pasta-msg - 5/6/20
Period pasta. Period references. Recipes. Noodles, Manicotti.
NOTE: See also the files: pasta-gnocchi-msg, pasta-stufed-msg, fd-Italy-msg, flour-msg, dumplings-msg, cheese-msg, cheesemaking-msg.
************************************************************************
NOTICE -
This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.
This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org
I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.
The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.
Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s).
Thank you,
Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous
Stefan at florilegium.org
************************************************************************
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 15:02:21 -0800 (PST)
From: gswitzerat loop.com
To: Multiple recipients of list <sca-caidat anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu>
Subject: [SCA-CAID:10641] Something on pasta
The Folklore column in today's LA Times Food Section had a short bit of
interest to the ongoing "is pasta period" debate...
FOLKLORE: Charles Perry
OLD NON-PASTA
Some people like to think the ancient Romans made pasta. The Museo
degli Spaghetti in Campodassio, Liguria, promotes the idea that
macaroni was already known 2,500 years ago, when Rome was under
Etruscan rule. The evidence is a rolling pin and a thick wire,
supposedly for rolling the macaroni around, which were found in an
Etruscan kitchen.
A rolling pin and a knitting needle. Hmm, not quite smoking-gun
evidence, particularly when Renaissance Italian cookbooks make it
clear that macaroni was originally a flat noodle and that the hollow
kind developed later.
Sometimes people mention "tracta" as a candidate for Roman
noodlehood.
This Latin word basically meant a sheet of rolled-out dough (it was
called for in the making of a sort of cheese pie), but "De Re
Coquinaria," the cookbook ascribed to the 2nd century gourmet Apicius,
has a dozen recipes for which "tracta" is crumbled into boiling
liquid.
Unfortunately, none of these recipes says to cook the "tracta" until
done. On the contrary, the "tracta" was added as a thickener. You
were supposed to "bind" the sauce with it ("obligas"-the sane word
when a sauce is thickened with cornstarch or eggs) and the resulting
texture was described as "smooth" ("levis").
Try binding a sauce with crumbled dry noodles some time and see what
you get. For crumbling into sauce, "tracta" was probably not raw dough
but a sort of round cracker-a rather chewy, long keeping cracker like
ship's biscuit.
But cheer up. Though "tracta" wasn't pasta, it might have been the
origin of the medieval practice of thickening sauces with bread
crumbs.
Wednesday, March 5, 1997
Ishido Matsukage (who's noodles are plenty period, thanks.)
jstapletat adm.law.du.edu
University of Denver
College of Law
Ext. 6288
From: "S.Thomas" <morganat in-tch.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 15:23:34 -0600
Subject: Re: SC - (Fwd) [SCA-CAID:10641] Something on pasta
Jeanne Stapleton wrote:
> The Folklore column in today's LA Times Food Section had a short bit of
> interest to the ongoing "is pasta period" debate...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> (snip)
I have a book called "Tacuinum Sanitatis", and in that book is an
illusration of some ladies hanging noodles out to dry on a rack. They
sure look like long versions of the flat noodles you buy in the groceery
store.
Morgan of Hawksreach
From: Dottie Elliott <macdjat onr.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 97 16:49:17 -0500
Subject: Re: SC - (Fwd) [SCA-CAID:10641] Something on pasta
Flat pasta is period. There are several recipes that I know of that talk
about how to make flat noodles. I haven't seen anything about round
noodles (spaghetti), hollow noodles (macaroni, manacoti, etc) though.
Clarissa
From: Uduidoat aol.com
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 09:56:45 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SC - Manicotti
<< Flat pasta is period. There are several recipes that I know of that talk
about how to make flat noodles. I haven't seen anything about round
noodles (spaghetti), hollow noodles (macaroni, manacoti, etc) though. >>
I agree with your observations about flat pasta. However, since manicotti is
a type of crepe that is wrapped around a filling, I don't quite follow your
reason for listing it as a "noodle". I certainly hope you were not referring
to the giant macaroni abominations that are available in supermarkets and say
"manicotti" on the box!
If you were making a reference to that particular yuck-stuff, I would like to
point out that whoever named it manicotti had never eaten the real thing. And
it's resemblance to real manicotti is at best illusory. It doesn't even begin
to find a common ground in the flavor category and , thankfully, you are
correct that that particular product is NOT period. However, since crepes and
fillings are period, I would venture to put forth the opinion that "real
crepe-type manicotti" probably is period. Has anyone done research in this
area?
