Resources and References?

Ugh, sad to hear it didn't work for you either! But you're welcome, and thank you for trying and letting us know with the results. Glad you enjoyed those resources! <3

Here are some historical cookbook resources that I thought might be of interest! :) It started out as casual curiosity, and then ended with me spending an inordinate amount of time trying to track down online versions of these books, haha.

Medieval Cookery: a website that has compiled medieval cookbooks and recipes from all over Europe! It includes a translated cookbook from al-Andalus (included below). The whole website is pretty fun to browse and has general book recommendations too, including a Syrian cookbook which I also included below. It would have been great if I found this website first... but of course, as life tends to have it, I found this website after I had found everything else. Still, putting it first on this list as I think it's a nice online collection!

Scents and Flavors: A Syrian Cookbook (translated by Charles Perry) - a 13th century cookbook from Syria documenting recipes for everything that might be involved in a banquet for nobility, including non-food items such as incense and perfumes! The translated book seems organized and easy to read. (Link to full PDF here.)

Kitab al Tabikh fi al-Maghrib wa al-Andalus - a cookbook from 12th-13th century al-Andalus. Some kind soul compiled the English translation (also by Charles Perry) into a free online index on this website.

• Here is a different version in PDF that someone else compiled of the same cookbook, but with some additional commentary, explanation, and reorganization.

Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens - a cookbook from 10th century Baghdad translated by Nawal Nasrallah. (Link to full PDF here.) I thought it was really interesting how the book spends a significant amount of time at the beginning discussing the medicinal and humoral properties of different foods and aromatics. Very neat and maybe something of interest for medical-type characters too!

I got thinking on old maps a little while back (thank you to an NPC for planting that seed!) and wanted to link a couple of resources that I found interesting, although they may be kind of tangential to SoA!

https://www.myoldmaps.com/ - A collection of old maps dating between 6200 BCE and the 1800s (according to the tabs on the page), with associated papers!

• So far, in particular I really enjoyed reading this document on map orientation (link here). It is probably pretty basic for anyone who already has familiarity with cartography, but it was fascinating for me as a newbie, and has a nice compilation of interesting maps!

Medieval Islamic Maps: An Exploration by Karen C. Pinto (Link to PDF) - This is an academic book with many photos of various medieval Islamic maps, as well as other objects, artworks, and artifacts from various cultures and time periods that she references. It briefly delves into European maps as well. Although I only read parts of the first few chapters before simply flipping ahead through the rest of the book to peek at the images (lol), I found what I read of the author's overarching discussion to be really approachable. It challenged in a positive way my modern-day understanding of what a map should look like and what it is supposed to do!