Across a thousand years of manuscripts and over five hundred years of publishing, English recipe books have reflected the eating habits of Kings and courtiers, the merchant classes, inn-keepers and restaurant owners, as well as home cooks and even the paupers who visited the soup kitchens of Victorian London. Cookbooks are full of extraordinary food but also extraordinary illustrations from medieval illuminated manuscripts, via the engravings of the eighteenth century and the colour lithographs of Mrs. Beeton, to the high-end life-style images of the modern TV cook.
This lecture tells the story of the development of the cookbook and along the way will tempt you, or indeed disgust you, with a few choice recipes.
For those able to come into Wharf Road to hear the lecture there will be recipe books from the SoG collections on display and you are encouraged to bring your own historic recipe books with you to "show and tell".
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Gold Members: Included in Membership. Book a spot to watch live. No pre-booking required to view the recording, which will be available in your video library until 14 September 2025.
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Not a Gold Member yet? Existing members get your upgrade price here. Non-members, find out more about Gold here.
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Non and Standard Members: Recording available for one month when you pre-book.
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About the Speaker
Peter Ross
Peter Ross has a BA in the History of Art, an MA in London History, and a PhD in the cultural history of the early eighteenth-century criminal, Jack Sheppard. Until recently, Principal Librarian at the City of London’s Guildhall Library, he is also an Arts Society accredited lecturer and lectures on a broad range of topics including the history of English food, English portraiture, and London history. Peter has appeared on television and radio as a consultant on crime in eighteenth-century London, the history of English food, and Shakespeare’s First Folio. He was the historical consultant for Channel 4’s documentary Invitation to a Hanging which won the Royal Television Society’s award for Best History Documentary. Peter’s The Curious Cookbook, Viper Soup, Badger Ham, Stewed Sparrows, and a Hundred more Historic Recipes was published in 2012 by the British Library and in the US by Mark Batty. It was subsequently translated into both Chinese and simplified Chinese and published in China and Taiwan in 2017. Peter is currently engaged in writing a book to be called Insatiable Appetites: Eating Out in Georgian London which will be published by Bodleian Library Publishing.
14/08/2025
14:00 - 15:00
Society of Genealogists / Online
One hour hybrid talk