Climate Change Cookery links modern concerns about climate change and food scarcity to the recipe cultures of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Contemporary debates about climate change often overlook past periods of upheaval despite the insights they can provide. In Climate Change Cookery, Madeline Bassnett turns back to the Little Ice Age, a period of global cooling that peaked in severity from around 1550 to 1700. Studying sixteenth- and seventeenth-century recipe collections, almanacs, diaries, manuscripts, and weather pamphlets, Bassnett details the close-knit relationship between weather, food scarcity, and famine in the early modern period.
Through an examination of references to the weather as a key element or influence on food practices, Bassnett shows how early modern households understood seasonal food cycles and developed systems to become more resilient during a period of unpredictability. Identifying and discussing practices of “weathering,” “seasoning,” and “preserving,” this book investigates how perceptions of food insecurity, alongside strategies for resilience, were shared among networks of readers.