Introduction

All of Us Consume Food. But what we eat, or have eaten, differs across the world and through time. Today, one culture might consume dog with gusto and without sentimentality and yet feel physically sick at the thought of eating that rotting, mouldering lump of fermented cow’s milk known as blue cheese. The same reaction can occur if we consider what people ate in the past, where fashion and availability of different foods are as important as geographical separation. This book provides examples of that very difference, and, by taking a look at the thousands of recipes written down from the fifteenth century to the Second World War, we quickly recognise that what we ate in the past now seems extraordinarily strange, intriguing, revolting, or just plain curious. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but it could not find a British recipe instructing us how to cook one. You will find, however, amongst others, recipes for peacocks, porpoises, cockscombs, larks, vipers, sparrows and starlings, squirrels’ tails, minnows, tortoises, otters, plague water, cock-ale, swan pie, cowslip tart and badger gammon. You will learn how to roast a pound of butter, make pocket-soup, tell if a gull is fresh by pulling its leg, and how to stuff the swim-bladder of a cod.