The Observance of foods by Anthimus - Book Report/Review Example

Full The Book "The Observance of foods" written by Anthimus, a Greek doctor who was condemned by the Emperor of Constantinople was about cookery and medical piece. It was translated by Mark Grant in 2007, correcting earlier errors in the book. It was a letter about foods, which can be good or bad for you but it was written for you to know how to cook and serve. This work by Anthimus has long been used for the light it gives on the linguistic evolution from Classical to Medieval Latin, but it has been rarely pleasured as - cookery and medical piece.

Mark Grant gives a general introduction of its history for better understanding and to correct the errors in the earlier editions.This book by Anthimus may be called the First French Cookery book and Grant takes it to the modern language for better understanding. It shows different types of cooking between bread, vegetable and oil based cuisine of the Mediterranean and the meat-dominated cooking of the North. Hence, it the ordinary food of the Romans we need to compare to what the book describes.

The Franks and Romans are famous of eating what's only within their neighborhood. In this book, we discover butter instead of olive oil, salmon rater than red mullet and beer together with wine. These give a different twist in the cooking of the Romans but there are some classical survivals like the famous fermented fish sauce, which is called Garum or Liquamen and some other spices like pepper and ginger, which would have had to have been imported. After being ignored for a long time, there has been a considerable interest on Anthimus work and it might have a role in the culinary aside from being just a Philological tradition of the European thought.

Anthimus, and Mark Grant. On the observance of foods. Totnes: Prospect, 2007.