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On Butter: "Tractatus de Butyro" (1659) - Martinus Schoock
Paperback
Medieval & Renaissance HistoryDairyGeneral World History
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Mar 1 2025
Pages: 182
Weight: 0.43
Height: 0.42 Width: 5.25 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
Butter. It seems so self-evident, so ordinary. Yet in the seventeenth century, it became the subject of profound discussions and philosophical reflections. In On Butter, the influential thinker Martinus Schoock (1614-1669) takes us on a fascinating journey through the role, effects, and even the possible dangers of butter.
This book is not merely a hymn to a beloved ingredient-it is a deep, almost medical-philosophical treatise on how butter influences the body, how it should be used, and even the social and religious implications it carries.
Schoock was a true intellectual polymath: a professor in Groningen, a fierce opponent (and later a cautious adherent) of Descartes, and the author of influential works on everything from philosophy and theology to beer, tulips, and peat. His writings not only introduce us to the scientific insights of his time but also paint a vivid picture of an era in which food, health, and worldview were inextricably linked.
Until now, this work was available only in Latin, hidden in academic archives and inaccessible to the modern reader. Thanks to the efforts of Carnivore World, both On Butter and the related work Why Cheese Is Detestable have been rescued from the dust of the Middle Ages and spared from historical oblivion.
Anyone who reads On Butter will never look at a pat of butter in the pan the same way again. This book is a unique blend of historical knowledge, culinary philosophy, and medical insight, written by a man who saw butter as more than just food-he viewed it as a substance with profound implications.
And for lovers of eccentric historical polemics: in the companion work Why Cheese Is Detestable, Schoock launches a fierce attack on cheese. Together, these books offer a fascinating glimpse into the culinary controversies of the seventeenth century.
Step into Schoock's world and discover how butter played a key role in science, health, and even moral debates.
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