Historical Cooking for a Modern Palette

Zuccarini

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This recipe caught my eye when I was researching ciambelle. It is in Bartolomeo Scappi’s The Opera in Book VI which was written for the sick or invalid. I don’t pretend to know the in’s and out’s of humoral theory but apparently sugar was good for the sick.

When I realised what this recipe really was, I knew that I had to try it. It is from The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi 1571 and can be found in Book VI Recipe 139

The Original

“Per fare zuccarini a foggia di ciambelle

Piglisi zuccaro fino falto in polvere, & habbianosi chiare d’uove fresche battute, mettanosi in un catinello, & pongasi in esse chiare tanto zuccaro quanto ne possono portare, cioe che vengano in pasta soda, & d’essa pasta se ne faranno ciambelle, l’equali si pongano in una tortiera a cuocere che sia spoluerizzata di farina, o onta di cera bianca, faccianosi cuocere con poco foco sotto, & al quanto piu di sopra, vogliono poca cuocitura,

percioche per vigor delle chiare d’uova sgonsiano, & rimangono leggiere; con esse si puo mettere un poco di acqua di rosi, o muschio a beneplacito.” (1)

My Translation using John Florio’s Dictionary (2)

“For making ​zuccarini ​in the fashion of ciambelle

Take fine sugar reduced to a powder, & have fresh beaten egg whites, put them in a (shallow pan), & put with the egg whites as much sugar as they are able to bear, that is that it comes to a stiff dough, & with this dough make ciambelle, the same amounts are put in a torte pan and cook that it be dusted with flour, or else with wax white, make it cook with a small fire below, & and some measure of it above, they will require a little baking because by reason of the liveliness of the egg whites to swell & lift up light; with these things you may put a little rosewater, or else musk and good will and pleasure.” 

My Redaction                                                                                    Printable Version

• 2 egg whites
• Castor Sugar equal to double the weight of the egg whites
• 1 tsp. Rosewater

First, here in America we do not have castor sugar. Castor sugar is a finer grind than granulated sugar but not as fine as confectioner’s sugar. You can use store bought confectioner’s sugar but it does have cornstarch. This is fine to use as it will not hurt your meringues in anyway but I was trying to recreate Scappi’s meringue so I chose to gring the sugar in a mortar until it was as fine as I wanted. Feel free to use a spice/coffee grinder for a faster method.

Scappi would have used ounces and the 12oz. pound but I actually used grams because they are more accurate.

After you have ground the sugar a little finer, crack your eggs whites into a bowl on a scale. Remember this amount. Put the egg whites into your mixing bowl and add double the amount of sugar. For example: my egg whites weighed 112 grams so I will need 224 grams of sugar.

Start beating the egg whites until they reach the soft peak stage. Start adding the sugar a tablespoon at a time and allow it to become mixed in before adding more. Keep doing this until all the sugar has been added. Add in the rosewater and continue whipping until they become glossy and form stiff peaks.

Scappi used a syringe for making fanciful shapes with batter into hot oil and for butter. I experimented with using a spoon, shaping them by hand but using a cake decorating bag and tip was by far the easiert to use with the best results. I think it is entirely plausible that Scappi would have used this syringe to shape his zuccarini into ciambelle.

(3)

Preheat the oven to 275º. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and form your zuccarini. I made mine about 2-3 inches in diameter. Bake them for 10-15 minutes until the surface is set. Cover them with a second piece of parchment paper and bake for another 20 minutes. If they release from the paper quickly and easily they are done. If they stick give them another 5 minutes or so.

Bibiliography

1) Scappi, Bartolomeo. The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi: L’Arte et Prudeza D’un Maestro Cuoco (The Art and Craft of a Master Cook) (1570). Translated with commentary by Terrence Scully. Toronto Canada. University of Toronto Press Inc. 2008. Print.

2) Florio, John. Queen Anna’s New World of Words or Dictionarie of the Italian and English Tongues. 1611 http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/florio/

3) https://archive.org/details/operavenetiascap00scap/page/n155. Retrieved August 3, 2019. Plate 13This entry was posted in 16th Century, Italian, Recipes on June 16, 2020.

Ciambelle Project

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I want to share with you a year long project. I belong to a Historical Re-enactment Society and was recently chosen to compete in an Arts and Sciences Competition for the Kingdom Arts and Sciences Champion.

I was required to make a video of my project between 15-20 minutes. There were five finalists. We had 30 days to finish the video’s and upload them.

Let me say how daunting this was! I have NEVER ever made a video, edited a video, done a voice over etc. I was trying to use a program from the App store but it was difficult to navigate. One of the competitor’s suggested I use iMovie and that they had tutorials online. So I did.

This is the result. Oh, by the way, I did win but I have a looooong way to go with making videos!https://video.wordpress.com/embed/eFogoYlp?hd=0&autoPlay=0&permalink=1&loop=0&preloadContent=metadata&muted=0&playsinline=0&controls=1&cover=1This entry was posted in Links on June 16, 2020.

Aunt Jan’s Banana Bread

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I love banana bread! Especially warm from the oven with lots of butter. When I was newly married, I tried to find a banana bread recipe that was like the banana bread I had in college. Every recipe I tried was either dry, tastless or both. Then, several years later I was visiting my Aunt Jan and she had banana bread. It was delicious!!!! I have used this recipe ever since. I’m not sure if this is a vintage Betty Crocker recipe or a recipe that she got from my grandmother but I really don’t care. This is the only recipe I have found that is moist and very banana-y.

Ingredients                                                                                                          Print

• 2c. All Purpose Flour
• 1 tsp. Baking soda
• 1 tsp. Salt
• 1/2c. Shortening
• 1c. Sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1c. Mashed Ripe Bananas
• 1 Tbsp. vinegar
• 1/2c. Milk

The first thing you need to do, an hour or so before you want to start your bread, is measure 1 tbsp. of white or cider vinegar in a liquid measuring cup and add whole milk to equal 1/2 cup. This is a “quick” way to clabber the milk and get a sort of mild sour/tart flavor. It will look kind of chunky and thick.

Set aside the milk and measure the flour, baking soda and salt into a sifter and sift once. Set this aside and take your bananas and peel and mash them. NOTE: Black bananas give the best flavor. The more ripe the bananas are the more concentrated the sugars so there will a more pronounced banana flavor. My husband likes to say that if you can pour the banana out of the peel then it is about right. Two bananas is about 1 cup of mashed pulp.

Grease one large loaf pan and preheat your oven to 350º.

Put the shortening into a large bowl and add the sugar. Beat with and electric mixer until the sugar is incorporated.

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until incorporated. 

Now, add 1/3 of the flour and mix thoroughly. 

Add 1/3 of the milk and mix. 

Add 1/3 of the bananas and mix. 

Continue by adding half of the remaining flour, milk and bananas, mixing in between each addition. Continue adding the remaining ingredients alternately and mixing thoroughly between each.

Pour into your bread pan and bake for 60-70 minutes. 

Test by using a butterknife inserted into the highest part of the bread. If it has only a few crumbs clinging to it, your banana bread is done.

This entry was posted in My Family Recipes, Recipes on June 6, 2020.

Grammies Rice Pudding

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When I was growing up, my parents were divorced and my mother had to work. Everyday my brother and I went to my grandmother’s while my mother was working. My two cousin’s were also at my grammies with us.

Everyday at lunchtime, my grammie had a homemade meal for us. We rarely had sandwiches but sometimes we had grilled hotdogs. Mostly we had homemade vegetable soup, chicken soup, pasta and sauce, potato soup….you get the idea.

My gram made us desserts too. The two I remember clearly are peppermint pears and rice pudding. I LOVED my gram’s rice pudding! It is not very sweet at all but still so good. So for today’s Historical Bite I would like to share my grandmother’s recipe for Rice Pudding.

My Version

• 2 c. Cooked rice
• 1/2 c. water
• 2 1/2 c. milk
• 2-3 eggs
• 1/3 c. sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 c. raisins
• cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350º. Butter a one and a half quart casserole.

Add the water to the cooked rice and warm gently. Simmer until all the water is absorbed by the rice. Add the milk and boil gently for 5 minutes or until mixture thickens.

Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla in a bowl large enough to hold the egg mixture and the rice mixture. Add a small amount of the rice mixture to the eggs stirring to distribute the heat and slowly warm the eggs. Add another small amount of rice mixture again and again until about 1/2 of the rice mixture has been added and the temperature of the eggs feels warm. Add the remaining rice mixture and mix thoroughly.

Pour this into the casserole. Add the raisins and give a gentle fold through. Sprinkle with as much cinnamon as desired. I personally do not think there is such a thing as too much cinnamon but….

I serve this with chilled whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

I hope you enjoy this Historical Bite from my childhood!This entry was posted in My Family Recipes on April 2, 2020.

Spinach Toast

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In preparation for a feast I am doing this fall with my dear friend, Magdalena, I tried this historical bite and wanted to share it with you. The theme of this feast is “A Tudor Christmas” so I will probably be posting alot of 15th & 16th century English recipes in the coming weeks.

