Binding Agents: A Cook/Book Shop
908 Christian StreetCalling all fans of the Bard, culinary scholarship, and extraordinary food writing: Join us to celebrate the release of Shakespeare in the Kitchen by local scholar and friend of the shop Marissa Nicosia!
Audiences and academics alike have long remarked that Shakespeare's works record the pleasures and perils of the table. Shakespeare in the Kitchen asks what Shakespeare's poems and plays can tell us about Renaissance recipes, and what these recipes can tell us about Shakespeare's works.
Dr. Nicosia will be joined by Margaret Eby, food editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and author of You Gotta Eat, for a conversation on culinary history, literary analysis, adapting recipes of the past to be ready for cooking in the present, and the whole deal with Falstaff's capons.
Guests may choose a ticket with or without a copy of the book. Entrance to the shop requires one step up. Please contact us at hello@bindingagentsphilly.com with any questions or accessibility needs; we'd be happy to help.
About the Book
In Shakespeare in the Kitchen, Marissa Nicosia explores how Shakespeare's works reveal tensions not only within early modern food culture about who should eat, what to eat or serve guests, and when to preserve foods, but also how to undertake the embodied processes of cooking, baking, and serving. The chapters include both analysis of plays and poems, as well as updated historical recipes ready for cooking. Nicosia prepares the recipes that permeate the canon--from Falstaff's beloved capons to the cakes that invite festivity in Twelfth Night--demonstrating how the physical act of cooking can transform our understanding of once familiar texts, and asking what we can learn about food history by recreating historical recipes with twenty-first-century ingredients and tools.
Shakespeare in the Kitchen is an original and fascinating read for anyone interested in Shakespeare, Renaissance England, Early Modern literature, history, food studies, and the history of food.
About the Author
Marissa Nicosia is Associate Professor of Renaissance Literature at The Pennsylvania State University-Abington College, USA. She is the author of Imagining Time in the English Chronicle Play: Historical Futures, 1590-1660 (2023) and the public history website Cooking in the Archives.
About the Interviewer
Margaret Eby is the food editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She has written for the New York Review of Books, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Bon Appétit, the New Yorker, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. She is the author of South Toward Home: Travels in Southern Literature (Norton, 2015) and You Gotta Eat (Quirk, 2024). Margaret completed a certificate program at the International Culinary Center in 2019.
Thu, Jun 4, 2026 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Binding Agents: A Cook/Book Shop
908 Christian Street
Binding Agents is Philly's bookshop for cooks and eaters. Located in South Philly’s culinary epicenter, the 9th Street Italian Market, we’re your go-to source for new cookbooks and food-focused reads, plus gifts and goods for making, serving and enjoying. We’re independent, women-owned, fun & funky. Learn more at bindingagentsphilly.com.
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