Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language.

This is Episode 132, Food for Thought.

In this episode, we're going to talk about food, specifically the first cookbook composed

in the English language.

This collection of recipes was composed by the personal chefs up-richered the second,

the King of England in the late 1300s who enjoyed a rich and opulent court.

This cookbook is fascinating on many levels, not only for the language used to document

the recipes, but also for the inside it provides about the nature of food in the late Middle

Ages.

So in this episode, we'll explore how people ate in medieval England, and we'll see how

the language of food shaped the English language.

But before we begin, let me remind you that the website for the podcast is HistoryofEnglishPotcast.com,

and you can sign up to support the podcast and get bonus episodes and transcripts at patreon.com

slash HistoryofEnglish.

Now this time, we're going to look at the language of food, and the first collection of

recipes composed in the English language.

For food historians, this is an important development because it really provides the first

detailed account of what people actually ate in medieval England, at least what people

in the Royal Court ate.

Prior to this point, historians have to piece together that information from scattered

resources.

The church imposed dietary restrictions regulating what people could eat on specific days of

...