This particular recipe comes from Thomas Dawson’s The Good Huswife’s Jewel (1). Dawson first published his cookery book in 1596 and a second printing was made a year later. This work seems to be a liason between the rennaissance and a more modern cooking style of the 17th century. The dishes are simpler but delicious and seemed to be geared towards the growing middle class of the time.

Note: At this time England was still using the 12 ounce pound and a pint was 16 ounces rather than the imperial 20 ounces.

Original Recipe

This is a from Southover Press published in 1996

“To Make Fried Toast of Spinach

Take spinach and seethe it in water and salt. When it is tender, wring out the water between two trenchers. Then chop it small and set it on a chafing dish of coals. Put thereto butter, small raisins, cinnamon, ginger, sugar, a little of the juice of an orange, and two yolks of raw eggs. Let it boil till it be somewhat thick. Then toast your toast, soak them in a little butter and sugar and spread thin your spinach upon them. Set them on a dish before the fire a little while. So serve them with a little sugar upon them.”

My Redaction

Printable Recipe

• 1 10oz. pkg of frozen spinach
• 4-5 tbsp. of Butter
• 1/4 c. raisins
• 1 tsp. Cinnamon
• 2 tsp. Ginger, fresh
• 1/2 tsp. Ginger
• 2 tbsp. Sugar
• 1/4 tsp (or to taste) Orange Zest
• Juice of 1 orange
• 2 Egg Yolks
• 1 Loaf of good Homemade Bread

Thaw the spinach in a strainer over the sink or a bowl. When it is completely thawed, squeeze by hand as much water out of it as you can. Using several papertowels, remove even more moisture from the spinach by pressing it between two layers. When you have removed all the water set it aside until it is needed.

In a small frying pan melt the butter and raisins together. The butter will help to plump up the raisins so put it on a lower setting and allow the raisins about 5-10 minutes in the butter being careful not to let the butter burn.

When the raisins are plumped, add the fresh ginger, ground ginger, and sugar and stir. Cook for a few minutes until well incorporated.

Add the spinach and orange zest and saute for five minutes or so. Add the orange juice to the egg yolks and beat them together. I did this so that the eggs wouldn’t scramble when I added them to the spinach.

Lower the heat and add the egg mixture. Make sure you mix it in well so you do not get patches of cooked egg. Leave this to thicken, stirring every once in a while until it thickens. Let this saute while you prepare the toast.

Take a good homemade bread and slice it in half inch slices. Cut them into squares or triangles as you prefer. Toast or broil them, just until golden. I buttered them with a butter knife and sprinkled a small amount of sugar on them. If you wish, you can “soak” them in melted butter and sugar as Dawson directs. I chose not too because I was worried it would be too saturated and I wanted them as a finger food.

I then put a good helping of the spinach mixture on the toast or “sippets” sprinkled a little more sugar as a garnish on top and served them.

Bibliography

1. Dawson, Thomas. The Good Huswife’s Jewell. Published by Southover Press 1996. Originally published 1596, London for Edward White.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized on March 26, 2020.

Potato Soup

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It’s been chilly here the past few days and when it’s cold I always want a comfort food. This next historical bite is from my childhood. It is a recipe that my great grandmother made for her children and that, in turn, my grandmother made for us.

A little background: my grandmother used to babysit my brother, my two cousins and me before/after school and during the summer. I do remember those days fondly and I love my grammie to pieces. One of my memories is when she used to make this dish on a cold day for lunch. After, she would make a fire and we would all (4 of us) pile into her lap in her chair in front of the fire and snuggle.

My grandmother was born in 1919 and her mother was born in 1898. My great grandmother is of Irish decent and she made this recipe for her large family. My grammie said that she doesn’t know if her mother created this or if her grandmother taught her mother . Anyway, on to the recipe.

Disclaimer: My husband disagrees that this is a potato soup. He was a little hesitant when I first made it but now he loves it as much as I do. So give it a try.

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of ground hamburger
• 4-5 cups beef broth
• 4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut in bite size pieces
• 4 carrots, peeled and cut into bite size pieces
• 1 bay leave
• seasonings to taste: salt, pepper, oregano, garlic powder, onion powder
• 1 stick butter, softened, optional
• 1/2 c. flour, optional

Start by browning the meat in a pot or if you are using a higher fat hamburger in a frying pan so it is easier to drain off the fat. NOTE: I use onion powder because they bother my husband but if you prefer, use a small onion instead of the powder.

After you have drained the fat, add the diced onion and cook until translucent. If you want to use garlic instead of garlic powder add the minced garlic when the onion is almost done. If you are using the powders, do not add yet.

When the onions and garlic (if using) are done, add in the beef broth. I have used water and bullion in a pinch. Let this simmer for about 30 minutes. Add in the potatoes and carrots. Stir in the salt, pepper, oregano,bay leaf and if using onoin powder and garlic powder.

Bring to a boil, and then lower the heat to maitain a simmer for about an hour. If you prefer your soup a little thicker, like I do, mix equal amounts of butter and flour (this is called buerre manie) and add it to your soup off of the heat. Stir it in and it will thicken.

My grammie always served this on a plate with butter and we mashed everything all together. She had homemade bread, slathered with butter and  my grandfather would put a mouthful of the mashed soup on the bread and eat them together. Don’t knock it till you try it! Pure Bliss on a cold snowy day!This entry was posted in Recipes, Uncategorized on March 7, 2020.

Stuffed Ciambelle

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     I am including this recipe even though it is part of an ongoing research project of mine. This is another of Scappi’s inventions and I think it is a fantastic historical bite! It is fairly straightforward but the secret is in the dough.

     Scappi has several recipes that he calls “ciambelle”. John Florio’s 1611 Italian English Dictionary (2) tells us that a ciambelle is “simnels, buns or cake” (p. 100). The Oxford English DIctionary (3) lists simnel as “A kind of bread or bun made of fine flour and prepared by boiling, sometimes with subsequent baking” (p. 492). Gillian Riley states in The Oxford Companion to Italian Food (4) that ciambelle was not the only name for these ring shaped breads and biscuits and not all of them were dunked in boiling water. She goes on to quote Costanzo Felici, who wrote in 1560’s Italy, saying 

“ There is also a twice-cooked bread, circular or ring or other shaped, made with a fairly hard dough, with salt, anise or fennel seeds, first cooked in boiling water and then in the oven”

     He goes on to say

           “….with many varieties that we might call “reinforced” breads, with a wide range of         additions to the flour or dough according to the changing tastes of mankind, among these breads made in various shapes commonly known as bricuocoli,  ciaramilie or bracciatelli or braciatelletti, made with flour mixed with eggs….and sometimes twice cooked, or in copper pans; some of these are light and very spongy, some covered in powdered sugar, called berlingozzi in Rome, others without sugar, some smoother, some harder, some low and flattened, large or small in shape, and among these last one often sees little biscotelli mixed with milk and sugar, or just sugar, or without. Of  the same form, but made with   much thinner strips of dough, are other ones—bacciatellini or zuccarini, as they call them, made with eggs and sugar.” (p. 71-72)

Original Recipe (2)

Book V Recipe 150

        “Per Fare Ciambelle Ripiene

         Piglisi una libra di cascio bazzotto grasso, cioe di vacca, senza sale & una libra di cascio parmigiano grattato, oncie sei d’uva passa ben netta, un oncie di cannella, quattro oncie di zuccaro, tre oncie di butiro fresco, dodici ova freshe, & un poco di zafferano & d’ogni cosa faccisi una compositione. Poi impastinsi libre tre di fior di farina, con dicci oncie di latte di capra tiepido, & quattro oncie di mollica di pane imbeverata in esso latto, sei rofsi d’ova, quattro oncie di butiro, & sale a bastanza, &ben menata che sara la pasta, giungendoli nel menarla altre quattro oncie di butiro in piu volte. Compartiscasi in bocconcini di due oncie l’uno, & con il bastone spianisino di modo che venghino tondi, lasciandoli la grossezza del sfoglio della torte; pongasi da un canto d’esse pasto due oncie di compositione sopra detta per ciasebeduno tondo, dandogli una volta, e mezza in su, vagendoli di butiro squagliato, & poi facciansi ciambellette, spianandole con la palma della mano, mettissino sopra la carta onta di butiro in una tortiera, & diasegli il colore come all’offelle, & faccisino cuocere al forno, & cotte che saranno, servisino calde, a un altro modo si puo fare tirare un sfoglia.”

My Translation

“To Make Stuffed Ciambelle

Take a pound of imperfect (moderate) fat cheese, That is from a cow, without salt & a pound of grated parmesan cheese, six ounces of raisins well cleaned, an ounce of cinnamon, four ounces of sugar, three ounces of fresh butter, twelve fresh eggs, & a pinch of saffron & mix everything together forming a composition (filling). Then make a dough of three pounds of meal of flour with ten ounces of warm goat’s milk, & four ounces of breadcrumbs soaked in this milk, six egg yolks, four ounces of butter & enough salt & mix well by hand (knead) and when it shall be dough add in by hand another four ounces of butter further beyond. Divide in morsels of two ounces for one, & with the stick flatten of the method that you arrive at a round, leave it the bigness (thickness) of thin puff paste of a torte, lay two ounces of filling on a side of them over every/each one said, & whereby a turn and a half upward, spread melted butter, & then form the ciambelle, flatten with the palm of the hand, lay above greased paper with butter in a torte pan & give it color like offelle, & make them cook in the oven, & bake that it is strong, serve hot, or an other method it may be made to draw out a puff paste.” 

