The Book
of Sent Sovi (Medieval recipes from Catalonia), 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
Sovi 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.
Published
in association with Editorial Barcino.