Tasting History: Explore the Past through 4,000 Years of Recipes (A Cookbook)

In February of 2020, Max Miller started the YouTube show Tasting History with Max Miller. It soon became an internet sensation. And Max an almost overnight success. I didn’t find Tasting History until a year ago when it popped up in my YouTube feed and what a delight this show is. If you are a Food Network fan, you will understand that Tasting History is a solid mix of Alton Browns Good Eats and The Two Fat Ladies. It’s a brilliant show that takes a recipe from long ago, gives you the history of the dish, and then shows you how to make it. A few of my favorite episodes are Pumpion Pie the fore runner of our pumpkin pie, Gingerbread, and Soul Cakes. Max Didn’t start out life as a cook or a chef. It was on a trip to Disney World with a friend where he got stuck in the hotel as his friend got sick. They binge watched early episodes of the Great British Baking Show with the original hosts and format. This format occasionally gave some history to the food the contestants were preparing. Max got hooked and began to become his own home cooking master. Just before Covid hit, he began his show Tasting History with Max Miller. After Covid hit Max got furloughed from his job but his show really took off. Everyone was home, and everyone was cooking. His show soared in popularity and a YouTube legend was born. I have to admit that I am a bit of a snob. YouTube shows seemed to be about well-to-do young people showing off their swag. I liked the clips of old movies and TV shows and seeing the inside of the rehearsal rooms for Broadway shows but beyond that I felt YouTube had very little of interest to me Max changed that. I love Tasting History. I have yet to actually cook from his show, but I will soon. The recipes, though truly ancient at times, he has made clear and adapted for a modern kitchen. His history lessons are spot on. In anticipation of the crowning of King Charles, Max did a show on Coronation Chicken, a dish that was served at Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. It looked delicious and fairly simple to make. While preparing the dish, he gave us quite the history of English coronation Banquets. His show is run once a week and releases on Tuesdays. Anyone who loves good cooking and wonderful stories will love this show. And to top it off Max has just released his first cookbook called Appropriately Tasting History by Max Miller with Ann Volkien. This book has 4000 years’ worth of recipes. I know this because it says so on the cover. The book is divided into five sections. The Ancient World, The British Isles, Continental Europe, The Near and Far East and The New World. Each recipe in the book has a history lesson on the particular dish and the time it was prepared. The Recipe follows the history. The recipes are clear and easy to understand. Some of the ingredients may be not what you normally find in your pantry but most of the more exotic ingredients, if not all, can be found for purchase via the Internet. Personally, I have found purchasing ingredients on the internet to find ingredients you can’t get here. Mary Berry, the British equivalent to Julia Child or Rachel Ray, made gingerbread from stem ginger. I had no idea what stem ginger was, but I found it easily accessible with an Internet search. Max’s book is fun, and entertaining and I can’t wait to dive in and try some of the recipes here. There’s an ancient Lamb Stew, a British mead, a European Beef with Garlic Harvester Sauce (The recipe is specifically from Transylvania), Little Meat Cakes from China, and from The New World, an amazing recipe for Egg Nog. I know this one will be good as I saw him make it on the show. This is really a great cookbook and a lot of fun. I can see it being used as a reference book or even the basis of school projects. The more we get to know about ancient and surrounding cultures the more we come together and bond as the one big world family we truly are and food always speaks for us. If you have yet to watch Max on YouTube, I highly recommend him. If you have watched him then you know how good he is so get out there and buy those cookbooks. You’ll be glad you did.

Wonderful cookbook with unique recipes. If I could give it 10 stars I would! This cookbook was a gift for my adult son who has autism. It is magical in the sense it combines his two favorite things...history and food. His life skills provider comes to his home to help him learn how to cook, shop, and clean. They watch the YouTube video about the recipe and make the grocery list, go shopping, make the recipe, eat and clean up the kitchen. With his love of history and food this is so incredibly motivating to do all the things he isn't interested in like shopping and cleaning. His life skills coach is happily receiving high grades for using a unique and motivating approach to teaching life skills and my son is learning to be more independent. Im even enjoying learning more about history! I can't fully express how grateful I am for this wonderful and unique cookbook! I would recommend to anyone who likes cooking and learning about recipes and anyone who loves history. The book is well organized, colorful and a joy to look and read even when you aren't cooking.