My Redaction

Note: Once again, we are using the 12oz pound of Scappi’s renaissance Italy.

• dough
• 6 oz. Mascarpone Cheese
• 6 oz. Grated Parmesan Cheese
• 3 oz. Raisins
• 1 tbsp Cinnamon
• 4-5 Eggs, beaten
• 6 oz. Butter
• 3 Strands of Saffron

Melt the butter with the saffron. While you are waiting mix the cheeses together with the raisins, cinnamon and eggs. It should be a soupy mess. After the butter is melted cool it off to about 80º. I do this so that I don’t get scrabbled eggs. 

Once the butter is cooled sufficiently, add it to the cheese and egg mixture. This is where the magic happens. The fat molecules in the butter adhere to the fat in the cheese and eggs and it thickens beautifully creating a lovely fluffy spreadable mixture!

     Take your dough and divide it into two ounce lumps. Roll the dough very thin. I roll it out until I can see through it. Take two ounces of your filling and place it to one side of your dough round. Brush all the exposed dough with melted butter and roll it up one and a half times. This is important, if you roll it tightly, the inside layers of dough will be raw while those on the outside are over brown.

     Once you have a little log of cheese filled dough, press the ends down with the palm of your hand to seal them. Now butter the ends and bring them together to form a ring and press again with your hands. Brush with melted butter and place on parchment paper on a sheet pan. Finish forming your ciambelle. You should have about 8.

     Bake at 350º for about 20 minutes or until the outside is a golden brown.

Bibliography

1) Scappi, Bartolomeo. The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi: L’Arte et Prudeza D’un Maestro Cuoco (The Art and Craft of a Master Cook) (1570). Translated with commentary by Terrence Scully. Toronto Canada. University of Toronto Press Inc. 2008. Print.

2) Florio, John. Queen Anna’s New World of Words (1611). Scolar Press. 1973. Print.

3) The Oxford English Dictionary. 1888. archives.org, accessed 1/1/2020

4) Riley, Gillian. The Oxford Companion to Italian Food. 2007. Oxford University Press. 
New York, NY. Print.

5)  The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi. archives.org, accessed 1/1/2020.This entry was posted in Uncategorized on January 2, 2020.

Dough for Stuffed Ciambelle

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This is once again from my favorite historical chef, Scappi. The dough is unusual in that it uses warm goat’s milk and butter. The goat’s milk gives it a little tang but warming the milk gives the dough a phyllo-like finished texture. Using a warm liquid will denature the protein in the flour making the gluten molecules form in rounds rather than oblong. This in turn creates a tender, pliable dough. Adding fat like butter keeps the flour from absorbing too much liquid and creates a flaky like product when baked.

Original Recipe (1)

“Poi impastinsi libre tre di fiora di farina, con dicci oncie di latte di capra tiepido, & quattro oncie di mollica di pane imbeverata in esso latto, sei rofsi d’ova, quattro oncie di butiro, & sale a bastanza, ben menata che sara la pasta, giungendoli nel menarla altre quattro onciedi butiro in piu volte….”

Translation

Then make a paste of three pounds of meal of flour, with ten ounces of warm goat’s milk, & four ounces of breadcrumbs soaked in this milk, 6 egg yolks, four ounces of butter & enough salt, & mix well by hand (knead) and when it shall be dough, add in the mix another further four ounces of butter…

My Redaction

• 18oz Semolina Flour
• 5oz Warm Goat’s Milk
• 2oz. Breadcrumbs soaked in Milk
• 3 Egg Yolks
• 4oz. Butter
• Salt

Rolling out two ounce lump

Warm the milk gently and butter until about 120º and add breadcrumbs. Measure out the semolina and salt, mixing to combine. Place semolina on the work surface and make a well in the center. Add milk and egg yolks to semolina and mix until the dough comes together. Keep kneading until it becomes a smooth pliable ball, about 15 minutes. Wrap in plastic wrap and let the dough rest for 30 minutes.

While the dough is resting mix whatever filling you are using. Divide your dough into two ounces lumps and roll them, one at a time, until very very thin. You will not be able to get them as thin as phyllo but I roll mine until I can read through it. Try to keep it a round or oval, it makes a prettier finished ciambelle.

This entry was posted in 16th Century, Italian on December 30, 2019.

Life

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I debated whether to make this post or not but decided that I should. I have not forgotten about my blog HistoricalBites but life has been ravaging us in the last few months, emotionally and financially.

In a nutshell, and hopefully without over sharing, since my last post we have had a series of unfortunate events. My daughter started the ball rolling when she was in two car accidents in two days. She totalled her car but mine was repairable. Then my husband, the RN, came down with the flu on Friday the 13th (no omens there) and the next day was taken to the ER with celulitis. He was emitted to the hospital within a few hours with severe sepsis and acute renal failure. He spent 10 days in PCU and was out of work for 6 weeks.

Of course, as soon as he came home then it was my turn. I had a trip to the emergency room, food poisoning that had me running for a week, then emergent surgery (not life threatening but needed to be done NOW) and a night in the hospital.

Then, exactly five weeks after the first round, my husband got the flu again and in order to outdo the last time, he also had bronchitis. Did you know that according to BCBS you can only get the flu once every three months because they do not cover tamiflu more often than that. Which. Is. Crazy.

All during this six week time period, we had to replace the stove, washer, dryer and the microwave plus a down payment on a new car for my daughter.

Please forgive me for my absence. I will be back to posting recipes soon.This entry was posted in Uncategorized on November 17, 2019.

Black Grape Must

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The following recipe is, again, from Scappi (1). This sauce has several steps but it is a delicious sauce and worth it. I developed this recipe quite a few years ago while planning a feast. I was intrigued by the similarities of this sauce and modern day barbeque sauce. Scappi uses it to roast meat over a fire, specifically beef or pork ribs!

To start you need to make grape must or mosto cotto. Fortunately Scappi describes this process. The following recipe makes the grape must and then goes on to make theblack grape sauce sauce. Typically a “must” is a reduction of grape juice by one half volume.

NOTE: As stated in earlier recipes, a pound in Scappi’s Italy is 12 ounces and not the Imperial pound of 16 ounces that we use today. (2)

Original (1)

“Per far sapore d’uva negra

Piglisi l’uva negra, che habbia del sodo, & sia quella che si chiama gropello, cioè cesenese, che ha le cosie rosse, suaghinosi i raspi, & mettanosi a bollire nella cazzuola con foco lento per un’hora, & dapoi piglisi il sugo che tal’una haverà fatto, & colisi per una stamigna,… & per ogni libra di sugo, piglinosi otto oncie di zuccharo fino, & facciasi ribolure in una cazzuola, schiumandolo, & con esso si aggiungerà all’ultimo un poco di sale, & di cannella intera, & facciasi bollire a soco lento, tanto che pigli la cottura, & come sara cotto, conservisi in vasi di netro, ò alberelli invetriat”

Translation (3)

“To Prepare a Black-Grape Sauce

Take black grapes that are rather firm, and they should be of the variety called gropello – that is, a Cesena grape – that are reddish brown on the outside. SOak the bunches and set them to boil for an hour in a casserole pot over a low fire. Then take the juice that those grapes will themselves have made and strain it……For every pound of juice, put in eight ounces of fine sugar and boil it again in a casserole pot, skimming it. Toward the end add a little salt and whole cinnamon into it and boil it slowly until it is cooked. When it is done, put it into glass vessels or glazed jars for keeping.

My Redaction

• 4 lbs of Black Grapes
• 2 cups of water

Put the grapes and water in a pot and cook, gently bubbling, for an hour or so. You can gently smash the grapes with a potato masher if you like. Strain the grapes with their juice. I put the grapes through a food mill so that the pulp would be pushed through as well as the juice. This process also removed the skins and the seeds. This yielded 4 1/2 cups of juice. I then put this mixture back in the pot and simmered it for another hour or so until it was reduced by one third. I added a tsp of salt and a stick or two of cinnamon and continued reducing it until it was one half of the original volume.

Scappi would have used a cloth or metal sieve like the one below, for this process

This drawing is from a series of 27 plates from the back of his Opera, illustrating all the equipment used in his kitchen. (3)

A Bit on Grapes: The grapes that Scappi specifies are

“the famoso di Cesena grape, long grown in the Emilia-Romagna section of Italy, was considered extinct when, in 2000, two rows of old vines were discovered. A small number of producers have since worked to revive it, including Villa Venti, whose Serena Bianco is the only famoso I’ve encountered. It’s intensely aromatic and exotic, with flavors of apricots and herbs.” (4)

Scappi uses this basic grape must in several different recipes throughout his Opera. I have used this grape must to make a sauce using the leftover grape pulp, vinegar, cinnamon, pepper, salt, nutmeg and cloves. Scappi says to serve this sauce with roasted pork ribs. Hmmmmm!?

