Say – horse – cheese
By Laurence Totelin Last time I blogged for the Recipes Project, I talked about mares. I’d like today to return to mares, their milk and the cheese made with it. These were not delicacies that the...
View ArticleSweet as Honey
By Laurence Totelin Yesterday I read some press releases about a fascinating Welsh research project (based at my University: Cardiff University) that will screen Welsh honey for antibiotic properties....
View Article‘One does not learn remedies through books’ (Aristotle)
Laurence Totelin I love reading recipes. I guess that won’t come as a surprise; after all I have been working on the history of pharmacology for over ten years now. But this passion goes very far...
View ArticleYou’ll thank me later
In my previous post, I presented a comic parody of an ancient eye-remedy. That recipe, created by the comedian Aristophanes, was too horrid to be true. Yet eye-remedies were far from pleasant in the...
View ArticleSomething old – something new: Greek and Roman recipes in focus
The double-faced Roman god Janus presided over transitions: transitions from war to peace, from month to month, and from year to year. The Romans celebrated him on the Kalends of January, the first day...
View ArticleThe funeral of Mrs Potato: a round-up of World War I recipes
A few days ago, while visiting the exposition ’14-18 – it’s our history’ at the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History in Brussels, Belgium, one document particularly caught my...
View ArticleLizards and lettuces: Greek and Roman recipes for Valentine’s Day
As you prepare to tuck into your oysters, followed by a garlicky main course, and a chocolaty desert on Valentine’s night, spare a thought for the Greeks and Romans, whose aphrodisiacs I now present to...
View ArticleHow to grow your beard, Roman style
For those who have missed it: male facial hair is currently in fashion. While almost none of my students sported a beard five years ago, it now looks as if they all do (the real proportion is probably...
View ArticleFirst Monday Library Chat: The Boots Archive
The Recipes Project heads to Notthingham, UK this month, to learn about the collections of Boots, UK Archive. We spoke with Sophie Clapp, Corporate Archivist, and Amy Gardener Archive and Record...
View ArticleOf Quacks and Caustics
By Samantha Sandassie In 1694, surgeon William Cowper and other members of the Royal Society gathered to test a Vulnerary Powder peddled by an apothecary named John Colbatch. The powder, Colbatch...
View ArticleNicander’s snake repellant recipe. Part 1: practical myth and magic
By Molly Jones-Lewis The passage for today’s post comes from the Theriaca, a poem by Nicander of Colophon about poisonous animals and how to avoid them, all described in lovingly vivid detail – a...
View ArticleNicander’s snake repellant recipe. Part 2: pastoral horror and rustic remedies
By Molly Jones-Lewis Today we return to Nicander’s snake repellant recipe, this time with a new focus: the dramatic setting where calm countryside hides a range of dangers, and the protagonist whose...
View ArticleWormy beer and wet nursing in the Roman Empire
As pointed out by Elaine Leong in a recent post, beer is a favourite topic at The Recipes Project. As a Belgian, I felt I should perhaps add something to the subject. As a classicist, however, I rarely...
View ArticleTemporality in John Dauntesey’s Recipe book (1652-1683)
by Melissa Schultheis In May and June of this year, I had the opportunity to research recipe books and midwifery manuals at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. One manuscript, inscribed “John...
View ArticleHealing words: Quintus Serenus’ pharmacological poem
Perhaps one of the most puzzling aspects of ancient science to modern readers is its predilection for verse. The ancient Greek and Romans could express the most complex scientific and medical notions...
View ArticleLocal recipes for local people: Reading recipes in the classroom (and the pub!)
By Lucy-Anne Judd As a PhD researcher exploring regional examples of recipe manuscripts in the local archives, I was thrilled when two opportunities to talk about my research with two very different...
View ArticleThe coral and the seal: an ancient amulet against all ills
By Laurence Totelin In a recent post, Sietske Fransen and Saskia Klerk introduced a seventeenth-century recipe whose main ingredient was red coral. That ingredient has made several other apparitions in...
View ArticleTransmission of drug knowledge in medieval China: A case of Gelsemium
By Yan Liu One striking feature of classical Chinese pharmacology is the abundant use of toxic substances. Prominent examples are aconite, arsenic, and bezoar. Fully aware of the toxicity, or du, of...
View ArticleMasdevall’s ‘Antipyretic Opiate’, or: A Well-Travelled Recipe
By Stefanie Gänger In the late 1700s and early 1800s, not only were medicinal substances exchanged across large distances along the veins of global trade, proselytizing, and imperialism, so too were...
View ArticleHow to Tend an EMPS Garden
By Nadia Clifton and Breanne Weber In October 2015, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into when we started the Early Modern Paleography Society. Our faculty mentor, Dr. Jen Munroe, recently...
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