The Old World Kitchen: The Rich Tradition of European Peasant Cooking

Within the ken of the kitchen, the most basic elements of history, economy, and geography are carried by hand through time; recipes are records of that transmission, keeping culture in seasoned anecdotes. Such tales, told through many generations, provide the contents of Elisabeth Luard’s compendium of European peasant cooking. The more than 500 recipes Luard has collected are emblems of parochial lore and family tradition, of common wisdom and cunning necessity, and they treat every imaginable aspect of taste and appetite. The preparations described here are, as Luard writes, “the ‘mother-recipes’ from which all European cookery springs. . . . For most of us . . . they are as integral a part of our past, and of what shapes and nourishes us today, as our literature and songs, our paintings and technology.” We couldn’t agree more.