Massimo Montanari, one of the most renowned historians of cuisine, has produced a well-written volume covering a wide range of topics, from medieval recipe books to staple foodstuff. There was not one page that did not hold my complete attention.
Massimo Ciavolella, University of California, Los Angeles Massimo Montanari is a master communicator of fascinating ideas. He proposes the ... Read moreintriguing concept of the Middle Ages as something at once close but also very distant. This work will prove appealing to more than just food historians, and I highly recommend it.
David Gentilcore, University of Leicester With incisiveness and thoroughness, Massimo Montanari's Medieval Tastes redraws the contours of the central role food played in Italian society from the early centuries of the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and beyond. More than just an enthralling journey through medieval culinary tastes, regimens, and norms, this excellent volume probes the more hidden folds of the social and cultural discourses that undergirded culinary systems.
Pina Palma, author of Savoring Power, Consuming the Times: The Metaphors of Food in Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature Medieval Tastes is an elaborately researched, sophisticated treatment of the topic... Highly recommended. Choice A monograph that will be of enormous use to scholars working in food studies and related cultural studies fields, while also promising delight for the general interst reader as well. Sixteenth Century Journal Show Less