Bibliography

1. Scappi, Bartolomeo. 1570 Digital copies of the original text, Italian https://archive.org/details/operavenetiascap00scap/page/n4 retrieved 7/30/2019
2. 2) Lambert, Timothy. “A Brief History of Measuring”. Retrieved December 3, 2018. http://www.localhistories.org/measurement.html
3. Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570). Trans. Terrence Scully. Toronto, Canada. University of Toronto Press. 2008. Print.
4. http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/dining/wine-grapes-rare-varieties.html

This entry was posted in 16th Century, Italian on August 24, 2019.

Cornmarye

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This is one of my favority dishes. It is from the 1390 manuscript A Forme of Cury (1) Most of the recipes online from the 14th century that have been redacted are from this manuscript. You can see a transcription at Medieval Cookery.

Original Recipe

Cornmarye

Take colyaundre, caraway smale grounden, powdour of peper and garlec ygrounde, in rede wyne; medle alle þise togyder and salt it. Take loynes of pork rawe and fle of the skyn, and pryk it wel with a knyf, and lay it in the sawse. Roost it whan þou wilt, & kepe þat þat fallith þerfro in the rostyng and seeþ it in a possynet with faire broth, & serue it forth wiþ þe roost anoon.

Translation

Cornmarie

Take coriander, ground caraway, pepper and ground garlic, in red wine; mix all these together and salt it. Take pork loin and cut off the skin, and prick it well with a knife, and lay it in the sauce. Roast it when thou wilt, & keep that that falls thereto in the roasting and seeth it in a possinet with faire broth, & serve it forth with the roast rigth away.

My Redaction

• 1 – 2-3lb. Pork Loin
• 2 tsp. Coriander
• 1 tsp Caraway (I don’t like caraway so I leave this out)
• 1 tsp Pepper
• 1 tsp. Salt
• 4 Cloves minced Garlic
• 1 1/2 cups Red Wine
• 1 1/2 cups Broth

Gently toast the coriander and caraway (if using) in a dry frying pan. Keep moving them about until they become lightly toasted and are slightly fragrant. Takeoff of the heat and cool. When thoroughly cooled grind in a mortar or spice grinder until powdered.

Mix the wine and broth. Add the remaining ingredients and stir until mixed. Note: You can add, omit or change the quantities of the spices or garlic to suit your personal tastes.

Rinse the pork loin and dry completely. Take a small paring knife and prick small holes all over the meat. Optionally: you can silver the garlic and put a small slice into each of the knife cuts you make in the loin.

Place pork in your roasting pan and pour the wine mixture over it. Place a lid or aluminum foil over the roast. Roast in a 350º oven for about an hour to an hour and a half, occasionally basting the meat with the pan juices. A meat thermometer should read at least 160º for pork.

When cooked, take the pork out of the pan and place on a serving dish with the aluminum foil over it, to rest. Take the pan juices and degrease, if needed. Make a pan sauce by boiling the pan juices until reduced by at least half to two thirds, until there is one to one and a half cups of liquid left. Take off the heat and serve with the pork. OPTIONAL: You can also make a pan sauce at this stage by wisking in room temperature butter until the sauce is as thick as you like.

Bibliography

1. A Forme of Cury. For more info about this historic manuscript click here
2. Another redaction of this recipe is available at Cariadoc’s Miscellany

This entry was posted in Uncategorized on August 20, 2019.

Epityrum or Olive Paste

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This is a dish from antiquity. In Greece and Rome this dish was typically served with cheese which is where epityrum gets its name: epityrum = over cheese. It is delicious served with bread as well.

Original (1)

Epityrum album, nigrum, varium sic facito. Ex oleis albis, nigris variisque nucleos eicito. Sic condito. Concidito ipsas addito oleum, acetum, coriandrum, cuminum, feniculum, rutam, mentam. In orculum condito, oleum supra siet. Ita utito.

Translation (2)

Make green, black, or varied epityrum this way. Pit the green, black or varied olives. Season them thus. Chop them, and add oil, vinegar, coriander, cumin, fennel, rue, and mint. Put them in a small jar, with oil on top, and they are ready to use.

NOTE: “Rue is not to be used in pregnancy. The coumarins may cause photosensitivity and skin contact can cause a rash. Large doses may be poisonous.”(3) I have let it out of my redaction based on the above concerns.

My Redaction

• 3 oz. Green Olives
• 3 oz. Black Olives
• 1 tsp. Cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp. Fennel Seeds
• Cilantro (fresh coriander)
• 2-3 Fresh Mint Leaves
• 2 tbsp. Olive Oil
• 3 tbsp. White Wine Vinegar

Gently toast the cumin seeds in a dry frying pan, watching and moving them constantly until they become fragrant. You can add the fennel seeds at the same time or use them untoasted.

Chop the olives until they are as big or small as you want them. I use this as a relish on cheese or bread so I usually chop them on the smaller side. You can leave them whole and serve them as a salad or appetizer.

Mince the cilantro and mint. Add all the ingredients into a bowl and mix. I usually let this set for an hour or so in the refriderater so the flavors can get to know each other.

Bibliography

1. Cato. Liber de Agricultura. On Agriculture. Translated by Harrison Boyd Ash. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1941-1955.
2. Giacosa, Ilaria Gozzini. A Taste of Ancient Rome. Translated by Anna Herklotz. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 1992. Print
3. Mabey, Richard. The New Age Herbalist. Simon & Schuster Inc. New York. 1988. Print

This entry was posted in Italian, Recipes on August 17, 2019.

Prenade: A dried Fruit Sauce/Dip

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This sauce goes with the previous post, Losenges. It is a yummy dip that was served with the fried losenges. In case anyone missed the source info, here it is again:

The original recipe is in “Take a Thousand Eggs or More” volume 1 (1). It is contained within the Harleian Manuscript written in c.1450 and is housed in Oxford University. The  recipes are from Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, edited by Thomas Austin, published for the Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, first published in 1888 and reprinted in 1964 by Vivian Ridler.

Original Recipe (1 & 2)

“Prenade: Take wyn, and put hit in a potty, and clarified honey, sanders, powder of paper, canel, clowes, maces, saffron, pynes, minced dates, & reysons. And cast Þer to a litul vinegre, and settle hit ouer the fire, and lete hit boyle; and seth figges in wyn and grynde hem, and draw hem Þorgh a streynour, and cast Þereto, and let boile all togidre……”

This original recipe goes on to say how to make “faire kakes” to serve with this sauce. In this post I wanted to make the sauce to serve with the losenges.

Transcription

“Prenade: Take wine, and put it in a pot, and clarified honey, sandelwood, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, mace, saffron, pinenuts, minced dates, & raisins. And cast thereto a little vinegar, and set it over the fire, and let it boil; and seeth figs in wine and grind them, and draw them through a strainer, and cast thereto, and let boil all together…”

My Redaction

• 2 cups Red Wine
• 4 tbsp. Honey
• 1/4 cup Pitted, Minced Dates
• 1/4 cup Pinenuts
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup Dried Figs
• 4 Cloves, ground
• 1/2 tsp Mace
• 1 tsp. Sandelwood, optional (It adds a beautiful purple color but an off flavor)
• Pepper to taste
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1-2 Threads Saffron
• 2 tbsp. Red Wine Vinegar
• Fried Losenges

In a pot bring 1 cup of wine to a boil and pour over dried fig. Let stand 20 minutes until the figs soften and start to plump up.

Take dried dates and mince them. Heat remaining wine and add the honey, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, mace, saffron, pinenuts, dates and raisins. Add the vinegar and bring to a boil.

Take figs with their liquid and mash with a fork until it resembles a loose homogenous paste. Add this to the spiced wine mixture and cook until the mixture is as thick as you would like. Keep in mind that it will thicken up a little more as it cools.

Bibliography

1. Renfrow, Cindy. Take a Thousand Eggs of More: a Collection of 15th Century Recipes. 1998.
2. Austin, Thomas. Two Fifteenth Century Cookery-Books — Harleian MS279 (1430) & Harleian MS4016 (1450). London, Oxford Universty Press, 1888. Rpt Vivian Ridler, Printer to the University, 1964. Original serie no.91
3. Napier, Mrs. ALexander, ed. A Noble Book off Cookry for a Prynce Houssolde or Eny Other Estately Houssolde. c. 1467. Reprinted verbatim from a rare MS in the Holkham Collection. Elliot Stock. London, 1882.

This entry was posted in English on August 7, 2019.

Carrot Torte

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This recipe comes from a Spanish/Catalan manuscript written by Diego Granado called Libro del Arte de Cozina (1). I received this text in 2010 and I can not remember who gave it to me. She sent it in an email because I was researching Spanish dishes for a period feast I was planning. I do know that it was translated by Robin Carroll-Mann.

Original Text

Unfortunately I do not have the original text. This manuscript is housed in a museum or library in Spain. I met the lady who had an electronic version that she received from the translator and she was generous enough to send me a email containing several spanish cooking treatises.

