The Pantropheon; Or, History of Food, Its Preparation, from the Earliest Ages of the World
1853
The Pantropheon; Or, History of Food, Its Preparation, from the Earliest Ages of the World
1853
When Alexis Soyer, the celebrated Victorian chef of London's Reform Club, turned his gaze backward through the ages, he produced something unprecedented: a grand, curious, often wry history of how humanity has fed itself. The Pantropheon (from the Greek for 'all-nourishing') sweeps from ancient Babylon and Egypt through Greece, Rome, and the medieval world, arriving at Soyer's own gas-lit Victorian kitchen. What emerges is not a dry chronicle but a passionate chef's investigation into the roots of his art. Soyer recreates ancient recipes, dissects the dining customs of emperors and peasants, and marvels at the sheer ingenuity of cooks across millennia. He writes with a professional's respect for technique and a Victorian gentleman's bemusement at the habits of 'primitive' peoples. The result is a singular work: part scholarship, part culinary fantasy, part time machine. For modern readers, it offers the strange pleasure of watching a 19th-century master chef commune with the cooks of antiquity, translating their methods into his own flour-dusted world.
