Green Valley Food & Cookery Vol 1: Authentic 17th Century Farmhouse Recipes | Historical Cooking Guide for Reenactors, Living History Enthusiasts & Culinary Historians

Historical rabbit holes, for those who are inclined.

These slender booklets from Historical Management Associates are the work of an organization dedicated to historical re-enactment in the UK. They are written with a stickler’s attention to historical precision and a conviction that nothing is too arcane to investigate. Some of the books are simple transcriptions of period manuscripts; others represent significant original research, as in Cattle Farming and Grazing Management, which is 52 pages long but cites 36 sources, many of them published in the 17th century.

The first of two volumes on the subject.  From the introduction: “The Green Valley site itself is a carefully reconstructed late 16th/17th century agricultural landscape that has been under construction since 1987 and produces a wide range of foodstuffs from over 200 period fruit trees and two gardens plus herds and flocks of period livestock…The objective of this book is to allow the reader to understand the diet of common farming folk and to be able to reproduce the period dishes they would have eaten.”

Staplebound pamphlet. 48 pages. Sketches and black-and-white photographs.