The Joys of Excess (Penguin Great Food)

This book consists of extracts from the diaries. The dates are given without the year, there are no notes or translations to provide either context, explanation, or modern~day names for things. All in all a very disappointing and unsatisfactory read, especially when compared to the enthralling diaries themselves. My advice ~ don't bother with this book, get the diaries instead.

The Joys of Excess (Penguin Great Food)In my opinion, this is a rather lazy cut-and-paste job, which is almost unworthy to bear this famous publisher's name. There is no editorial comment, glossary or index. Readers would be well advised to refer to the original transcription and glossary from Messrs Latham & Mattews. Pepys devoted ten years of his life to this daily diary of his every thought and intimate deed, yet we are left with few clues as to why he was dining, on which occasion and in what historical context. If like me you are a keen amateur cook, and were hoping to discover some C17th recipes, you may be sadly disappointed. Nevertheless, it is a useful compendium for further research.

This was intended for a Christmas gift. The recipient wasn't too thrilled. The entire series published by Penguin Books is really quite clever. They took works by famous individuals, some from the culinary world and reproduced them. I thought it was interesting to read about life in other times. Kudos to Penguin for doing this, anyway!