Lord Ras
From: "Philip W. Troy" <troyat asan.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 10:44:59 -0400
Subject: Re: SC - Manicotti
Uduidoat aol.com wrote:
> << Flat pasta is period. There are several recipes that I know of that talk
> about how to make flat noodles. I haven't seen anything about round
> noodles (spaghetti), hollow noodles (macaroni, manacoti, etc) though. >>
>
> I agree with your observations about flat pasta. However, since manicotti is
> a type of crepe that is wrapped around a filling, I don't quite follow your
> reason for listing it as a "noodle".
One line of reasoning considers manicotti to be a large tube of pasta.
As such it is made by extrusion and is therefore almost certainly not
used in Europe in period. I'm willing to at least acknowledge the
existence of dry manicotti pasta because I consider the fresh crepe with
stuffing to be canneloni, which I prefer.
> If you were making a reference to that particular yuck-stuff, I would like to
> point out that whoever named it manicotti had never eaten the real thing. And
> it's resemblance to real manicotti is at best illusory. It doesn't even begin
> to find a common ground in the flavor category and , thankfully, you are
> correct that that particular product is NOT period. However, since crepes and
> fillings are period, I would venture to put forth the opinion that "real
> crepe-type manicotti" probably is period. Has anyone done research in this
> area?
Let me preface all this with the statement that I am in no way an
authority on period Italian pasta dishes. I do know a bit about period
non-Italian pastas, and you can judge the value of what I say by
considering my rather narrow focus.
One interesting thing I've found about the period pasta dishes I've
encountered is the apparent fact that the common modern Italian practice
of some kind of second cooking seems to be entirely absent. so, things
like loseyns aren't baked after assembly, in spite of otherwise
resembling lasgna in many respects.
My hunch (and it is no more than that) is that while crepes were often
eaten in period, the idea of rolling them around a stuffing is rare, at
least as far as official recognition by a recipe goes. Spooning some of
your stew into one and folding/rolling it up might have occurred on a
case-by-case basis, but I haven't seen recipes that include this
process. I get the impression that serving a stuffed crepe with a sauce
is pretty modern too. I think a dish like this would be eaten with the
fingers if at all, so the idea of the whole gratineed crepe in sauce
thing seems unlikely.
So, the best I can really say is that I don't know. Normally I don't
bother posting an "I don't know", but in this case I have deep
suspicions. This may well be one of those things that existed but for
which we have no surviving recipe from period (as is the case with the
Scots-Highland version of haggis, for instance). I actually love this
sort of thing and would be deeply pleased to be proven wrong.
Wish I had a copy of Platina right now...
Adamantius
> Lord Ras
From: david friedman <ddfrat best.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 11:45:18 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: SC - (Fwd) [SCA-CAID:10641] Something on pasta
Jeanne Stapleton wrote:
> The Folklore column in today's LA Times Food Section had a short bit of
> interest to the ongoing "is pasta period" debate...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I don't think anyone is arguing that pasta isn't period, given how often it
appears in the period cookbooks (losyns in 14th c. England, macaroni in
Platina, Rishta et. al. in the Islamic). The point of the Charles Perry
article is that there is no good evidence that it existed in classical
antiquity.
David/Cariadoc
From: david friedman <ddfrat best.com>
Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 10:40:26 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Manicotti
>> << Flat pasta is period. There are several recipes that I know of that talk
>> about how to make flat noodles. I haven't seen anything about round
>> noodles (spaghetti), hollow noodles (macaroni, manacoti, etc) though. >>
Platina refers to a hollow noodle; I believe he says you use a needle to
hollow it out, but it's late and our copies are downstairs. There are also
period ravioli like things. I'm pretty sure that some of the Islamic pasta
are round, or at least described as threads.
David/Cariadoc
David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
ddfrat best.com
From: gfroseat cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 18:08:02 -0500
Subject: Re: SC - Italian Torte
Hi, Katerine here. Christina of Riesling asks about a torta:
>The torta is completely encased in a crust and inside are layers of
>cheese (mozzarella, Parmesan, feta), vegetables (spinach, roasted
>peppers, and thinly sliced ham.
I'm no expert of Italian, but here's my first-pass take. There are
cheese tortas, and spinach ones. I believe that there's a spinach
torta that calls for cheese. I know of no layered Italian tortas,
nor do I know of ones with a top crust. The peppers are new world.
I know of none that call for ham.
If you lose the peppers, it's better than a a lot of stuff that
gets served at feasts. If you lose the top crust and the ham, better
yet.
Cheers,
- -- Katerine/Terry
Date: Sat, 02 Aug 1997 11:33:41 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troyat asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - The siege cook challenge.
