History à la Carte

Good taste is priceless - and what tastes good even more so. Precious knowledge straight from the kitchens of history and delicious insights into the most exquisite delights of bygone eras provide the ingredients for this culinary journey through time. Antiquity`s most famous love aff air, the romance between Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, sparked a culinary exchange that continues to shape Mediterranean cuisine to this day. Did the foundations for pizza and pasta emerge from the sands of Egypt? Did olive oil flow from Caesar to Cleopatra or vice versa? Was it cacao extract that Montezuma considered his liquid gold? Or was the yellow tomato his most cherished culinary treasure, like honey for Aristotle, or olive oil for Homer? Could the idea for fish sticks have originated in ancient China, a product of the first Emperor`s fear of an assassination by way of fishbone? Or did the English carry them back to Europe from the Inuit? What was written down in the world`s oldest recorded recipe? Where and why did potato blossoms once adorn the hair of women, and could this have been the best marketing ploy ever for today`s French fries? With a pinch of historical flair, this cookbook aims to highlight the culinary individualities and eccentricities of history`s all-time greats as I explore personal tastes ranging from refined to peculiar, the zeitgeist that informed their choices, their most precious and most delicious treasures, as well as their simplicity or, as it may be, extravagant gluttony.