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Alfarhaugr Publishing Society, Inc., Published 1988. Wraps, [4], 91 pp., 1 leaf of plates; 28 cm; plastic comb binding; the 1988 issue, preceding the second edition of 1989; no ISBN; illustrated with line drawings and calligraphy, ruled and leaf-bordered panels throughout.
In Very Good condition. Pale pink to mauve illustrated paper covers printed in black, front cover with a bordered panel enclosing a line-drawn kitchen scene. Mild shelf and edge wear, sticker residue at lower corner of front cover, light scuffing and spotting to rear cover. Comb binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. Claimed by the translator as the first translation into English of Taillevent's Le Viandier, "The Food Provider," and offered not as a cookbook but as a source document about cooking in France in the years 1375 to 1390. Guillaume Tirel, called Taillevent, was born about 1310 and died in 1395, and began as a kitchen boy under Charles IV; Le Viandier is the only cookery book Larousse Gastronomique mentions between Roman times and 1543. Prescott worked from the Vatican Library manuscript and from the Pichon and Vicaire editions of 1892 and 1893, with the Martinet third edition, Slatkine Reprints, Geneva 1967, as primary source. His notes record the editorial method: entries in the first half rearranged to follow recipe order, recipes absent from the original table marked "[absent]", Gilded Dishes promoted to a section title, and the word-for-word literalism of early drafts abandoned on the advice of Dr. Gary Donovan of the French Department at the University of Calgary, though phrases such as "half a quarter of an hour" are kept. Dated Calgary, 11 May 1988. Roasts run from pork and veal through swans, peacocks, storks, herons, bustards, cranes and cormorants. Thick pottages without meat include bright green eel soup, chowder with pike, Saracen soup, oyster ragout and mustard sops; dishes for invalids include pullet mash, dew water, Flemish caudle and capon blancmange; the subtleties section covers fresh lamprey, meat and fish jellies, decorated rice and a subtlety of a swan reclothed. Two glossaries carry the scholarship: the English glossary argues individual renderings against Scully, Godefroy, Montagne, Power, Santich and the Oxford English Dictionary, while the French glossary treats words where Pichon and Vicaire were silent or appear mistaken. Front cover illustration redrawn by the translator from Christiano di Messiburgo, Ferrara 1549; frontispiece calligraphy by Prescott, other calligraphy by Corinne Loeb; the arms of Taillevent on the contents page after Pichon and Vicaire. WorldCat records this 1988 issue at OCLC 1348946934, collating [4], 91 pages, 1 leaf of plates, 28 cm, with a copy in the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive. The second edition followed in 1989, recorded separately at OCLC 20167920, reset to a smaller 22 cm format, expanded to x, 129 pages, and issued with ISBNs. Contents: Introduction; Le Viandier; Additional Recipes; English Glossary; French Glossary; Bibliography; Index.