Sooooo….at Pennsic, I was shopping at the book tent. Three times in an hour. My shopping buddy, was busy getting a belt to fit himself and took over an hour. That meant “Hey I’m going to check out the books while you get your belt.” “Cool, see you in a few.”. 20 minutes later and $80, I go in search of said companion. “Oh, it’ll be another 20 minutes. The belt is being tailored for me while I wait.” “Ok, I had a couple of other books I had my eye on…I’ll be right back!”. 20 minutes and another $45, I again go in search of my friend. “It’ll be another 15 minutes.” “Omg!! I can not go back to the book tent! I’m going to spend EVERYTHING on books if I do!!!” So I spent the next 20 minutes, in withdrawals trying NOT to go back to the the book tent for another 3 books I had my eye on. White knuckled chewing commenced.
The upside to the second round of shopping is that I indulged in a very secret guilty pleasure. I bought a book that brings to life the foods from A Game of Thrones. C. Monroe-Cassel and S. Lehrer, in their book A Feast of Ice & Fire, do a fantastic job of bringing most of the foods described by George Martin to life.
A view of the book
I know I know! I can hear you now going “That is soooo not period!”. Weeeell yes and no. George Martin states he is not a foodie, couldn’t cook if his life depended on it. The fine ladies who do the book though are cooks. And they do a very nice job in period research for most of the recipes, tying the food described to both period recipes and to modern recipes. So for each recipe, a reader gets the period recipe and a modern equivalent.
Now the part I don’t like about this book is that the period translation is in the original language, either old English (which I can handle) or the original Latin/German with out an English translation (which I do NOT like). Each recipe also has the corresponding period book/information per recipe. Very nice! I disappointed that the ladies who do this book did not look into the Middle Eastern recipes for some of the Dorne recipes. But that is a very small issue over all.
This book is probably one of the best I have come across for people new to period cooking and who want to start by dipping their toes into the warm saucy ocean of period goodness. An A+ for cooking and a B- for period recipe listing (only because I wanted to read the original German recipes in English). If unsure, if cooking is right for you, this is THE book to start with. Great recipes, easy to play with the redactions (you do not have to follow their measurements at all) and beautiful presentation.