I was watching a YouTube video about Medieval cooking by Lucy Worsley. She works at Hampton Court and produces a wide range of videos for BBC. In the Medieval food video, she says that the average Medieval household always had a soup going — a “pottage.” Amongst other things, the postage was made with scraps….
Author: William Rubel
I am an author who writes about traditional food and foodways. My book, The Magic of Fire (2002) is about hearth cooking. I have written an introductory history of bread, Bread, a global history (2011) and am currently writing a history of bread for the University of California Press. Other areas of interest include wild mushrooms, and specifically the treatment of Amanita muscaria in the historic record. I also write about Early Modern British Gardens, and for a more general audience, I write for Mother Earth News on bread, gardening, and more. I have an ongoing research project into the smoke-cured fermented milk of the Kenyan Samburu tribe. I am a co-director of the Samburu Lowlands Research Station, Lengusaka. I am the founding editor (1972) of Stone Soup, the magazine of writing and art by young people.
Radish Creatures
Lithuania! 1989! Aren’t they so cute! Radish creatures. This inspired market seller livened up her produce stand with carved radishes. Nobody else did it, so it seemed it was a Lithuanian market tradition.
Lowland Samburu Houses
This is one of the women who have helped me with my research project into the smoke cured fermented milk of the Samburu. This is taken within the woman’s house, a stick structure a few meters in diameter with a roof too low to enable one to stand up. There is one door, often narrow…
Ship’s Biscuit Recipes and Instructions
Jeff Pavlik, Guest Speaker Bread History Seminar #18 January 21, 2021 9am Pacific: 6pm Belgium: 9:30pm Bangalore These are various ways to replicate the basic ship’s biscuit of the eighteenth century using readily available ingredients. The final amount of dough made using these recipes will equal a ration of one pound of biscuits after they…
Dandelions from Seed!
Dandelions from seed! Yes, just pick one of those puff balls, and plant them, seed by seed in a seed bed, or in whatever seed starter system you use. I like these coconut pots because it makes it possible to plant the seedling in the pot, eliminating stress. But, that is a detail. The important…
Espalier Fence
At its height, the 25-acre walled kitchen garden associated with the Palace of Versailles in Versailles, France was one of the world’s largest kitchen gardens. The garden footprint is still intact, with a significant portion of it still being worked. Note the brilliant idea of planting espalier fruit trees to mark the edges of areas…
The Potager du Roi
The Potager du Roi, the kitchen garden dating to the 1660s that sits just outside the formal garden at Versailles, France, includes many fabulous espalier fruit trees. I like the form of the oblique cordons. A form one sees in books, but not in real life. I love the sense of energy that is projected…
Using a Bread Stamp from Uzbekistan
I made this cracker with an Uzbek bread stamp. Etsy is where I buy stamps of this kind. They are used to keep flat breads from fully rising. If you don’t prick flatbreads prior to baking, then they will puff up into a ball — desirable in chapati and pita — not desirable for other…
Yunnan, 1998.
I traveled to Yunnan, China three times to join my mycologist friend, David Arora. Some of you may know his books: Mushrooms Demystified, and All the Rain Promises and More. The latter volume includes my first published pieces! Two small paragraphs on mushroom collecting. Here, you see David photographing one of the women we had…
Cinnamon Buns
Magnus Nilsson’s “The Nordic Baking Book” is a fabulous cookbook. It is far and away the most solid most varied baking book in my library. My daughter and I made these cardamom flavored cinnamon rolls on the last day of this year’s school holiday. They work perfectly as written. The instructions are good, but here…
William Rubel 