Translation (1)

Torta de Zanahoria (Carrot-Cheese Pie)

Wash and scrape the carrots, and remove them from the water and cook them in good meat broth, and being cooked remove them and chop them small with the knife, adding to them mint and marjoram, and for each two pounds of chopped carrots [use] a pound of Tronchon cheese and a pound and a half of buttery Pinto cheese, and six ounces of fresh cheese, and one ounce of ground pepper, one ounce of cinnamon, two ounces of candied orange peel cut small, one pound of sugar, eight eggs, three ounces of cow’s butter, and from this composition make a torta with puff pastry* above and below, and the tortillon [pie pan?] with puff pastry all around, and make it cook in the oven, making the crust of sugar, cinnamon, and rosewater. In this manner you can make tortas of all sorts of roots, such as that of parsley, having taken the core out of them. 

My Redaction

Note: since I live in the middle of southern podunk nowhere and the nearest grocery stores that aren’t Walmart or Kroger are over 30 minutes from my home, I have substituted cheeses that are available where I live for the spanish cheeses named in this recipe.

My husband Ben is the one who developed the following recipe. He has become my go-to guy for anything involving a dough or paste. He has a natural feel for it and loves doing it!

He redacted this recipe while working on a class he was teaching; A Survey of 16th Century Pie Crusts. I must admit that this “rough puff” pastry dough is my favorite so far. It is very delicate and seems to just melt in your mouth!

The translator of this manuscript, Robin Carroll-Mann, tells us that

“The word used here for pastry, “ojaldre” (“hojaladre” in the modern spelling)                means puff pastry according to my modern Spanish dictionary, and the etymology of the word (from hoja, “leaf”) would seem to indicate that it is the period meaning as well.”

Since  the Spanish treatise does not have a puff pastry so we are using, once again, a recipe from Scappi, Book V recipe 48.

Translation of Dough Recipe (2)

“…then have some doughmade of fine flour and the same amount, by weight of butter, and salt, cold water and rosewater….”

The Dough 

• 115 grams Butter
• 115 grams of Flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 4 drops of Rosewater (optional)
• 2-4 tbsp. water IF needed

Mix salt into the flour. Cut butter into half inch cubes and work into flour with your fingertips. If butter becomes too soft from the heat of your hands put the dough mixture into the fridge for 20-30 minutes until it firms up. 

Continue working the butter in using a pastry cutter or two knives until the dough resembles course meal.

Add the rosewater and enough of the cold water to make in come together into a soft pliable dough. Let the dough rest in the fridge for twenty mintues being using.

Roll the out into a circle large enough to cover you pie, leaving enough dough to form a decorative edge.

The Filling

• 1lb Carrots
• 9oz Ricotta Cheese
• 6oz Mozzarella
• 3 oz. Mascarpone
• 2 tsp Pepper
• 3 tsp Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Grated Orange Peel
• 2 tbsp Juice of the Orange
• 1 cup Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 3 tbsp. Butter

Peel and chop the carrots. Place carrots into a pan of boiling salted water and cook until very tender and soft. Place in a food processor and add the remainder of ingredients and mix until smooth and uniform.

Preheat oven to 350º. Have the pastry made and roll out to fit the pie pan. I flute the edges to make the pie look prettier. Place filling in pie pan. Optional: Mix a little cinnamon and sugar with rosewater and brush on top.

Bake for 40-50 minutes until crust is golden and center is set.

NOTE: Use your best guess at the timing. I usually make small single serving size carrot tortes which take anywhere from 15-20 minutes to cook. Please be watchful.

Bibliography

1) Granado, Diego. Libro del Arte de Cozina. 1599. Translated by Robin Carroll-Mann.  Print.

2) Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570). Trans. Terrence Scully. Toronto, Canada. University of Toronto Press. 2008. Print.This entry was posted in 16th Century on August 6, 2019.

Lozenges

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This recipe I discovered when I was searching for an appetizer dish for a first course in a luncheon feast I was planning. They are the medieval equivalent of chips and are serve with Prenade, a dipping sauce made mostly of dried fruit.

MEDIEVAL CHIPS AND DIP! WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT!

The original recipe is in “Take a Thousand Eggs or More” volume 1 (1). It is contained within the Harleian Manuscript written in c.1450 and is housed in Oxford University. The  recipes are from Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, edited by Thomas Austin, published for the Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, first published in 1888 and reprinted in 1964 by Vivian Ridler.

Originals

 Harleian MS(2)

“134 Take floure, water, saffron, sugur, and salt, and make fyne paast þer-of, and faire thyn kakes; and kutte hem like losenges, and fry hem in fyne oile, and serue hem forthe hote in a dissh in lenten tyme”

Translation

134 Take flour, water, saffron, sugar, and salt and make fine paste there-of, and faire thin cakes; and cut them like lozenges (diamonds), and fry them in fine oil and serve them forth hot in a dish in lenten time.

A Noble Book of Cookery (3)

“To make lossenges fried in lent make a paiste of pured flour knodden with faire water sugur saffron and salt then mak a thyn foil in lossenges the bred of your hond or lese and fry  them in oil and serue them iij or iiij in a dyshe”

Translation

To make lozenges fried in lent. Make a paste of pure flour sodden with faire water, sugar, saffron, and salt. Then make a thin sheet of diamonds the breadth of your hand or less and fry them in oil and serve them 3 or 4 to a dish.

My Redaction

• 1 cup FLour
• 1 tbsp Sugar
• 1/4 cup  + 1 tbsp boiling water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1-2 threads saffron

Infuse the saffron in the boiling water. Mix together the dry ingredients. Add saffron mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until blended. When it is cool enough to handle, knead the dough for about 10 minutes. Cover and let the dough rest about 10 minutes.

Roll the dough as thin as possible and baste with a very small amout of oil so the do not stick to each other as you continue working the dough. After oiling the sheet of dough cut into diamond shaped pieces and place aside until all the dough is rolled and cut into diamonds.

Heat oil in deep frying pan. When hot but not too hot (no more than 350º) fry the pieces until puffed and golden, approximately 2 minutes. Flip and fry on the other side. Take them out and drain on paper towels.

Optional: Immediately after being taken out of the oil you can salt them. This makes them a little more modern and they still taste good with the prenade.

These are delicious! They go fast at parties so be sure you make enough!

Bibliography

1. Renfrow, Cindy. Take a Thousand Eggs of More: a Collection of 15th Century Recipes. 1998.
2. Austin, Thomas. Two Fifteenth Century Cookery-Books — Harleian MS279 (1430) & Harleian MS4016 (1450). London, Oxford Universty Press, 1888. Rpt Vivian Ridler, Printer to the University, 1964. Original serie no.91
3. Napier, Mrs. ALexander, ed. A Noble Book off Cookry for a Prynce Houssolde or Eny Other Estately Houssolde. c. 1467. Reprinted verbatim from a rare MS in the Holkham Collection. Elliot Stock. London, 1882.

This entry was posted in English on August 4, 2019.

Anolini

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This is the final pasta ripieni (stuffed pasta) from The Pasta Project. I used two recipes: the first is from The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570) and the second is from The Art of Cooking; The First Modern Cookery Book written by The Eminent Maestro Martino of Como in 1465 (1).

I would like to mention that in 15th & 16th century cooking manuscripts, any filling could be used for any pasta. There are several recipes in Scappi that tell you that a filling could be used for any sort of torte or ravioli or even without a “casing”. In Queen Anna’s New World of Words by John Florio, an Italian to English dictionary printed in 1611 (2), he tells us that ravioli is basically a generic term meaning ” a bundle, a cradle, a folding up”. This means that any time we read a historical cooking manuscript, when we see a ravioli, it means that it is any shaped and filled pasta that you want to make.

While ravioli is any generic filled pasta, we also see tortellini and anolini which Scappi differentiates by giving instructions for shaping them and  John Florio tells us that aniline is a diminutive of anello meaning “a small ring”. Scappi describes anolini as “tiny like haricot beans or chickpeas, with their little edges overlapping so they look like cappelletti. So back to john Florio and a cappelletti is “any kind of chaplet or little hat”.

Original Recipe (3)

178. Book II

“Per far tortelletti con pancia di porco, & altre materie dal nullo chiamate annolini

…..e come sara fattatel compositione babbiasi un sfoglio di pasta futto come il sopradeiso, e faccianosi gli anolini piccioli come faggiuolio ceci, e congiunti con li lar pizzetti in modo che siano vennuti a foggia di cappelletti, e quando faranno fatti lascinosi riposare al quanto, e cuocanosi in buon brodo di carne, e servanosi cum cascio, zuccaro, e cannella sopra…..”

Translation (4)

“….When the mixture is made up, get a sheet of dough made as above and with it make tiny anolini like haricot beans or chickpeas, with their little edges overlapping so they look like cappelletti, and cook in good meat broth, and serve with cheese, sugar, and cinnamon on top….”

