Brilliant, educational cookbook. Miller does a great job of explaining food history and recipes to the general audience without watering things down too much. I would absolutely purchase this for myself or a friend!

I am familiar with Max Miller's work on YouTube. I am quite a fan of watching him cook and telling the history of the dish. I enjoyed that he took that concept and recreated it in print form. Getting the original snippet of what the recipe was written like, a historical tidbit, and the modern interpretation of the recipe felt like I was reading an episode. Part of me wish this was more a history of food but I enjoy and greatly appreciate that it is still a practical cookbook. I cannot wait for this to be in print so I can add it to my cookbook collection.

As a fan of the show, this book reads just like Max is talking in my ear. The history of each dish is beyond fascinating. I found myself reading parts of it aloud to whomever was near me at the time.
Many dishes I would not try, but that should in no way dissuade one from reading this. Even reading the ingredients was informative about where and when the dish originated.
A throughly enjoyable read.

I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher.
This cookbook is focused on exploring history through history, as per the title. I started reading this book without the knowledge that the author has a Youtube channel on this subject, so I had no expectations of him. There are over 60 recipes from around the world. They are organized by place and then time period. The author took the historic recipes and adapted them for the modern kitchen. Each recipe has a section preceding it that gives historical and cultural context. He also includes a section at the beginning that tells about historic ingredients and their modern equivalents and how to find or make them. There are not pictures for every dish, but the ones that are there are good. There are also historic drawings and pictures.
This is a good book for those interested in history and/or cooking. I really enjoyed the book and look forward to making the dishes and plan on buying a physical copy for my kitchen.

I loved the history in this book! The authors obviously did their research in order to make it as accurate as possible. I love discovering the origins of recipes and honestly the weirder the better. Some should just stay in history but it is great to look back and see how meals were formed and developed. It was a great read and had some cool recipes listed.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon Element for the opportunity to read Tasting History pre-publication in exchange for a fair review. This will appear on Goodreads immediately.

Well researched, there is nothing more fun than reading about food for this foodie. From ancient times to the 1900s, the origins of recipes is fascinating to me. Each meal comes with a brief (too brief) history of the dish and its ingredients, then launches in to a recipe for you to try. Certainly many of the dishes look to me better left alone, but some would be worth the challenge.

I already recommended this to other foodies I know. This was a fun diversion from books I normally read. I'll mention it to book club.
4*

Tasting History is a thoroughly researched, beautifully photographed book of foods throughout history. People used whatever was in season and local for their meals, becoming quite creative in allaying the monotony of eating the same food day after day. Actual recipes in the original languages are interpreted into English and into modern ingredients. A glorious read.

I loved getting to see different recipes throughout history, it was easy to see how familiar recipes today started out, and there were ones I had never heard of. I wouldn't necessarily try and eat everything here, but it's fun to read about.

Historical recipes (some firm, some guesstimated) and lots and lots and lots of interesting side notes about food history.

I have never read a cookbook, cover to cover, word for word, until now. Thank you so much for letting me preview this book. I have loved every word and have already started sharing stories with friends, family, and colleagues.

He has such a gift for storytelling but I also appreciate how understandable the instructions for the recipes are. There are so many notes about how to do something and why. For example, adding a coin to the pot of water for tamales and leaving the white powder on the kombu for nyumen or what happens if you increase the temperature by 10 degrees for the makshufa.

I’ve had my copy pre ordered since he announced it on Tasting History but I wasn’t sure what to expect. I can now sell this book with absolute confidence not just in the stories, but the recipes themselves.

Thank you again. I am so appreciative.

Sincerely,
Suzanne

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Tasting History.

What a great book! This was such a fun read.

I love to eat (I'm a lousy cook) and I love history so Tasting History is a beautiful mix of two of my favorite things.

I'm not familiar with the author's YouTube channel but I can see why he's so popular.

The author takes ancient recipes and adapts it for modern tastes; I love the historical background behind each recipe.

I learned so much, from how Fannie Farmer got her start, from the origins of eggnog and the first African American chef and cookbook author.

I also enjoyed the old timey fun timey photos and illustrations, the photos of the recipes came through well on my Kindle and though some of the recipes are labor intensive and time consuming, I appreciate the author's precise attention to detail and ingredients.

Tasting History is a unique blend of cooking magic and fascinating history behind some of the most iconic (and lesser known) recipes.

I wished Tasting History had been longer!

A fascinating read that will delight food lovers who also are history buffs. The pictures are great, the recipes are interesting and span from ancient to New World.

Anyone who loves history or food (or both!) would get a lot of out of this book. The recipes seem easy to follow but fairly historically accurate and there is a ton of info.

