Cannibals, crusades and cuisines, this book has them all

By Ali-Bab

If you were to open the Encyclopedia of Practical Gastronomy at any random page, you'd figure out quite quickly that the book wasn't written in modern times. "The use of human skulls as drinking vessels is still found today among savages, generally cannibals," writes the author.

I am acquainted with some savages (also known as "jerks") but, to my knowledge, they are not cannibals (and even if they were, they'd probably adopt a more fashionable-sounding label, like "alternative meat consumers").

I was surprised, however, to find that Henri Joseph Babinski Severin, who hailed from France and used the pseudonym Ali-Bab, didn't write this too long ago - the book was first published in 1907. And it's its revelations (who would have thought cannibals still existed then?) that make this book such a colourful and engaging look at dining at the turn of the last century and before.

The opening chapter is named, appropriately enough, "Gastronomy Through the Ages", and Ali-Bab's first sentence is, "Man did not really rise above animals until he learned how to use fire." He dips briefly into prehistoric times before writing about antiquity, covering everyone from the Egyptians, Hebrews and Hindus to the Greeks and Romans. Then we're into the Barbarian invasions and the Middle Ages, of which he writes, "During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when eight successive Crusades were undertaken, gastronomy was more or less neglected." He wraps up with "Modern Times" - "Only at the beginning of the Renaissance can we note real progress in culinary art" - and the "Present State of Gastronomy".