Michael Macchione wrote:
> Uhm, I think I should describe the pasta maker. It doesn't really
> extrude the pasta like a meat grinder extrudes ground beef. It cannot be
> used to make macaroni, or any other hollow pasta. It can be used to
> "roll" the pasta dough to the desired thickness, and can then be fed
> through some "cutters" to slice the pasta to the desired width (either
> fettucine or spaghetti widths). It doesn't appear that hard to use. It
> definitely could be used to make the pasta for ravioli which you could
> then fill and fold by hand.
>
> Kael
Another thing such machines are good for (that I don't think the
instructions mention to any great extent) is kneading the dough.
Developing a decent amount of gluten is essential for most pastas, and
the more gluten there is, the harder it is to knead effectively. So, you
can pat your firm dough by hand into a flat rectangle the right size to
fit through your rollers at the thickest setting, run it through several
times, each time taking your sheet, folding it into three like a letter,
and rotating it 90 degrees. In some respects not unlike making puff
pastry or Damascus steel. You keep doing this until your dough is
smooth, elastic, slightly shiny, and not sticky. Then you roll it and
cut it whatever way you want.
I have a pasta machine of the Mia Cucina brand (which means, more or
less, that it is of an unspecified brand imported from Italy by Macy's)
which has a ravioli-stuffing widget. Trouble is, it comes with a couple
of filling recipes, and the gadget only seems to work with those
fillings. You need to have just the right texture for your filling or
the whole project ends up in the trash.
As regards the period pasta recipe issue, there are numerous variations
on the pasta/butter/cheese theme (real fettucine Alfredo being the
direct linear descendant), and the various filled pastas. Several people
have gone into this subject already, and I don't really have anything to
add. However, in the Wild Undocumentable Rumor Department, I recall
reading (In the New York Times, so it MUST be true ; ) ) about a
Southern Italian Renaissance pasta dish, consisting of pasta of an
unspecified shape, sauced with sauteed orange segments, butter,
caramelized sugar and toasted almonds. Can't say whether this bears any
relation to reality, though.
Adamantius
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 1997 11:37:33 -0500
From: gfroseat cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter)
Subject: Re: SC - The siege cook challenge.
Hi, Katerine here. Kael writes:
>Uhm, I think I should describe the pasta maker. It doesn't really
>extrude the pasta like a meat grinder extrudes ground beef. It cannot be
>used to make macaroni, or any other hollow pasta. It can be used to
>"roll" the pasta dough to the desired thickness, and can then be fed
>through some "cutters" to slice the pasta to the desired width (either
>fettucine or spaghetti widths). It doesn't appear that hard to use. It
>definitely could be used to make the pasta for ravioli which you could
>then fill and fold by hand.
Ah. No personal experience with pasta makers. Well, in that case, she'd
probably get three different sorts of ravieles, losens, and macrows, with
the latter made differently enough (i.e. sufficiently different preparations
and sauces) not to look just like two different shapes of noodles.
I might also include, among the ravieles, at least one recipe that fries
after boiling.
Cheers,
- -- Katerine/Terry
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 1997 10:44:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: rousseauat scn.org (Anne-Marie Rousseau)
Subject: Re: SC - The siege cook challenge.
Katerine suggests pasta recipes that are fried...
mmm....like kuskenoles/rissoles? These are scattered through the French
and English corpus. Dried fruit (figs, dates, raisens), some fresh fruit
(apples, grapes, pears), nuts (almonds, pine nuts, etc) and spices. Big
ones are baked as pies, little ones are fried like little MacDOnald Apple
Pies.
Yum!!
- --Anne-Marie, who ate some a few nights ago at Culinary Guild.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Anne-Marie Rousseau
rousseauat scn.org
Seattle, Washington
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 1997 16:19:07 -0500
From: skunkkillerat juno.com (Donna J. White)
Subject: Re: SC - The siege cook challenge.
The ":Pampered Chef" company sells a crimper that works well with my
pasta machine. It allows you to make several sized of ravioli. I
actually figured out it could be used for more than that when my
well-meaning mother bought me a set. She uses hers to make tarts.
I decided it would be neat to try it on chinese dumplings -- folding the
dough hurts my hands (arthritis). This little contraption really did
the trick. They sell their wares like Tupperware -- through home
parties. They are all over the country and hopefully should not be hard
to find. I will see if I have the company information and send it to you
if you like.
They have some really neat stuff for meat tarts too and bread (tube molds
and the like).
Genevieve.
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 03:55:30 -0500
From: gfroseat cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter)
Subject: Re: SC - The siege cook challenge.
