Two titles, two authors, two ISBNs – one book?!
Father Luke Penkett writes:
Don’t be caught out as I was! Seeing Julian Of Norwich Cooking Guide: An Essential Cookbook With Several Delicious Medieval Recipes: How To Make A Perfect Pie Like In Medieval Time by Ginny Luebbert out on 28 June this year and Medieval Recipes In The Julian Of Norwich Era: Complete Guide To Make A Medieval-Style Meal: Collection Of Medieval Recipes by Garfield Nipp out a day later I naturally assumed that Amazon UK was selling two books at a sensible price £7.92 each, also available on Kindle if I wanted them in that format.
Imagine my disappointment on opening them only to discover they were the same book. I often turn to the back matter first and thought, ‘Oh, well! Perhaps the front matter is different. After all, the authors’ names (which were only given online and nowhere in the books) were different, and even more convincingly, the ISBNs were different too.
The book is nicely presented with recipes for beverages, bread, meats and fish, casseroles and pies, vegetables, sweets and seasonings. There are Julian’s words and modern-day Julianesque sayings. There are even woodcuts bringing the recipes to life. But the closing words of the 3-page Introduction rang hollow: ‘May this cookbook, based on the food of Julian’s lifetime, give you joy and the certainty that you are loved,’ and my heart went out to the folk who like me had bought two copies of the same book.
Hello, I am the illustrator of this little cookbook here to solve your mystery (if a little late)! The original is “The Cookbook of Julian of Norwich; from Hazelnuts to Pottages” by Ellyn Sanna. This was published by Anamchara Books, available in both print and ebook. Unfortunately, someone was stealing our material and using AI to change the text just enough to be undetected for years. Bad situation for everyone, although those links have since been reported and taken down.
I bought ‘The Cookbook of Julian of Norwich; from Hazelnuts to Pottages’ by Ellyn Sanna (Pub: Anamchara Books) in the Spring. Looking at the two above books on-line, they have a remarkable similarity to the Ellyn Sanna book! A ‘Julian mystery’ perhaps – who actually wrote it…..?