LOVE IT and Max and the YouTube Channel Tasting History. Honestly, all of the above have helped keep me focused on positive things (food, learning new things about older history) in the most turbulent years of recent history. I love that the book is dense like a good cake - full of history and illustrations and photos - and that it's something that I can use to make actual food. The history sections will appeal to the history nerd while the recipes are approachable and made from ingredients that are obtainable by the home cook; it's exactly what I'd hoped for and more from watching the YouTube videos.

This cookbook is a history lover’s dream. I’ve purchased several cookbooks in the past that purportedly have old recipes..but they are just modern interpretations of old recipes. Not this book! Not only does the author explain the history behind the recipes but he also provided explanations of the (now unusual) ingredients and ideas for substituting when you can’t find the original ingredients. And while they are adapted to the modern way of cooking-who has a massive fireplace for cooking in 2026?!?-they seem as close to the original recipe as possible. If you have seen his videos you will know that he does his best to be authentic. The recipes are fascinating to read even if you don’t plan on making them (I’m looking at you Portuguese Farts!) and the history is incredible.

I bought this for my brother-in-law, he really enjoyed reading all the recipes, I read them as well on Christmas Day. Such a cute fun historical book, I really love Max Miller’s YouTube channel and the book is just as thought out and detailed and researched as the videos. I am excited to see what he will cook from the book. It is a perfect last-minute Christmas gift.

I absolutely love this cookbook. It’s equal parts history book and cooking guide, and it flows through time in a way that makes both subjects genuinely engaging instead of intimidating. What really sets this apart is the work the author has already done for you. Historic ingredients are clearly explained, renamed where necessary, and paired with modern substitutions when something is difficult to find today. You’re never left guessing what an ingredient actually is or how to make a recipe achievable in a modern kitchen. Each recipe feels thoughtfully researched and respectfully adapted, so you’re not just cooking something inspired by history—you’re as close as possible to recreating it authentically. All you have to do is follow along, and suddenly you’re eating food with real context behind it. If you love food, history, or both, this book is a perfect match. It’s educational without feeling academic, practical without losing its soul, and genuinely fun to cook from. One of those cookbooks you’ll keep reaching for, not just read once and shelve.

Been watching tasting history, and ended up pre-ordering the book last minute because I was eager to have some of the recipes. Been rather enjoying what I've fixed up so far, even if I've still haven't done anything too complex as of yet. It's honestly a really good book and it's clear there has been a lot of love and work put into it. So why not a 5 star review? Well, there isn't some great big flaw or anything, it's more that there are a few tweaks here and there I'd suggest, be it for a 2nd edition or a whole new cookbook from Max Miller. To start with, the table of contents and recipes are ordered by a general region of the world or time period, like the Ancient World which covers the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptions, to ones covering the Americas or Continental Europe, with each recipe having a noted location of origin and date. While this is helpful if you want a themed dinner, it's less so if you're browsing through and wanting to make a dessert or a soup, and it's made a little more bothersome due to the fact that a lot of the recipes are probably ones people aren't the most familiar. I don't think the book needs to be reordered, but I do think either a second table of contents based on whether a recipe is for a main course, a dessert, a drink, or watnot would be helpful, or even just having a note on each recipe along with date and origin would be nice. I also think including a 'you'll need x cooking materials' to go along with the list of ingredients would be helpful as well, just as a quick reference to what is needed. I tried the lemonade recipe and it was the best lemonade I ever had... but it was nearly ruined because I didn't realize toward the end that I needed a cheesecloth to filter out the pulp and zest. While a relatively harmless mistake on my part that a quick trip to the store resolved, I can imagine someone looking to just try and make one of the more complex recipes would be upset that the ingredients they got were wasted because they forgot a crucial tool like a jelly bag. Finally, and I guess this would be the most nitpickiest nitpick I have, is that I'd like a picture for each recipe. There are a LOT of good pictures within the book to show what to expect when you're done, especially for some of the more obscure stuff like Globi, but there are a few like the Everlasting Syllabub or an old fashioned version of pumpkin pie that lack images of the food themselves. Now, these two are on the youtube channel so I can just look them up and see how they look in the end, but someone who is getting this as a gift that doesn't watch the channel might be confused by the end result. Overall, a very good book despite my issues, and I look forward to seeing if Max Miller does any further book.

One armchair historian and amateur chef whose intellectual inquisitiveness, indomitable spirit, and immense charm guides the reader effortlessly through the historical background of a dish and provides comprehensive instructions on how to prepare it with available ingredients or helpful substitutions for those hard-to-find ingredients; a spirit of adventure on the reader's part to understand that this cookbook is unlike any other he or she has probably read before; an understanding that the dishes this cookbook presents come from diverse cultures and peoples the world over; and a willingness to delve into how history has influenced what we eat today. In short, these ingredients are the essential part of the master recipe for all those contained in "Tasting History: Explore the Past through 4,000 Years of Recipes. " Just a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon Max Miller's YouTube channel, "Tasting History with Max Miller," and, truth be told, I was captivated from the start. The first episode I watched was the one where he prepared the fish sauce garum from scratch using a less intricate recipe than another one. I immediately thought that either this guy has to be inspired by his love of history to prepare such recipes of antiquity from their best original source, or that he is totally crazy. After watching a few more episodes, I was inexorably convinced that he is, indeed, crazy for his twin loves of history and cooking. In his series of YouTube episodes, his intellectual curiosity for history takes him to diverse eras and locales to deduce when a particular recipe first appeared and how it has evolved, if it actually has, from its origins. He is also more than ready to debunk false histories surrounding recipes, such as those surrounding potato chips. When I discovered that he had written a cookbook, I realized that I had to obtain a copy to read, enjoy, and cook from. I was a bit apprehensive, though, because I doubted that his lighthearted, charming personality so clearly on display in his presentations would adequately be conveyed in written form. I need not have worried. Max's bubbly personality, insatiable curiosity, and quest for accuracy clearly shine through this entire book. The histories preceding each recipe convey a synopsis of the history of the recipe, and the recipes themselves could not be easier to follow. I began to "test drive" this cookbook by making a few of the easier recipes (Aztec Chocolate, page 217; French Lemonade, page148; Bread Pudding, page 224) before proceeding to some of the more detailed ones (Onion Soup with Milk, page 151; Pancakes from 1658 England, page 93). The recipes all turned out excellently, and, I must admit, the pancake recipe has now spoiled me for any other pancake recipe I've ever made. Similarly, the onion soup recipe has opened my eyes to a new version that is as good as, if not better than, the broth-based recipe most people swear by. Now, I must admit that I will probably never prepare all the recipes Max has included in his book. For example, the recipe for Spartan Black Broth (page 28) has an ingredient that I probably couldn't get even if I were willing--but, then again, I have never wanted to be a Spartan warrior anyway. (I've never prepared all the recipes like the stuffed boar's head from the "Joy of Cooking," either.) But the recipes I have prepared from Max's book entice me to discover more in this cookbook, and even more from his YouTube series. For those of you who are still unsure as to whether to purchase this cookbook, I would heartily suggest that you watch some of Max's "Tasting History" episodes on YouTube to introduce yourself to this unique historian/chef/bon vivant. I am certain that, if you enjoy cooking and you enjoy learning from an expert in his field, you will find "Tasting History: Explore the Past through 4,000 Years of Recipes" a worthwhile, if not essential, addition to your cookbook library. My only regret is that I don't have an autographed copy!

Excellent, well illustrated and informative read. I look forward to trying some of the recipes.

As a history buff and cook, I think there is barely a more underrated part of experimental archeology than historical recipies and preparation methods for food. I am an avid consumer of Max's content and his dedication to the craft was what immediatelly impressed me from the start. This book is the culmination of all of his exploits so far and the recipes are both delicious and authentic, and especially suited for those who are are "overfed" with modern flavours. Many of these recipes provide a new baseline and perspective that is often radically different when compared to modern cuisine as it combines flavours that we would think of "clashing" in many instances, but work great when tried out. If you're on the fence whether this book is for you or not, I suggest you make your favourite hearty food on the weekend and binge a few episodes of "Tasting History with Max Miller" on youtube, because what you see there is what you'll be getting with this book, except the book contains many more recipes. Not for people who think that almond milk is a new trend.

Every bit as engaging as the YouTube channel it sorting from. With a background in historical cooking from medieval and Roman reenactment, many recipes were familiar to me. Still an excellent buy. The author has enough material for a 2nd cookbook, and I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Awesome book I bought to gift to a friend.

I love Max and watch his videos every Tuesday. This book is a nice combination of the history of the dishes (written in a very entertaining yet Historically correct way) and actual recepes. Im looking forward to making some of the dishes!