Hi, Katerine here. Carla asks whether Platina gives directions for making
hollow pasta. From the Elizabeth Bauermann Andrews translation:
White flour, moistened with the white of an egg and
rosewater, should be well ground. Roll this into
slender bits like a straw, stretched to the length
of half a foot. With a very thin iron stylus, scrape
out the middle. Then, as you remove the iron, you
leave them hollow. Then, spread out just so and dried
in the sun, they will last for two or three years.
Indeed especially if they are made in the month of the
August moon. They should be cooked in rich juice and
poured into dishes and sprinkled with grated cheese,
fresh butter, and mild herbs. This dish needs to be
cooked for two hours.
Macaroni and cheese, fifteenth century Italian style!
Cheers,
- -- Katerine/Terry
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 11:55:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: Stephen Bloch <sblochat adl15.adelphi.edu>
Subject: Re: SC - semolina and mixed herbs
Clare St. John writes:
> Does anyone know how long semolina has been in use or if there is a
> period reference for it?
Semolina appears in 13th-century Andalusian cooking, at least if Huici
Miranda, the 20th-century editor and translator (into Spanish) is to be
believed. Some of the recipes in the _manuscrito anonimo_ (Cariadoc's
collection, volume 2) specifically call for it.
mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib
Stephen Bloch
sblochat panther.adelphi.edu
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 1997 19:57:48 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troyat asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - The siege cook challenge.
Terry Nutter wrote:
> Carla asks whether Platina gives directions for making
> hollow pasta. From the Elizabeth Bauermann Andrews translation:
>
> White flour, moistened with the white of an egg and
> rosewater, should be well ground. Roll this into
> slender bits like a straw, stretched to the length
> of half a foot. With a very thin iron stylus, scrape
> out the middle. Then, as you remove the iron, you
> leave them hollow. Then, spread out just so and dried
> in the sun, they will last for two or three years.
> Indeed especially if they are made in the month of the
> August moon. They should be cooked in rich juice and
> poured into dishes and sprinkled with grated cheese,
> fresh butter, and mild herbs. This dish needs to be
> cooked for two hours.
>
> -- Katerine/Terry
This is some pretty fascinating stuff! I suspect that the hole is there
mostly so that it will cook in two hours or less. Not unlike
perciatelli, which is unlike most tubular pasta in that the hole doesn't
provide much increase in sauce-bearing surface area. The two-hour
cooking time also suggests that this pasta is quite thick by modern
standards, and there would be a noticeable difference in the texture of
this pasta over what most of us are used to. Not a problem, of course. A
long cooking time, often in pretty minimal liquid, is perfectly
consistent with several pasta recipes up until the nineteenth century.
I do have a question about the translation, though. What's the original
for the translated term, "rich juice" ? Are we talking about stock? I
wonder if this is another example of the mysterious liquamen, which has
a different meaning for Platina than for Apicius. Any info avilable on
this?
Adamantius
From: zarlorat acm.org (Lenny Zimmermann)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Pasta in 16th Century
Date: Tue, 09 Sep 1997 21:45:01 GMT
On 8 Sep 1997 13:20:50 -0400, Charles Olszewski wrote:
>To what extent, if at all, was pasta in use in cooking in the early 16th Century in northern Italy? If used, what kind(s) were prevalent? Areas such as Venice and Milan, and Trent (in the Holy Roman Empire) are of concern.
I cannot say what the prevalence might have been, in toto, but it most
certainly was known and used. Duke Cariadoc mentioned Platina, which
was published in 1475 in Venice. Platina lists macaroni, as was
mentioned, as well as Noodles. In the entry on Noodles he mentions
that they last, when dried, for "two years and even longer." He also
states in some further discussion of cooking noddles and what to put
on them, "And the same thing is true of cooking all dishes made from
paste:" Which implies that pasta noodles and macaroni were not the
only pasta styles used in dishes of the time.
By 1610 Bartolomeo Scappi, again published in Venice, shows pictures
of items used in the kitchen to include more than a few utensils used
in making pasta. I am looking into translating Cristoforo di
Messisbugo (Venice, 1549) so I am unsure as to his use of pasta. My
readings suggests it certainly was available and used, if not commonly
so. If you want more details on Platina's recipes, let me know in
e-mail and I'll jot them off to you.
Honos Servio,
Lionardo Acquistapace, Barony of Bjornsborg, Ansteorra
(mka Lenny Zimmermann, San Antonio, TX)
zarlorat acm.org
Date: 19 Sep 1997 14:38:26 -0700
From: "Marisa Herzog" <marisa_herzogat macmail.ucsc.edu>
Subject: SC - noodles
<snip>
I have a noodle question. I haven't seen any references to noodles with
herbs worked into the dough. I was thinking of doing a sage flavored
noodle as a side dish for both chicken and pork. Any ideas?