Original Recipe (3)

179. Book II

“Per far minestra di tortelletti d’herba alla Lombarda

 Piglinosi hiete, o spinacci, taglinosi minute, e lovinosi in piu acque, e strucchisi fuori l’acqua, faccianosi soffriggere con butiro fresco, e con esse ponasi a bollie una brancata d’herbe odorifere, e caninosi, e ponganosi in un vaso di terra o di rame stagnato, e giungauisi cascio parmeggiano grattato, e cascio grasso, dell’uno quanto dell’altro , e pepe, cannella, garofani, zafferano, una passa & uoue crude a bastanza; e se la compositione folle troppo liquida pongauisi pan grattato, ma se sara treppo soda, mettauisi un poco piu di butiro, & babbiasi un sfoglio di pasta fatta mel modo che dice nel e. 176. e faccianosi i tortelletti piccioli, e gradi, sace doli cuocer in buon brodo di carne, e servanosi con cascio, zuccaro, e cannella sopra.”

Translation (4)

“To make soup of herbed tortelletti in the style of Lombard

Take chard or spinach, chop it up small and wash it in several changes of water. Press the water out of it, saute it in fresh butter and set it to boil with a handful of aromatic herbs. Take that out and put it in an earthenware or tinned copper pot, adding in grated Parmesan cheese and a creamy cheese in the same amount, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, saffron, raisins and enough raw eggs. If that mixture is too moist, put in grated bread; if too dry, a little more butter. Have a sheet of dough made up the way that is directed in recipe 176 and make tortellini of various sizes, cooking them in a good meat broth. Serve them garnished with cheese, sugar and cinnamon.”

My Redaction

Printable recipe

Click here for the dough recipe

Filling

Please note: The below amounts have already been reduced.

• 4oz Spinach
• 4oz Parmesan Cheese
• 4oz Ricotta Cheese
• Butter
• 1/2 tsp. Pepper
• 1-2 threads of Saffron
• 1 tsp. Mint, chopped fine
• 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. Cloves
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup of Raisins, depending on your preference, ground in a mortar.
• 2 or more eggs
• 1 tsp. fresh Marjoram, chopped fine

Wash the spinach and dry it completely. Chop the spinach, mint and marjoram finely. Add them to a small amount of butter and the saffron and sautè them until soft and cooked. Cool completely.

Put spinach mixture into a bowl or food processor and add remaining ingredients using only one egg to start and adding a second if mixture needs it. If using a food processor you can add the raisins whole.

     Keep in mind that the total amount of filling used for one anolini is a scant 1/8 teaspoon so the mixture must be homogenous. While a food processor makes life considerably easier, you will get better results grinding things in a mortar.

Roll the pasta dough (by hand or with a machine) until pretty thin. Cut out small rounds, we used the cap from a rosewater bottle. It was somewhere between a nickel and a quarter in size.

Take a scant 1/8 teaspoon of the filling and place in the center of each round. Barely wet half of the edges and then close it up, pressing the edges firmly to seal. You should have something that looks like a small half circle. Gently wrap this tiny half circle around  the tip of your finger and press the ends together.

You should wind up with something resembling the picture below.

Bibliography

1. Florio, John. Queen Anna’s New World of Words (1611). Scholar Press. 1973. Print.
2. Como, The Emminent Maestro Martino of.  The Art of Cooking: The First Modern Cookery Book. 1465. 14 ed. by Luigi Ballerini, translated and annotated by Jeromy Parzen., Regents of the University of California, 2005. Print.
3. https://archive.org/details/operavenetiascap00scap/page/n155. Retrieved August 3, 2019.
4. Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi, The. (1570) Trans. Terrence Scully. Toronto Canada. University of Toronto Press. 2008. Print.

This entry was posted in 16th Century on August 3, 2019.

Chicken Tortellini

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This tortellini recipe is from “The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi 1570” and was part of the “Pasta Project”. It was written by Bartolomeo Scappi for his apprentice. Scappi was head chef for two popes; Pius IV (1559 –  1565) and Pius V (1566 – 1572) and the funeral for Pope Paul III (1534-1549) and the conclave that elected his successor.

At first glance, this recipe seems unusual to the modern palette. It pairs chicken with cinnamon and other sweet spices. My personal opinion is that Scappi was a culinary genius. He pairs sweet with sour, or agrodulce, with savory creating some of the most delicious historical bites. Let me know what you think of this dish.

The Original Text (1)

“Per fare tortelletti con la polpa di cappone

 Pestinosi nel mortaio due polpa di due petti capponi, che prima erano flatialessati una libre di midolle di bova senza ossa, tre onice di grasso di pollo, e tre di zinna di vitella lessata, e quando ogni cosa sarà pesta, ginnganisi una libre di calcio grasso, otto onice di zuccaro, una onice di cannella, mezza oncia di pepe, zafferano a bastanza, mezza oncia tra garofani e noci moscate, quattro onice d’una pasta di Corinto ben netta, una brancata tra menta, maiorana, & altre herbette odorifere, quattro rossi d’uove fresche, e due con il chiaro, fatta che sarà la detta compositione di modo che non sia troppo salata, sabbiasi una sfoglio di pasta alquanto sottile, fatto di fior di farina, acqua di rosi, sale, butiro, zuccaro, & acqua sepida e con esso sfoglio faccianosi i tortelletti piccioli, e grandi tagliati con lo sperone, o buffolo, e faccianosi cuocere in buon brado di pollo, o d’altra carne grasso, e cervanosi con cascio, zuccaro, e cannella sopra. In questo modosimo modo si potribbe fare di polpe di galline d’India, e pavoni arrostitinello spedo, e di faggiani, e starni, e di altri volatili & sati, e anche di loin boletti di vitella arrostiti nello spedo con grasso di rognone.”

Translation (2)

“To Make Tortelletti with Chicken Breast

In a mortar grind the flesh of two capon breasts that have first been boiled with a pound of boneless beef marrow, three ounces of chicken fat, and three ounces of boiled veal udder; when everything is ground up, add in a pound of creamy cheese, eight ounces of sugar, one ounce of cinnamon, half an ounce of pepper, enough saffron, half an ounce of cloves and nutmeg together, four ounces of very clean currant raisins, a handful of mint, sweet marjoram and other common aromatic herbs together, four fresh egg yolks and two with their whites. When the mixture is so made up that it is not too salty, get a rather thin sheet of dough made of flour, rosewater, salt, butter, sugar, and warm water and out of that dough, with a cutting wheel or dough cutter, cut out large or small tortellini. Cook them in a good fat broth of chicken or some other meat. Serve them with cheese, sugar and cinnamon on top. In the same way you can do it with the flesh of spit-roasted turkey hens and peacocks, and of pheasants and partridges and other commonly eaten fowl, and also of veal loin roasted on a spit with kidney-fat. (Scappi 230)

Dough for Tortellini, Anolini and Other Formed Pasta

So again, to make this dish we must first make the dough. Scappi uses this dough for a couple of recipes, specifically tortellini and anolini. I find it intriguing that he has so many different doughs for pasta. The dough we used for the Lobster Ravioli was softer, more pliable and contained white wine and olive oil. Most importantly, it was delicious when fried as Scappi directed.

Dough Redaction

• 100 grams of Semolina Flour
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 1 tbsp. butter
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tbsp. rosewater
• 1/4 cup warm water

Combine the flour, salt and sugar. Cut the butter into cubes and work it into the flour mix, rubbing it between your fingers. Add the rosewater and half of the warm water. Mix this until it comes together into a shaggy dough. Knead the dough adjusting the amount of liquid until it forms a smooth supple dough, approximately the consistency of play-dough.

Allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes and then roll it thin and cut whatever shapes you will need. In this recipe we cut two inch squares and used these to make tortellini.

Note: This recipe makes enough for hundreds of tortellini. I would recommend halving the below amounts. 

Filling Redaction

Printable recipe

• 2 Chicken Breasts
• 12 oz. Ricotta Cheese
• 1 oz. cinnamon
• 1/2 oz. Pepper
• 1/2 oz. Nutmeg and Cloves together
• 1 tbsp. Minced Fresh Mint
• 1 tbsp. minced fresh Marjoram
• 8 oz. Sugar
• 1 or 2 threads saffron
• 4 oz. dried Currants
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 batch of pasta dough

Boil the chicken breasts in water. While the chicken cools pound the currants in a mortar and set aside. When the chicken is cool enough to handle, minced it very fine and place it in the mortar to grind to a fine paste.

Mincing Chicken breast

Grinding minced chicken

Final consistency

When the chicken is a paste like consistency add the ricotta, spices, herbs, currants and eggs. It is important that the filling be ground as finely as possible. Each tortellini contains only one teaspoon, AT THE MOST, probably more like one half to three quarters of a teaspoon.

To form the tortellini, take the two inch squares of dough and place a scant 1/2 teaspoon of filling in the center. Barely wet the edges of half the square and fold it in half from point to point so you have a triangle shape. Now for the tricky part: Take the triangle and wrap it around your finger so that the points on the longest side go around your finger and meet. The final tortellini should look like the one below.

Cook the tortellini in a fatted broth. If I do not have homemade stock I have used a store bought stock and added butter or oil for the “fat”. When the tortellini rise to the surface of the water cook them an additional 1-2 minutes. Serve them with a little of the broth and parmesan cheese. Garnish them with a sprinkle of sugar and cinnamon on top.

This recipe is delicious even though the modern palette finds the combination of chicken and cinnamon odd. During the pasta project these tortellini were the second favorite behind the Lobster Ravioli. Please let me know what you think!

