100 books like Out of the East

By Paul Freedman,

Here are 100 books that Out of the East fans have personally recommended if you like Out of the East. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages

Andrew Jotischky Author Of A Hermit's Cookbook: Monks, Food and Fasting in the Middle Ages

From my list on food and drink in the Middle Ages.

Why am I passionate about this?

My interest in medieval food and cookery combines two of my great passions in life, but I first started to become seriously interested in the combination when researching religious dietary ideas and practices. I am fascinated by the symbolic role played by food and drink in religious life, and by fasting and self-denial as part of a religious tradition, but also in the ways in which medieval communities feasted and how tastes in food and drink developed through trade and cultural exchange. I teach an undergraduate course on Feast, Fast, and Famine in the Middle Ages because questions about production, consumption, and sustainability are crucially important for us all.  

Andrew's book list on food and drink in the Middle Ages

Andrew Jotischky Why did Andrew love this book?

This is the best overall book on cooking, kitchens, and recipes in the Middle Ages. It is a compendium on everything to do with cookery as a practical art and the theory behind medieval ideas of health and nutrition. Scully argues convincingly that medieval cooks and cookery were more sophisticated and technical than we might think. The book is highly readable as well as being authoritative and comprehensive, and uses extensive passages from the writings of medieval cookery authors. 

By Terence Scully,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The master cook who worked in the noble kitchens of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had to be both practical and knowledgeable. His apprenticeship acquainted him with a range of culinary skills and a wide repertoireof seasonal dishes, but he was also required to understand the inherent qualities of the foodstuffs he handled, as determined by contemporary medical theories, and to know the lean-day strictures of the Church. Research in original manuscript sources makes this a fascinating and authoritative study where little hard fact had previously existed.


Book cover of The Cookbook that Changed the World: The Origins of Modern Cuisine

Andrew Jotischky Author Of A Hermit's Cookbook: Monks, Food and Fasting in the Middle Ages

From my list on food and drink in the Middle Ages.

Why am I passionate about this?

My interest in medieval food and cookery combines two of my great passions in life, but I first started to become seriously interested in the combination when researching religious dietary ideas and practices. I am fascinated by the symbolic role played by food and drink in religious life, and by fasting and self-denial as part of a religious tradition, but also in the ways in which medieval communities feasted and how tastes in food and drink developed through trade and cultural exchange. I teach an undergraduate course on Feast, Fast, and Famine in the Middle Ages because questions about production, consumption, and sustainability are crucially important for us all.  

Andrew's book list on food and drink in the Middle Ages

Andrew Jotischky Why did Andrew love this book?

This book is about the early modern cooking revolution. Basing her investigation on a ground-breaking recipe book from 1651, Peterson examines the fundamental shift in European food tastes from the medieval preference for fragrant, heavily spiced dishes that combined sweet and savoury to the salt-acid followed by sweet that forms the basis of modern European cookery. This book was not written for an academic audience, so although it is well-informed it is not a demanding read for non-experts. The book contains a few recipes that are worth trying, and as a whole it’s a colourful and compelling story.

By T. Sarah Peterson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Cookbook that Changed the World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1651 in Paris, the unknown cook, Francois Pierre de la Varenne published "Le Cuisinier Francois", and changed the course of culinary history. This book aims to reconstruct the seventeenth-century revolution in French cooking that explains why we eat as we do. It reveals how Varenne turned out to be the father of modern cuisine.


Book cover of Culinary Recipes of Medieval England

Andrew Jotischky Author Of A Hermit's Cookbook: Monks, Food and Fasting in the Middle Ages

From my list on food and drink in the Middle Ages.

Why am I passionate about this?

My interest in medieval food and cookery combines two of my great passions in life, but I first started to become seriously interested in the combination when researching religious dietary ideas and practices. I am fascinated by the symbolic role played by food and drink in religious life, and by fasting and self-denial as part of a religious tradition, but also in the ways in which medieval communities feasted and how tastes in food and drink developed through trade and cultural exchange. I teach an undergraduate course on Feast, Fast, and Famine in the Middle Ages because questions about production, consumption, and sustainability are crucially important for us all.  

