confectioner's Dictionary

The Cook's and Confectioner's Dictionary

The very first cookery book I ever bought at the age of 13. It not only hooked me on collecting antiquarian cookery books, but I also learnt to cook from this book. No living chef at the time I studied this work could have taught me as well as Mr Nott, one time cook to the Duke of Bolton.

Coming to ckbk soon
The Encyclopaedia of Practical Cookery

The Encyclopaedia of Practical Cookery

Theodore Garrett

Forget about Mrs Beeton, if you want a real insight into the amazing Anglo-French cookery of the Victorian period this eight volume set is the book for you. This is my first port of call if I want to find out about anything to do with cookery or ingredients. It is the Victorian equivalent of the Oxford Companion to Food, but on a much larger scale and with thousands of recipes and wonderful illustrations. This is my Desert Island choice.

Coming to ckbk soon
The Household Cookery Book

The Household Cookery Book

Dubois, former chef de cuisine to Kaiser Wilhelm I, penned this remarkable book in English while he was hiding in London from the Franco-Prussian war. Unlike his other books, which are mainly aimed at high status professionals, this beautifully illustrated recipe collection is for the Victorian domestic cook who wanted to attempt the most fashionable French dishes of the period.