<snip>
I have somewhere in one of my women's history books a recipe for flavored
noodles that are flavored with -carrot-. One of the sections in the book is
health and has great little snippets like "if your wife has the urge to eat
chalk or dirt, feed her more beans" (vitamin/mineral deficiency?). The noodle
recipe is from something by a period medical somebody (name starts with T?)
- -brid
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 12:32:47 -0500
From: mfgunterat tddeng00.fnts.com (Michael F. Gunter)
Subject: SC - Field Expedient Noodles
On the subject of noodles I would like to mention one of my favorite substitutes
for good homemade noodles. Slice flour tortillas into long thin strips and
add them to broth. I can make a pretty good chicken noodle soup using canned
chicken broth, store bought roasted chicken, and tortillas. Boil up some
veggies in the broth if desired, add the boned chicken and tortillas and
Serve It Forth. Total time: Less than 30 minutes.
Gunthar
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 16:51:52 -0500
From: Maddie Teller-Kook <meadhbhat io.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Field Expedient Noodles
Michael F. Gunter wrote:
> On the subject of noodles I would like to mention one of my favorite substitutes
> for good homemade noodles. Slice flour tortillas into long thin strips and
> add them to broth. I can make a pretty good chicken noodle soup using canned
> chicken broth, store bought roasted chicken, and tortillas. Boil up some
> veggies in the broth if desired, add the boned chicken and tortillas and
> Serve It Forth. Total time: Less than 30 minutes.
>
> Gunthar
The one major difference here Gunthar.... I would use fresh noodles
(very available at most grocery stores). Tortillas have a different
texture and taste than noodles will. Granted your soup sounds good,
BUT, I would stick with pasta.
meadhbh
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 01:28:21 -0800
From: david friedman <ddfrat best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Cassoulet
> much like the noodles that Marco Polo brought back from China, >>
Meaning that the common use of new world beans in 16th century Europe is as
mythical as the attribution of noodles to Marco Polo?
The earliest post-Roman European cookbooks we have are roughly contemporary
with Marco Polo, and contain pasta. So do Islamic cookbooks from pre-Marco
Polo. I don't know what the origin of this particular belief is, but it
seems very unlikely that it is true.
David/Cariadoc
Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 12:38:56 SAST-2
From: "Ian van Tets" <ivantetsat botzoo.uct.ac.za>
Subject: SC - Comfits, recipe diagrams and foiles
Hi, Cairistiona here.
<snip of comfit recipe>
2. In _Two Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections..._ (Hieatt and Jones,
Speculum 61/4, 1986), there is another recipe with a diagram. I
think someone was asking about this kind of this recently? There are
no dots, unfortunately, but an 8x4 grid is drawn for the recipe for
Cressee, in the first collection (p. 863). The authors feel (p.
869), that the 'noodles are apparently to be served with one colour
crossed over the other: hence the name of the dish. To prepare the
cressee, the noodles are cut to the appropriate size, then stretched
to form the characteristic crisscross'.
The recipe: 'E une autre viaunde, ke ada a noun cressee. Pernez
flur demeyne e des oefs e festes past, e metez dedenz le past bon
gingivre trie [sorry, can't give you e acute] e sucre e saffran; e
pernez la moyte [acute] de cel past colore [acute] de saffran e la
myte [ac.] blaunc, e festes rouler sur une table a la graundur de
vostre dei; e puys festes goboner a la graundur de une piere de
late; e puys festes trere sur une table en meimes la manere cum est
ceste forme: [hand-drawn 8x4 grid, not at all even]; e puys festes
boiller en ewe; e puys pernez une quiller perce [ac.] parmy, si
pernez hors cel cressez de l'ewe; e puys pernez formage mye [ac.]
desus e desuz, e metez bure ou oile, e puys dressez.
B.L. Add. 32085, which contains nothing later than early documents
from the early part of the reign of Edward 1 (1272-1307), according
to the authors.
Recipe translated:
Here is another dish, which is called cressee. Take best white four
and eggs, and make pasta dough; and in the pasta dough put fine,
choice ginger and sugar. Take half of the pastry, which is coloured
with saffron, and half white, and roll it out on a table to the
thickness of you finger, then cut into strips the size of a piece of
lath; stretch it out on a table as illustrated, then boil in water;
then take a slotted spoon abd remove the cressees from the water;
then arrange them on, and cover them with, grated cheese, add butter
or oil, and serve.