Andrew's book list on food and drink in the Middle Ages

Andrew Jotischky Why did Andrew love this book?

Constance Hieatt, who died in 2011 before this book came out, was probably the most important historian of medieval English food and cookery. She discovered many recipes in manuscripts that would otherwise have gone unnoticed and edited and commented on a huge body of evidence for English medieval cookery. This book is the culmination of a career’s worth of identifying recipes and reconstructing them for modern readers. Its value lies in providing answers to practical questions about medieval cookery with examples and references from the sources. Professor Hieatt was particularly interested in making medieval recipes available for modern cooks, and this is probably the best guide.

By Constance Hieatt (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Culinary Recipes of Medieval England as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

• An epitomy of all surviving English medieval recipes • The great advantage for students of medieval English cookery is that there is an identifiable corpus of evidence in the manuscripts that have survived to the present day. Although there may be some new discoveries, in general terms the corpus is relatively stable. The beauty of this book is that it addresses the corpus as a whole and abstracts from it paradigm recipes for every medieval dish that we know about. The book is organised by category of dish (Pottage; Meat Dishes; Poultry and Game Birds; Fish; Eggs and Dairy…


Book cover of Tastes of Byzantium: The Cuisine of a Legendary Empire

Andrew Jotischky Author Of A Hermit's Cookbook: Monks, Food and Fasting in the Middle Ages

From my list on food and drink in the Middle Ages.

Why am I passionate about this?

My interest in medieval food and cookery combines two of my great passions in life, but I first started to become seriously interested in the combination when researching religious dietary ideas and practices. I am fascinated by the symbolic role played by food and drink in religious life, and by fasting and self-denial as part of a religious tradition, but also in the ways in which medieval communities feasted and how tastes in food and drink developed through trade and cultural exchange. I teach an undergraduate course on Feast, Fast, and Famine in the Middle Ages because questions about production, consumption, and sustainability are crucially important for us all.  

Andrew's book list on food and drink in the Middle Ages

Andrew Jotischky Why did Andrew love this book?

Food and drink in the Byzantine Empire is not a well-researched topic, and Andrew Dalby has been a pioneer in bringing to life a lost culinary culture. In remarkable detail, he shows what was eaten at the imperial court, in ordinary homes, and in monasteries, and how it was cooked. Dalby describes the sights and smells of Constantinople and its marketplaces, uses travellers' tales and other original sources to paint a comprehensive picture of the recipes and customs of the empire, and their relationship to health and the seasons, love, and medicine. 

By Andrew Dalby,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Tastes of Byzantium as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For centuries, the food and culinary delights of the Byzantine empire - centred on Constantinople - have captivated the west, although it appeared that very little information had been passed down to us. Tastes of Byzantium now reveals in astonishing detail, for the first time, what was eaten in the court of the Eastern Roman Empire - and how it was cooked. Fusing the spices of the Romans with the seafood and simple local food of the Aegean and Greek world, the cuisine of the Byzantines was unique and a precursor to much of the food of modern Turkey and…


Book cover of Spice: The History of a Temptation

Eleanor Ford Author Of The Nutmeg Trail: Recipes and Stories Along the Ancient Spice Routes

From my list on to spice up your shelves.

Why am I passionate about this?

In my writing, food is a means to explore culture and understand the world. I’ve been described as a ‘culinary detective’. I collect and create eclectic, evocative recipes from around the globe so I can travel from my kitchen when I'm back home in London. The Nutmeg Trail follows my multi-award-winning books, Fire Islands and Samarkand.

Eleanor's book list on to spice up your shelves

Eleanor Ford Why did Eleanor love this book?

A compelling exploration by Turner into what made spices so fashionable and so dangerous. “For their sake, fortunes have been made and lost, empires built and destroyed, and new worlds discovered” all to sate human infatuation with these ingredients. I was swept away by Turner’s erudite approach to spice history and his work has been an inspiration to me.

By Jack Turner,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Spice as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this brilliant, engrossing work, Jack Turner explores an era—from ancient times through the Renaissance—when what we now consider common condiments were valued in gold and blood.

