Savoring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789

By Barbara Ketcham Wheaton

In this masterful and charming book, food historian Barbara Ketcham Wheaton takes the reader on a cultural and gastronomical tour of France, from its medieval age to the pre-Revolutionary era. Using a delightful combination of personal correspondence, historical anecdotes, and journal entries, Wheaton effortlessly brings to life the history of the French kitchen and table.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812278658
• ISBN13: 9780812278651
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 2.11 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Enjoyable if you are into cooking

If you are obsessed with cooking and want a sense of the history of French cooking and cookbooks, this is the book for you. Don't buy it if you are looking for a fun dramatic read. I give it 4 stars, mostly for not contextualizing the cooking enough within the times; it's more a scholarly paper on cookbooks. She is more focused on recipes, origins of recipes, and history of recipes. However it is fun and very cool to have the 25 transcribed recipes in the back. I enjoyed it thoroughly.