3. Does Maggie Black have any precedent for directing foiles to be
rolled up like a spring roll or strudel? All I can find is that
foile meant very thin pastry. Other translations (for other recipes)
that I have found have not recommended this, but suggested folding
over, like pasties, before frying or boiling. Black says, at least
twice, to put a small piece of the filling on the end of a strip of
pastry, then to roll the whole piece up (which mught be 8 inches
long) and seal. Where does she get this definition?
Thanks
Cairistiona
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 1997 11:02:45 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troyat spambegone.asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Pasta shells
Decker, Terry D. wrote:
> I can place place flat noodles and ravioli (or equivalent) in period. I
> have a source that places extruded pasta like vermicelli about 1400. I
> have absolutely nothing on shell pasta. Anyone have any references or
> ideas?
Well, there is a type of gnocchi called, I think, cavatelli (unless this
is the name of another type of pasta and I'm getting them confused...are
cavatelli the ones shaped like pea pods?). In any case, the pasta in
question is traditionally hand made today by placing a little ball of
dough against the floured handle of a wooden spoon, and pressing against
it with the concave side of a fork, giving it a smooth, concave inside,
and a convex, ridged outside. Much like a cockle or conch shell.
The fact that it can be made without extrusion does not, of course,
prove it is period, but it is a method that could easily have been
employed. The fact that forks with more than two or three tines, even in
civilised Italy, would have been rare, is a bit of a logical obstacle,
too.
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:10:46 EST
From: LrdRas <LrdRasat aol.com>
Subject: SC - Stroganoff
acroussat gte.net writes:
<< Beef Stroganoff
has no out of period ingredients in it, but its not even close to medieval
in concept >>
I must take exception to this observation. There are extant examples of
recipes from the Middle East that incorporate the "stroganoff" concept.
Granted, they use "Persian milk" (e.g. yogurt) in place of sour cream and do
not have a noodle base.
Only this past Friday I served a "sroganoff"-like dish at supper from al-
Bahgdadi which consisted of lamb, onions, mint and other seasoning mixed with
yogurt. To all intent and purposes it looked like and tasted very similar to
it's stroganoff counterparts and was period (10th century, IIRC).
Ras
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 18:21:24 -0500 (EST)
From: Michael Macchione <ghesmizat UDel.Edu>
Subject: Re: SC - Stroganoff
I got this recipe from
Cariadoc's miscellany, and cooked it at an event last June, It is a
wonderful dish, that cooks a lot like a stroganoff.
kael
- ----------------
[This is an article from Cariadoc's Miscellany. The Miscellany is Copyright
(c) by David Friedman and Elizabeth Cook, 1988, 1990, 1992. For copying
details, see the Miscellany Introduction.]
Salma
Ibn al-Mabrad p. 20/D4
Dough is taken and twisted and cut in small pieces and struck like a coin
with a finger, and it is cooked in water until done. Then yoghurt is put
with it and meat is fried with onion for it and mint and garlic are put with
it.
1 c flour
about 1/4 c water
1/2 c plain yogurt
5 ounces meat (lamb)
1/2 oz tail (lamb fat)
1 small to medium onion = 1/4 lb
1 T mint
2-4 cloves crushed garlic
[1/2 t salt]
Knead flour and water to a smooth dough. Divide it in about 8 equal
portions. Take each one, roll it between your palms into a string about 1/2
inch in diameter, twist it a little, then cut it in about 1/4" slices. Dump
slices in a little flour to keep them from sticking. Take each slice and
squeeze it between your fingers into a flat, roughly round, coin shaped
piece. Boil in 1 quart slightly salted water about 10 minutes.
About the same time you put the pasta on to boil, fry the onions and lamb,
both cut small, in the tail (i.e. lamb fat) or other oil. Drain the pasta,
combine all ingredients, and serve.
From: Argente <Argenteat aol.com>
To: sca-eastat world.std.com
Subject: [EK] Dessert Lasagna [14th century]
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 98 14:17:25 +0000
This is the first time I have seen yr request. Found one recipe in my
collection of many, many books. Source Horizon History of Cooking, mid 1960's,
p 716
1 lb lasagne noodles, broken into bite sized pieces
2 cups ricotta or cottage cheese, well drained
1 cup heavy cream
3 egg yolks
2 tbl sugar
1/4 cup currants [optional]
pinch salt
crumb topping
cook broken lasagne noodles in lightly salted water until tender. drain well.
mix cheese with cream, egg yolks, sugar currants, and salt. butter an 8 cup
couffle dish. turn noodles into dish and mix thoroughly with cheese. sprinkle
crumb topping over noodles. bake 425F for 40 min or until cheese is set and top
is golden. serves 8
This recipe from Francesco di Marco Datini, a fourteenth centru fabric
merchant and Renaissance Prato's leading citizen.
topping
1/4 c butter
1/4 c sugar
1 tsp powdered cinnamon
1/2 c coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans [optional]
1/2 to 3/4 cup flour
cream butter with sugar and cinnamon. add nuts. add flour gradually, stirring
until mixture is crumbly. use as topping. make about 1.5 cups.