Spices made sour medieval wines palatable, camouflaged the smell of corpses, and served as wedding night aphrodisiacs. Indispensible for cooking, medicine, worship, and the arts of love, they were thought to have magical properties and were so valuable that they were often kept under lock and key. For some, spices represented Paradise, for others, the road to perdition, but they were potent symbols of wealth and power, and the wish to possess them…


Book cover of The Moor's Last Sigh

Hussein Fancy Author Of The Mercenary Mediterranean: Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon

From my list on capturing the paradoxes of medieval Spain.

Why am I passionate about this?

Hussein Fancy is a Professor of History at Yale University where he teaches medieval history with a particular focus on medieval Spain and North Africa. His research, writing, and teaching focus on the entwined histories of not only Jews, Christians, and Muslims but also Latin and Arabic in the Middle Ages. He has traveled and lived extensively in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Hussein's book list on capturing the paradoxes of medieval Spain

Hussein Fancy Why did Hussein love this book?

The paradoxes of medieval Spain have not only inspired scholars but also novelists. However different their methods, both share the desire to understand the present through the distant past. I read The Moor’s Last Sigh as an undergraduate, long before I had any idea that I wanted to become a historian. Rushdie’s novel is a family saga that traces a path backward from modern India to the Jews, Christians, and Muslims of medieval Spain. It’s a rambling and phantasmagorical tale that meditates on a lost world, in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims shared the same time and place.

By Salman Rushdie,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Moor's Last Sigh as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The Booker Prize-winning, bestselling author of Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses combines a ferociously witty family saga with a surreally imagined and sometimes blasphemous chronicle of modern India and flavors the mixture with peppery soliloquies on art, ethnicity, religious fanaticism, and the terrifying power of love.

“Fierce, phantasmagorical … a huge, sprawling, exuberant novel.” —The New York Times

Moraes "Moor" Zogoiby, the last surviving scion of a dynasty of Cochinese spice merchants and crime lords, is also a compulsive storyteller and an exile. As he travels a route that takes him from India to Spain, he…


Book cover of The Spice Route: A History

Eleanor Ford Author Of The Nutmeg Trail: Recipes and Stories Along the Ancient Spice Routes

From my list on to spice up your shelves.

Why am I passionate about this?

In my writing, food is a means to explore culture and understand the world. I’ve been described as a ‘culinary detective’. I collect and create eclectic, evocative recipes from around the globe so I can travel from my kitchen when I'm back home in London. The Nutmeg Trail follows my multi-award-winning books, Fire Islands and Samarkand.

Eleanor's book list on to spice up your shelves

Eleanor Ford Why did Eleanor love this book?

With a scholarly eye for detail, Keaye explores the history of the spice routes. The trade is at once mysterious and hard to trace yet also world-encompassing. It started more wars and sparked more discoveries than any other global exchange.  This book elegantly covers over 3,000 years of human history and leaves the reader with much to think about. 

By John Keay,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Spice Route as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An exotic saga with the tang of drama in every voyage, The Spice Route transports the reader from the dawn of history to the ends of the earth The Spice Route is one of history's great anomalies. Shrouded in mystery, it existed long before anyone knew of its extent or alignment. Spices came from lands unseen, possibly uninhabitable, and almost by definition unattainable; that was what made them so desirable. Yet more livelihoods depended on this pungent traffic, more nations participated in it, more wars were fought over it, and more discoveries resulted from it than from any other global…


Book cover of Nathaniel's Nutmeg: Or, the True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History

Eleanor Ford Author Of The Nutmeg Trail: Recipes and Stories Along the Ancient Spice Routes

From my list on to spice up your shelves.

Why am I passionate about this?

In my writing, food is a means to explore culture and understand the world. I’ve been described as a ‘culinary detective’. I collect and create eclectic, evocative recipes from around the globe so I can travel from my kitchen when I'm back home in London. The Nutmeg Trail follows my multi-award-winning books, Fire Islands and Samarkand.

Eleanor's book list on to spice up your shelves

Eleanor Ford Why did Eleanor love this book?

