Sterbeeck and his Theatrum Fungorum, Part II

Part I of this essay was published in PPC 43. In it, the author introduced us to Frans van Sterbeeck, a 17th century Antwerp amateur and devotee of fungi, who sought to spread knowledge about which of them were edible and how to cook them. In the 1660s, he was invited to add a chapter on cooking fungi to an early Dutch cookbook, and the result was what we know as his Treatise, the main subject of Part I of the essay. In this second part of the essay we learn about the much fuller content of Sterbeeck's subsequent, free-standing, and remarkably substantial book, Theatrum Fungorum, published in 1675. We are also given a sight of some earlier recipes, those of Clusius (1601), which influenced him. Clusius' recipes had reflected Hungarian practice, for it was in Hungary that he conducted his studies of fungi, and they are remarkable not only for their early date but also - as explained in Part I - because they came from the pen of a man who, in sharp contrast to Sterbeeck, did not believe in eating fungi at all. References in this Part II begin at 31, since they follow on consecutively from the 30 references already given in Part I.