Note: since there is a lot of cinnamon in the filling you can skip this if you would like. I recommend trying it in it’s original form before making alterations. The added cinnamon on top was basically showing off your wealth. Spices were extremely expensive and to sprinkle it on top was a way to let others know your wealth.

Note: This recipe was redacted to enter into a competition so I did exactly what the original text described. You can substitute the spices you prefer. You can also throw everything into a food processor, you do not have to grind it by hand. I will say that you get a smoother final product if you use a mortar and do everything manually.

Bibliography

1. Scappi, Bartolomeo. 1570 Digital copies of the original text, Italian https://archive.org/details/operavenetiascap00scap/page/n4 retrieved 7/30/2019
2. Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570). Trans. Terrence Scully. Toronto, Canada. University of Toronto Press. 2008. Print.

This entry was posted in 16th Century on July 31, 2019.

Pasta Dough

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Dough for Tortellini, Anolini and Other Formed Pasta

Scappi uses this dough for a couple of recipes, specifically tortellini and anolini. I find it intriguing that he has so many different doughs for pasta. The dough we used for the Lobster Ravioli was softer, more pliable and contained white wine and olive oil. Most importantly, it was delicious when fried as Scappi directed.

NOTE: The credit for this redaction goes to my husband, Ben.

Redaction

• 100 grams of Semolina Flour
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 1 tbsp. butter
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tbsp. rosewater
• 1/4 cup warm water

Combine the flour, salt and sugar. Cut the butter into cubes and work it into the flour mix, rubbing it between your fingers. Add the rosewater and half of the warm water. Mix this until it comes together into a shaggy dough. Knead the dough adjusting the amount of liquid until it forms a smooth supple dough, approximately the consistency of play-dough.

Allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes and then roll it thin and cut whatever shapes you will.This entry was posted in 16th Century on July 30, 2019.

Lobster Ravioli

3 Replies

I was not sure how to organize this blog. Should I arrange the recipes cronologically or by original manuscript etc. I decided to jump in and do whatever recipes were intriguing me at the moment. So here is the first recipe.

This recipe is part of a greater project, “The Pasta Project”. A dear friend of mine was making pasta at home trying to use the ingredients and methods of Maestro Martino of Como, a 15th century chef and Bartolomeo Scappi, a 16th century text. The project started out with the formed pastas of vermicelli, gnocchi and maccheroni (16th century spelling). As we rolled along the project morphed to included two sauces for the gnocchi, lasagna, and three pasta ripieni or stuffed pasta.

Background Info

Ravioli are a very old food. The first documentable reference to ravioli is in 14th century. The earliest mention of ravioli appears in the writings of a 14th century merchant, Francesco di Marco, a merchant of Venice in the 14th century. Ravioli are also mentioned in the 14th century manuscript Libro per cuoco (1) and describes ravioli of green herbs blanched and minced, mixed with beaten egg and fresh cheese and simmered in a fatty broth.

Most scholars agree that these little bundles were originally Arab in origin and came to southern Italy at an early date. By the 14th century ravioli were well known throughout Europe and they are included in several cooking manuscripts during this time. (2)

According to John Florio (3), a ravioli is a “bundle or a fardle”. In Martino (4) and Scappi (5), several ravioli recipes have no casing or dough. It was just the filling that was boiled in fatted meat broth. In modern times a ravioli has come to mean a dough wrapped filling while just the filling has become a dumpling, of sorts.

The Original Text

Per fare torta di banche di locuste “Piglinosi le banche lessate in acqua, mondino, & pesticcino nel mortaio con pignoli che siano stati in molle, & datteri freschi, & pasta di marzapane, & ogni cosa si farà una composizione con zucccero, uove fresche, menta maioriana & pimpinella battute minute, & un poco di mostacciolo fatto in polvere, cannella fina pesta, e buttino fresco, mescolataogni cosa insieme, & d’essa composizione si fara torta co un poco di sfoglia di pasta sotto fatto come di sopra, & il giorno di viglia in luogo di buttino ogle di mandole dolci & in luogo dell’uva mollica di pane cotta in latte di mandole, & se ne potranno anche fare ravioli senza spoglie, & con le spoglie, servendoli con zuccaro, & cannella sopra dapovi che faranno lessate, & se ne porrebbeno ancho fare ravioli fritti co olio, cioè incolti in una pasta fatta di fior di farina, ogle, vino bianco, sale, & acqua.”

Translation

“To Prepare a tort of Lobster claws Get claws that have been boiled in water, shell them and grind them in a mortar with steeped pine nuts, fresh dates and marzipan paste; make a mixture of all that combined with sugar, fresh eggs, finely beaten mint, marjoram and burnet, as well as a little powdered mosticciolo, finely ground cinnamon and fresh butter, everything mixed together. With that mixture make up a torte with a small sheet of pastry both beneath and above. On fast days instead of butter use sweet almond oil, and instead of eggs, breadcrumb cooked in almond milk. You can also make ravioli of it with or without a casing, serving it dressed with sugar and cinnamon after it has been boiled. You could also make ravioli fried in oil – that is, encased in a dough made of fine flour, oil, white wine, salt & water” Translated by Terrence Scully: The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi 1573 (pg. 580)

My Redaction

The following research on the wheats and dough is credited to my husband, Ben.

Any pasta recipe starts with the dough and any discussion of period pasta dough starts with a discussion of wheat. The nutshell version: the ancestor of modern wheat is einkorn wheat which is not a good bread wheat being that it is bitter and needs to be leached. Einkorn mated with a wild grass to produce emmer wheat. Emmer has developed into what we know as bread wheats and durum. Emmer is better for bread but is very hard to mill. The modern bread wheats Vulgare, Compactum and spelt are much easier to mill.

Durum, in latin, means hard. Durum wheat is a very high protein, high gluten wheat but it has a very low moisture content. This means that it is not very good for bread (but you can make bread with it) but it is perfectly suited for making pasta. Pasta made from durum wheat, once dried, can be stored for years. (6) (Storck 31-33) Semolina is a grind of durum wheat whose coarseness is equivalent to fine cornmeal. Scappi notes that plain, non stuffed pasta could be dried and stored for an extended period of time which was the purpose that dried pasta was originally designed (Scappi 48)

We have tried to make several period pasta using bread flour, spelt and cake flour (because Scappi uses the term “fine” flour) but the soft flours mildewed quickly. Pasta made with all purpose flour (a combination of soft and hard wheat flour) and semolina did not mildew. Our conclusion is that Scappi would have used semolina for all pasta including pasta asciutta, or dried pasta and all-purpose only for pasta to be used immediately or stuffed pasta.

Dough Redaction

• †200 g. semolina
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 3tbsp. water
• 3tbsp. white wine
• 1 tsp. salt

Make a well in the center and add the egg, olive oil, wine and water

.

Use your hand as a whisk to incorporate the liquids.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep slowly incorporating the flour until it comes together as a shaggy dough

.

Keep kneading until the dough forms a smooth subtle ball similar to play-dough in consistency. Let the dough rest for thirty minutes, wrapped in saran.Knead the dough for approximately 20 minutes. You may have to adjust the amount of liquid or flour.

Filling Redaction

• 2 Lobster Tails
• 1/4 cup Marzipan (recipe here)
• 1 tsp. chopped fresh mint
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, ground
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 1 tsp. chopped fresh marjoram
• 2 tbsp. butter
• 3-4 dried chopped dates
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp. ground mostaccioli (recipe here)

Bring 1 cup of water to a boil and turn off heat. Place pine nuts in water to steep. Bring another pot of water to a boil and cook lobster. I know the recipe calls for lobster claws but where I live they are not available. Matter of fact, we can’t even get whole lobster in the local grocery so I used what is available to me, the tails.

When the lobster is cool enough to handle put them in a food processor with the steeped nuts, marzipan, sugar, eggs, mint, marjoram, mosticcioli, cinnamon and butter. If you want to stay strictly with period methods, take the lobster and cut it very finely with a sharp knife. Almost like you did when mincing the fresh herbs. Add everything into a medium bowl and stir until it is a homogenous mixture. If you want it even finer, after you chop the lobster put it into a mortar and grind it to a paste. I usually skip this step because I like a bit of tooth to this ravioli.

Cutting with a fluted wheel into 2 inch ravioli

After your filling is made, roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/8 of an inch thick. Place filling in one tablespoon lumps about two inches apart on your dough. Quickly baste the dough in between the lumps with water including the outside edges. Place another sheet of dough over the top and cup your hands around each lump and press all the air out. If you skip this step, your ravioli will burst while cooking and the filling will boil out. Cut the lumps apart into two inch squares using a pasta wheel, knife or even a pizza cutter.

Cook ravioli in rapidly boiling, generously salted water. You can also use a meat broth to boil the ravioli. They will take about five minutes or so to cook. A general rule is when they float to the surface, cook them for a minute longer and then take the ravioli out.

These are delicious!

So after we cooked almost all of these ravioli we realized that Scappi mentioned frying them in oil. We fried the last 8 ravioli and they were EVEN MORE DELICIOUS, if you can believe that!

