Darra Goldstein

Darra Goldstein is the Willcox B. and Harriet M. Adsit Professor of Russian, Emerita at Williams College and Founding Editor of the journal Gastronomica. She is the author of six award-winning cookbooks and series editor of California Studies in Food and Culture (University of California Press). She has consulted for the Council of Europe as part of an international group exploring ways in which food can be used to promote tolerance and diversity. In 2013, Darra served as Distinguished Fellow in Food Studies at the Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto, and in 2016 held the Macgeorge Fellowship at the University of Melbourne. She currently serves on the Kitchen Cabinet of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and on the Advisory Board of the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts.

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Oldest printed cookbook

The first printed cookbook is Bartolomeo Platina’s (Italy) De honesta voluptate et valetudine (“On Right Pleasure and Good Health”). Written in Latin, it appeared in 1474, which is just 19 years after the Gutenberg Bible, the first mechanically printed book. Crowd-pleasing recipes for dishes like “Red Chickpea Broth” and “Date Torte with Almonds and Other Things” would be welcome even in modern kitchens today.