Presented in co-operation with the Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium
Wednesday, 7 October, 2026
4:00pm-5:30pm
Goldring Student Centre, Regents Room (206)
150 Charles St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1K9
What was the climate like during the height of England’s Little Ice Age? And how did the increasingly harsh and unpredictable weather impact food supply and cooking practices? In this talk, I will first introduce the Weather Extremes in England’s Little Ice Age database, which has collected and mapped over 3000 weather records found in chronicles, diaries, letters, commonplace books, and weather pamphlets. I will then discuss how weather records such as these have helped to shape my investigations of how early modern recipes might have responded to the cooling climate. From using weather and atmospheric conditions as “ingredients,” to advising readers how to survive dearth conditions, these early recipes, I argue, encourage the creative thinking and flexibility needed to survive and adapt to climate change.
Madeline Bassnett is Professor of English and Writing Studies at Western University. She is the author of Climate Change Cookery: Recipes and Resilience in England’s Little Ice Age, 1550–1700 (Concordia UP, 2026), editor of the “Climate Change and the Little Ice Age” special issue of Early Modern Studies Journal (2025), and co-editor with Hillary M. Nunn of In the Kitchen 1550-1800: Reading English Cooking at Home and Abroad (2022).
