The British Food History Podcast · Neil Buttery

A Rare Early Modern Cheese Manuscript with Alex Bamji

·41 min·1 clip

Neil Buttery introduces Alex Bamji, Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Leeds. They talk about a recently discovered handwritten treatise on cheese from the 16th and 17th centuries. The manuscript is treated as a fascinating historical source rather than a simple recipe collection. Alex explains that it reads more like a theory book than a cookery book, which changes how it should be understood. The discussion moves into the kinds of milks people thought could be used for cheese. Cow, ewe, mare, and camel milk all appear in the manuscript's world of ideas. Neil and Alex spend time on the idea of combining milks for their different qualities. On one level the logic is practical, and on another it feels oddly speculative, because it is about what properties different milks might bring together. The episode also looks at cheese, butter, and milk as white meats. That phrase sounds strange now, but it made sense in a period when nourishing food carried special weight. They connect that idea to fasting days and Lent, where the question was not only what people ate but what counted as allowed or forbidden. Alex notes that the manuscript may reflect learned speculation more than kitchen reality. That keeps the episode grounded in the manuscript itself. At the same time, the document still shows what early modern people found interesting about dairy. Neil keeps the discussion conversational and close to the manuscript's ideas. The result is a careful look at cheese as an object of history, not just a food. The closing moments return to listener contact, show news, and Neil's usual sign-off.

As heard by us

A cheese manuscript opens into a rich argument about milk, fasting, and early modern food culture.

A rare early modern cheese manuscript gives this episode its hook, but the stronger draw is how Alex Bamji and Neil Buttery use it to open out into larger questions about dairy in the 16th and 17th centuries.

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A handwritten cheese treatise leads you into early modern ideas about cheese, milk, butter, and fasting.

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