Medieval cooks - tree building

Eugene Thomas found this marvelous site:

http://www.oldcook.com/en/medieval-gastronomy_europe#cui

It has me thinking.

One of our challenges in genealogic "world tree building" is finding records on the more ordinary folk of earlier times. Nobility was documented, working people -- not so much.

But there were some occupations that left more of a historical footprint, and perhaps cooks were one of them? At least the ones who wrote down their recipes.

Let's build some tree let's (mini stand alone trees). You never know.

Hmm.

Same thing for architects and builders. Master James of St. George. Gandulf. Robert de Belleme. Henry Yeverley. Hmmm.

Also doctors. Ferrarius. Moshe ben Maimon.

Hmmm.

But cooks. We've got a few cookbooks from the later middle ages, but do we know who wrote them?

http://www.oldcook.com/en/medieval-discovering_cooks

Here are 11 master cooks of Medieval Europe, who wrote a manuscript or published a cookbook between 1380 and 1585: Taillevent, Maistre Chiquart, Jean de Bockenheim, Meister Eberhards, Maestro Martino, Antonio Camuria, Roberto de Nola, Cristoforo da Messisbugo, Bartolomeo Scappi, Marx Rumpolt, Lancelot de Casteau.

Oh, lovely!

So you're interested? We have the project to showcase them, and we do more. :)

Most of us should have a handful of 13th to 15th century cooks in our ancestry. I do.

Yes I like the whole idea of medieval professions. And the cooks are a lot of fun. We can link to the cookbooks and recipes too.

Will we make the medieval distinction among cooks, bakers, and brewers? Or lump them all together?

Separate! There's already baker & maltster projects, and of course they can be in more than one project.

And alchemists.

And poisoners. OK, not yet. But Lucretia Borgia & Dr. Potts of Jamedtown deserve notoriety!

Oh, and don't we need this so we don't forget to add Patron Saints?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patron_saints_of_occupations_and_acti...

Digression:

I used to tell my students, in a very serious voice, that I was going to bring in some medieval food at the end of the semester. They were not looking forward to this.

Then, on the last day, I would bring in apple pie! Ha ha! Ha ha ha!

I found this Hilarious.

Erica Howton!

I am making a profile for Lancelot de Casteau; when I"m done I'll submit it to the cooks project. Whipped cream! Choux pastry! Before 1613!

A brilliant man, clearly.

We don't know his family, other than that he was from Mons -- we do know that in his last years he moved in with his daughter and his son in law. So maybe someday he will get hooked to somebody in the World Tree.

That's our hope -- if we build it, they will come. :)

The year 1613 seems like mire family could be found. And if not - we've remembered his choux pastry!

We've got the names of his wife, daughter, and son in law. l This may well hook in.

I Just found them, I mean.

Erica Howton -- done. Go look, and see if you like it.

Wait, sorry, here it is -- Lancelot de Casteau

Made me hungry. I'm looking for gilded veal brains in the Irish style.

http://lesmuseesdeliege.be/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/doss-ped-erne...

This is pretty wonderful about the life & times of Ernest of Bavaria, one of Lancelot's patrons.

I think we can find his goldsmith son in law. (optimistic)