The Book of Sent Soví, composed around the middle of the fourteenth century, is the oldest surviving culinary text in Catalan. It is anonymous and, like the majority of medieval cookery books, is the product of a complex process of transmission, with multiple manuscript copies and readers who have left their mark on it. The contents are eminently practical. Successive cooks have recorded their own methods of preparing the dishes and recipes included, blending several culinary traditions in a single work. Sent Soví is also a reliable source of information on the cookery of the territories of the Crown of Aragon before the revolution caused by the arrival of products from the Americas.
This edition includes both an English translation, by Robin Vogelzang, and the original Catalan version. It has been the editor's aim to clarify the difficult passages in the book - sometimes corrupted because of the complex manuscript tradition - so that it can be understood as easily as possible by its twenty-first-century readers.
JOAN SANTANACH lectures on medieval literature at the University of Barcelona.
Published in association with Editorial Barcino.
Reviews
This English translation of the Book of Sent Soví provides an intriguing glimpse into the kitchens of the moneyed classes in fourteenth-century Catalonia; it should be of interest to anyone interested in the region and the period. BULLETIN OF SPANISH STUDIESAs an artefact the first English translation of the Llibre is beautiful and simple. Robin Vogelzang's careful and thoughtful English rendering was made from the edition of 2006 by Joan Santanach and the Catalan text faces the translated pages.
[A] welcome translation. THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW
