A Multidisciplinary Analysis of Early Modern Plant Food Consumption Based on Vegetal Ingredients in Culinary Texts and Subfossil Plant Remains from Cesspits

This paper aims to assess if historians and archaeobotanists have a comprehensive overview of the vegetal food items prepared and eaten by early modern Dutch urban consumers. It does so by taking a multidisciplinary approach, comparing the vegetal ingredients present in the recipes of four printed cookbooks and a herbarium to the edible plant species present in 191 archaeobotanical cesspit samples. The research shows that the vast majority of edible plant species found in both printed cookbooks and cesspits overlaps. However, a select number of plant species is represented solely in either cookbook or cesspit. This bias in representation can be explained by, for instance, sample sizes, identification methods, or regional preferences. The produced overview helps mitigate underrepresentation of certain plant species in culinary historical and archaeobotanical research. Thereby nuancing the picture of which plant foods were consumed in the past on a daily basis by different layers of society.