Delving into the bloodiest and most tragic period of spice’s past, Milton’s novel reveals the extraordinary link between nutmeg and colonisation. It was the seed from which the British Empire grew. If fiction is your preferred way to explore history – and what a history spice has! – then this is the book for you.

By Giles Milton,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Nathaniel's Nutmeg as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A true tale of high adventure in the South Seas.

The tiny island of Run is an insignificant speck in the Indonesian archipelago. Just two miles long and half a mile wide, it is remote, tranquil, and, these days, largely ignored.

Yet 370 years ago, Run's harvest of nutmeg (a pound of which yielded a 3,200 percent profit by the time it arrived in England) turned it into the most lucrative of the Spice Islands, precipitating a battle between the all-powerful Dutch East India Company and the British Crown. The outcome of the fighting was one of the most spectacular…


Book cover of Shipwrecks of the Roaring Forties: Researching some of Australia's earliest shipwrecks

Richard de Grijs Author Of Time and Time Again: Determination of longitude at sea in the 17th Century

From my list on perilous voyages halfway around the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Dutch astronomer and historian of maritime navigation who somehow landed a coveted academic job in Sydney, Australia. I spend much of my free time on weekends at the Australian National Maritime Museum as a guide on our vessels, as a speaker, as a consultant on matters related to the historical determination of longitude at sea, and as a deckhand on our historic tall ships. I’ve written 2 history of science books, including a biography of William Dawes, the astronomer on the ‘First Fleet’ from England to Australia (1787–1788). In addition to this, I enjoy writing about the history of medicine and diseases during the Age of Sail. 

Richard's book list on perilous voyages halfway around the world

Richard de Grijs Why did Richard love this book?

In early times, during the European colonisation of the East Indies (the Spice Islands), the various East India companies would closely follow the African shoreline on their way north and east from the Cape of Good Hope. This turned out to be slow going, and so when the Dutch discovered the ‘Brouwer route,’ following the roaring forties before turning north some distance before hitting the Australian coast, their passage could be shortened by at least a month. The main problem of those early navigators was to decide when to turn north before running into the Western Australian coast. Many ships, and many Dutch ships in particular, misjudged their longitude and so ran into coastal shallows and shipwrecked.

The waters just off the Western Australian coast cover numerous early shipwrecks, with Dutch shipwrecks being particularly well represented. As an avid maritime history enthusiast with Dutch roots, this book is right up…

Book cover of Essence and Alchemy: A Book of Perfume

Theresa Levitt Author Of Elixir: A Parisian Perfume House and the Quest for the Secret of Life

From my list on perfume and scent.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a historian of science who just completed a book on the role of perfume in the quest for the secret of life and vitality. While writing it, I became fascinated with the challenge of translating scent into language. While our nose can recognize a virtually infinite number of odors, there are only a few basic categories of description (“floral,” “woody,” “citrus,” etc.). To fully describe them often requires a poet’s touch – invoking a tapestry of memories, associations, and feelings to create the experience in the reader’s mind. These are some of the best books I’ve encountered for talking about the complex world of scent, and the importance of perfume in human history.

Theresa's book list on perfume and scent

Theresa Levitt Why did Theresa love this book?

Aftel is the Alice Waters of natural perfume and here she shares the secrets of her craft while revealing their rich history.

She brings out the magic and alchemy in humankind’s long-standing efforts to capture the aromatic essences of plants, evoking a hidden world of natural fragrances and their ability to seduce, heal, intoxicate, and transport one to another state.

By Mandy Aftel,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Essence and Alchemy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

As long as there has been passion, there has been perfume. Wealthy Romans used to scent their doves while in Shakespeare's time, a woman in love would place a peeled apple into her armpit to saturate it with her scent and then present it to her lover. "Essence and Alchemy" resurrects the social and metaphysical legacy that is entwined with the evolution of perfumery, from the dramas of the spice trade to the quests of the alchemists. Aftel tracks scent through the boudoir and the bath and into the sanctums of worship, and along the way teaches us the art…


Book cover of The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages
Book cover of The Cookbook that Changed the World: The Origins of Modern Cuisine
Book cover of Culinary Recipes of Medieval England

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Interested in territorial expansion, spices, and Europe?

Spices 15 books
Europe 960 books