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 13:02:10 -0800
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryDat Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - [fwd] Medieval pasta
Since I'm taking a break, reading Trager's The Food Chronology, let's see
what he has to say about the history of pasta.
1279 CE - The inventory of the estate of a Genoese soldier lists a basket of
macaronis.
Marco Polo refers to paste a lasagne.
1400 CE - Extruded pasta (vermicelli) is being made in Naples.
1475 CE - Platina gives a recipe for pasta in Concerning Honest Pleasure and
Physical Wellbeing.
1607 CE - Hugh Plat describes pasta as hollow pipes of wafer, called
macarone by the Italians, in his Certain Philosophical Preparations of Food
and Beverage for Sea-men.
Information about the Platina recipe and a recipe for ravioli from the 1553
Das Kochbuch der Sabrina Welserin can be found in the food section of
Stefan's Florilegium at:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/rialto/rialto.html
Bon Chance
Bear
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 22:46:14 +0000
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harperat idt.net>
Subject: Re: SC - [fwd] Medieval pasta
The "Libro de Guisados" has a recipe for "Potaje de Fideos" which is
soup with pasta. I do not know what medieval fideos were like;
modern Spanish dictionaries and cookbooks suggest vermicelli as the
closest match. The recipe, BTW, calls for the fideos to be cooked in
well-salted chicken or mutton broth, along with a piece of sugar.
Milk is added to the broth (goat, sheep or almond), and the
omnipresent cinnamon-and-sugar are sprinkled on top before serving.
Lady Brighid ni Chiarain of Tethba
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
mka Robin Carroll-Mann *** harper at idt.net
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 22:04:45 -0800
From: david friedman <ddfrat best.com>
Subject: RE: SC - [fwd] Medieval pasta
You might want to add c. 1224, Rishta (at least) appears in _al-Baghdadi_.
I think there are pasta recipes in the 10th c. collection as well, but I'm
not sure.
David Friedman
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 23:36:17 +0000
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harperat idt.net>
Subject: SC - Recipe: Potaje de Fideos -- Noodle Soup (was: Medieval Pasta)
I was asked to post the recipe for Potaje de Fideos. This is from
the 1529 edition of the Spanish "Libro de Guisados" by Ruperto de
Nola. The translation is mine.
POTAJE DE FIDEOS* (Pottage of Noodles)
Clean the fideos of the dirt which they have** and when they are well
cleaned put them on the fire in a very clean pot with good fatty
broth of chicken or mutton which is well salted and when the
broth begins to boil, cast the fideos in the pot with a piece of
sugar, and when they are more than half cooked, cast into the pot
with the chicken or mutton broth, milk of goats or sheep, or in place
of those, almond milk, for that can never be lacking, and cook it all
well together, and when the fideos are cooked remove the pot from the
fire and let it rest a bit and prepare dishes, casting sugar and
cinnamon upon them; but as I have said in the chapter on rice, there
are many who say concerning pottages of this kind which are cooked
with meat broth that one should cast in neither sugar nor milk, but
this is according to each one's appetite, and in truth, with fideos
or rice cooked with meat broth, it is better to cast grated cheese on
the dishes, which is very good.
* My modern Spanish dictionary translate "fideos" as "vermicelli"; I
do not know what medieval fideos were like.
**I suspect this phrase is a scribal error. An almost identical
phrase is at the beginning of the previous recipe, which is for baked
rice. *There* it makes sense; even today, packages of rice
have instructions to check it for small pebbles and other
impurities. I cannot see why pasta would need cleaning.
Lady Brighid ni Chiarain of Tethba
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
mka Robin Carroll-Mann *** harper at idt.net
Subject: period noodles
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 11:48:10 -0500
From: Stephen Dale <sdaleat mail.tqci.net>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
While others debate if noodles and macaroni are period for Italians,
Russia started using noodles after the Mongols invaded in 1240.