Nice photos.

This was such an interesting read! I really enjoyed reading through this book and I can't wait to try some of what I read. Great book!

This is a fascinating book, both from the perspective of a cookbook and a history book. Arranged by geographic location (Ancient Greece & Rome, England, Continental Europe, the Far East, & the New World) as well as chronologically, it presents recipes from historical sources and cookbooks, providing the background of each dish as well as how to make it in a modern kitchen. The recipes are varied and the explanations of each food are informative and entertaining. The photos of the completed dishes are also beautiful, and the text is laid out in an easy to read and follow format. Even if you may not make all the ancient foods in the book, it is still a wonderful journey into exploring the culinary history of the past.

If you haven’t seen Miller’s Youtube Tasting History, where have you been? Started during Covid 19 lockdown, Miller began to explore the history of food and the many reasons we ate (or didn’t eat) what we did. From Sin Eaters to ancient power bars to what the third class passengers ate on the Titanic, Miller’s research and recreation of old and sometime bizarre recipes to something we could make today is fascinating, beautiful and tasty. Probably the most unique cookbook ever

This is such a cool cookbook! I am really excited to try these recipes from throughout history. I think this would be the perfect gift for the home chef in your life. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this digital ARC.

If you are interested in this work because you are also a big fan of Max Miller’s popular “Tasting History” Youtube channel, be sure to have your expectations set accordingly and reasonably!

I initially found myself disappointed because (and this admittedly will sound very absurd), it felt too heavy on the recipes themselves, and much light on their respective historical backgrounds and context. However that’s because I regularly watch “Tasting History” because I am mainly a fan of the extensive educational overviews that Miller provides for every episode’s featured dish or drink, heavily peppered with his witty commentary and jokes. That, and his very thoughtful appraisals of each dish that he prepares. So after I took some time to reflect upon this, I realized that I likely am not the type of fan that this book is meant for. Instead, it’s probably meant for those who have a larger interest in the actual cooking aspect of his show, and are both curious enough and adventurous enough to try their own hand at some of the various dishes they’ve watched Miller prepare and taste.

So if you fall into that latter category as a more hands-on food history enthusiast, then this is definitely the cookbook for you! You’ll find a collection of greatest hits recipes from “Tasting History,” with ingredients altered accordingly for availability and directions written out in careful detail, ensuring that you’ll be able to pluck an array of dishes from the past and into the present with relative ease. And although the individual history sections aren’t as extensive as one may find on the channel, they’re still enough to provide solid and intriguing background for each recipe, making this quite the unique addition to one’s kitchen cookbook library.

Meanwhile, now that I better understand this book, I personally appreciate it a lot more for what it is. However, if you're more like myself, then you may just be happier as you already were, keeping an eye out for the next new “Tasting History” upload in your Youtube subscriptions.

I have followed and enjoyed Max Miller's youtube channel "Tasting History" for quite a while now so I was thrilled when I heard there was going to be a cookbook released.

I really enjoyed this cookbook, as with his youtube channel, Max includes information on the history, locale and time period the food originates from which is probably one of my favorite parts.

The recipes are broken down in the table of contents by region and includes the time period. Max also includes a very helpful section at the beginning of the book with information on historic ingredients, including what they're called now, where to purchase or how to make your own. Beautiful pictures are sprinkled through out and while I wish every dish had a photo I can understand the decision not to but I do appreciate the historical/contextual pictures included.

The recipes seem simple and easy to follow, while I haven't made anything yet I greatly look forward to trying out the honey and cheese cake (even with that unfortunate name), the soul cakes and the Beef with Garlic Harvester Sauce from Transylvania. While I wish there had been some old norse recipes, I choose to believe he's saving those for book two.

I will definetely be buying a physical copy to keep on hand for ease of use while I try out all these historic recipes.

I'll try and be brave enough for the Spartan Black Broth....

I was intrigued by the description of this book but ended up being a little disappointed as this book wasn't what I expected it to be and none of the recipes appealed to me.

Pros:
The concept was really interesting and if you want to learn the history of the recipes then you will for sure find this book to be interesting.

Cons:
This was more a history of food book as opposed to a cookbook. While there were actual recipes, I found it to be more historical narrative with that being more of the focus.
There weren't as many pictures as I would've liked. While many of the recipes did have pictures, not all of them did and for a book like this, pictures are needed to understand the recipe.
None of the recipes in this book were overly appealing. Some of them weren't so bad, but most of them didn't look very appealing. This book strikes me as being more for people who want to understand the history of the foods instead of looking to actually cook anything.

If you want a food history then this book is for you, but I don't know if this is the right book for people who want a cookbook.