During our presentation to the populace and judging for the pasta project, these were always the first to disappear!

Boiled ravioli dressed with cinnamon, sugar and parmesan cheese.

Bibliography

1) “Translation of Libro per Cuoco (14th/15th c.) (Anonimo Veneziano)”. Trans. Helewyse de Birkestad, OL (MKA Louise Smithson). 2005. Retrieved November 2018. http://helewyse.medievalcookery.com/libro.html

2)Riley, Gillian. “The History of Pasta” The Oxford Companion to Italian Food. Retrieved September 2018 https://books.google.com/books?id=-

3) Florio, John. Queen Anna’s New World of Words or Dictionarie of the Italian and English Tongues. 1611 http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/florio/

4) Como, The Emminent Maestro Martino of. The Art of Cooking: The First Modern Cookery Book. 1465. 14th Edition by Luigi Ballerini, translated and annotated by Jeremy Parzen, Regents of The University of California, 2005. Print.

5) Scappi, Bartolomeo. The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi: L’Arte et Prudeza D’un Maestro Cuoco (The Art and Craft of a Master Cook) (1570). Translated with commentary by Terrence Scully. Toronto Canada. University of Toronto Press Inc. 2008. Print.

6) Storck, John. Walter Darwin Teague. The History of Milling: Flour for Man’s Bread.University of Michigan. 1952. Print











This entry was posted in 16th Century on July 30, 2019.

Mostacciolo

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Mostacciolo

The mostacciolo that Scappi uses here is a kind of biscotti that uses eggs as a leaven. Although it is very good eaten by itself, Scappi uses it mostly to flavor his other dishes. He lists this recipe as a food for the sick (1)

When redacting historical recipes it is important to note that the pound is not a uniform measurement. In Scappi’s Italy the pound, or libre, was 12 oz and not the imperial or modern pound of 16 oz. In latin, the word “libre” means pound and it is the source of our modern abbreviation of lb. The ounce in Scappi’s world is the same as the ounce today and is the approximate weight of twenty mustard seeds. This measurement has not changed in hundreds of years. Further reading is at A Brief History of Measuring (2) and “How Many? A Dictionary of Units of Measurement” (3)

NOTE: Scappi was feeding ALOT of people! His recipes make huge amounts. I would reccommend halving the original amounts. All of my redactions are at least half unless otherwise noted.

Original Recipe

Book VI Recipe 142 (4)

“Perfare morseletti, cioè mostaccioli alla Milanese

Piglisi quindici uoue fresche, e battanosi in una cazzuola, e passino per lo setaccio con due libre e mezza di zuccaro fino fatto in polvere, e mezza oncia di anici crudi, ovvero pitartamo pesto, et un grano o due di muschio fine, e mettanosi con esse libre due e mezza di farina e fattasi ogni cosa per tre quarti d’hora, di modoche venga la pasta come quella delle frittelle, e lascisi riposare per un quarto d’hora, e ribattisi un ‘altra volta, poi si abbiamo apparescchiati fogli di carta fatti a lucerne onti, ouero tortiere alte di sponde con cialde satto senza essere bagnate di cosa alche la grossezza d’un dito, e subito si spolverizzino di zuccaro, e pongano si nel forno che sia caldo, ouero quelle delle tortiere cuocanosi come le torte, e come tal pasta sarà sgonfiata, e hauera in tutto perso l’humidita, e sarà al quanto sodetta, cio sia come una focaccia tenero, cauisi della tortiera o lucerna, e subito si taglino con un coltello largo e sottile, a fette larghe due dita, e lunghe a beneplacito, e rimetta nosi nel forno con fogli di carta sotto a biscottarsi, rivoltandoli spesso, pero il forme non sia tutto caldo come di sopra, e come saranno bene asciutte, cavinosi, e con ferui nosi perché sono sempre migliore il secondo giorno che il primo, e durano un mese nella lar perfettione.”

Translation (5)

“To Prepare Dainty Morsels – that is Milanese Style Mosticcioli

Get 15 fresh eggs, beat them in a casserole pot and strain them with two and a half pounds of powdered sugar, half an ounce of raw aniseed or else ground coriander, and a grain or two of fine musk; with that put two and a half pounds of flour. Beat everything for three quarters of an hour so that the dough becomes like fritter batter. Let it sit for a quarter of an hour, then beat it again. Then have greased sheets of paper ready, made like lamps, or else high sided torte pans with, on the bottom, wafers that have not been moistened with anything; then put the batter into the lamps or tourte pans, filling them to no more than the thickness of a finger. Sprinkle them immediately with sugar and put them into a hot oven or, in the case of the ones in the tourte pans, bake them like tourtes. When that batter has risen and thoroughly dried out and is rather firm, that is, it should be soft like focaccia – take it out of the tourte pan or lamp. Right away with a broad, sharp knife cut them up into slices two fingers wide and as long as you like, and put them back into the oven on sheets of paper to bake again like biscuits, turning them often. The oven should not be as hot as before, though. When they have thoroughly dried out, take them out and set them aside because they are always better the second day than the first. They will last a month in their best state.”

Our Redaction

• 7 Eggs, beaten
• 15 oz. Powdered Sugar
• 1/4 oz. of ground Coriander
• 15 oz. Flour

First, let me say that we did not include the musk. It undoubtedly changes the flavor profile but it is difficult to get and it just makes me cringe. (For those that do not know, musk is the dried anal glands of a red deer. So, um, yeah, no musk.)

Mix everything together for 45 minutes, a stand mixer works ideally since you can go do something else while it mixes. Allow it to rest for 15 minutes and then mix for another 45 minutes.

The egg is the only leaven so it is extremely important to incorporate as much air as possible to ensure as much rise as possible. The trapped air from whipping the eggs expands from the heat as you bake the mosticcioli. As the eggs cook the air bubbles become set giving the mosticcioli the light and airy texture that a modern biscotti has.

Line a 1/4 sheet pan with parchment paper and pour the batter into the pan. Cook it at 350 for 25 minutes until bread-like and just starting to color.

When done, remove from the oven and as soon as you are able to handle it, cut it into one inch slices. Arrange the strips on a parchment lined 1/2 sheet pan, cut side up, and put them back into a 225. Turn them over every 15-20 minutes until completely dried, an hour – an hour and a half.

Bibliography

1)Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi, The. (1570). Trans. by Terrence Scully. Toronto, Canada. Univrsity of Toronto Press. 2008. Print

2) Lambert, Timothy. “A Brief History of Measuring”. Retrieved December 3, 2018. http://www.localhistories.org/measurement.html

3)Rowlett, Russ. “How Many? A Dictionary of Units of Measurement” Copyright Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved November 27, 2018. http://www.ibiblio.org/units. Internet

4)This entry was posted in Uncategorized on July 12, 2019.

Medieval Pasta

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The following research on the wheats and dough is credited to my husband, Ben.

Any pasta recipe starts with the dough and any discussion of period pasta dough starts with a discussion of wheat. The nutshell version: the ancestor of modern wheat is einkorn wheat which is not a good bread wheat being that it is bitter and needs to be leached. Einkorn mated with a wild grass to produce emmer wheat. Emmer has developed into what we know as bread wheats and durum. Emmer is better for bread but is very hard to mill. The modern bread wheats Vulgare, Compactum and spelt are much easier to mill.

Durum, in latin, means hard. Durum wheat is a very high protein, high gluten wheat but it has a very low moisture content. This means that it is not very good for bread (but you can make bread with it) but it is perfectly suited for making pasta. Pasta made from durum wheat, once dried, can be stored for years. (6) (Storck 31-33) Semolina is a grind of durum wheat whose coarseness is equivalent to fine cornmeal. Scappi notes that plain, non stuffed pasta could be dried and stored for an extended period of time which was the purpose that dried pasta was originally designed (Scappi 48)

We have tried to make several period pasta using bread flour, spelt and cake flour (because Scappi uses the term “fine” flour) but the soft flours mildewed quickly. Pasta made with all purpose flour (a combination of soft and hard wheat flour) and semolina did not mildew. Our conclusion is that Scappi would have used semolina for all pasta including pasta asciutta, or dried pasta and all-purpose only for pasta to be used immediately or stuffed pasta.

 

This entry was posted in Uncategorized on July 11, 2019.

My Crazy

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I love reading historical cooking manuscripts (or transcriptions or translations). I find it fascinating that I can still see the familiar recipes from 400, 500 or 1000 years ago. As we journey through time reading and redacting recipes, you will be able to see the humble beginnings of some of your favorite foods, some just barely recognizable and others with almost no changes.

I am not sure where, or should I say when to start our journey. I have been redacting historical recipes for almost 20 years now. Some are really good, so good that every time I serve them I’m asked for the recipes. Some definitely need tweaking to make them palatable for a modern diner. The oldest manuscript I have used is Apicius who died in 40AD; the most recent is “The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi 1573”.

I have sucked my husband into my crazy! I have shown him some things I know about baking and he has surpassed my knowledge. I am happy to have him as my “doughboy” (he has named himself this). This entry was posted in 16th Century, Italian, Recipes on May 22, 2019.Search for:

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