According to Lesley Chamberlain, author of
_The_Food_and_Cooking_of_Russia_, Russian noodles were made with white
wheat flour or buckwheat and wheat mixed together. Soba noodles would
probably be a good modern equivalent. Chamberlain states that noodles
are eaten in mushroom or chicken broth (similar to ramen?) or in spiced
milk. Another Russian cookbook I have mixes hot noodles with cottage
cheese and butter.
Aislinn Columba of Carlisle
aka Nadya Petrovna Stoianova
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 21:15:55 -0800From: david friedman <ddfrat best.com>Subject: Re: SC - [fwd] Medieval pastaA query about pasta was forwarded from the Drachenwald mailing list:>I am trying to locate any medieval pasta recipes. I'm mainly interested in>any kind of sauce that they used. Also, what kind of pasta is period? I know>that spagetti is not!>>Valeria delle StelleOur _Miscellany_ (next-to-last edition is webbed--search for Cariadoc) hasseveral pasta recipes. From memory:Rishta (13th c. Islamic), which is long thin noodles, has a sauce of meat,lentils, chickpeas and cinnamon. Salma (coin-shaped pasta) and Shushbarak(ravioli) both have a sauce of yogurt, mint and garlic (15th c. Islamic).Macrows ("Take and make a thin foil of dough, and carve it on pieces..."),Ravioles (cheese ravioli) and Losyns (also flat noodles) are served withcheese and butter with poudre douce; also, there is a fast-day Losengesserved with an almond-milk sauce (all of these are 14th-15th c English).Platina (15th c. Italian) has recipes for both noodles and macaroni, servedwith cheese.Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 10:55:04 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troyat asan.com>
Subject: SC - Period Pasta recipes...
To add to the fun, don't forget the 14th-century English recipe for
Hares in Papdele, found in The Forme of Cury. It is essentially a
boneless hare stew, cooked in broth, and stacked up with either wafers
_or_ loseyns, apparently. I'd be vastly surprised to find that Papdele
isn't a cognate of the Italian wide noodle, pappardelle.
What I find especially intriguing is that a strikingly similar dish of
duck stew (with additions like tomato and red wine added to the basic
reduced broth sauce) is served over pappardelle in the well-known New
York restaurant Felidia. Chef/owner Lydia Bastianich claims the dish is
a traditional import from Trieste... .
Adamantius
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 18:57:02 -0600
From: vjarmstrongat aristotle.net (Valoise Armstrong)
Subject: Re: SC - Raviolis, tortellini and fritters
Christi Redeker asked about fried and filled pasta. I don't know in depth
about other cultures, but there is at least one late-period fried German
pasta example. From Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin is a cheese-filling
wrapped inside an egg dough and fried. Sabina's ravioli are, however,
boiled in broth, not fried.
173 How Shrove-Tuesday doughnuts are made in Nuremberg
Grate Parmesan cheese or any other cheese which is quite dry. Beat
eggs into it and also mix a little good wheat flour with it so that the
doughnuts do not become too crisp from the cheese. Make the dough firm
enough that it does not run. After that make an egg dough as for a tart,
make long narrow flat cakes and with a spoon lay a small lump of cheese
dough, as large as you would like to have it, in the middle of the flat
cake and wrap it over. And with both thumbs press each heap well into the
flat cake forming a small bun, then cut it off with a small metal blade.
When you would fry them, you should not let the fat become too hot, instead
just after it has melted, lay quite a few of them in the pan, fry them
slowly. Shake the pan, then they will become like marbles.
Valoise
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 11:46:18 -0500
From: Christi Redeker <Christi.Redekerat digital.com>
Subject: SC - Ravioli, Tortelli, and Fritters (Long)
I have the book at work now. I am posting (in this order) the original, the
translation and the explanation about the words being interchangeable.
>From The Original Mediterranean Cuisine, by Barbara Santich
DE' CRISPELLE DI CARNE, O VERO TORTELLI E RAVIOLI
(LIBRO DELLA COCINA)
Prendi ventresca di porco scorticata, lessala, e triala forte col coltello:
togli erbe odorifere in bona quantità, e pestale forte nel mortaio: mettivi
su del cascio fresco con esse et un poco di farina, e distempera con albume
d'ova, sì che sia duro. E preso del grasso del porco fresco in bona
quantità, metti ne la padella, sí che bolla, e fane crispelli; e cotti, e
cavati, mettivi su del zuccaro.
The Translation:
MEAT FRITTERS, ALSO KNOWN AS TORTELLI AND RAVIOLI
Take streaky pancetta, boil it, and chop finely with a knife: take a good
quantity of aromatic herbs, and grind them in a mortar: add some fresh
cheese and a little flour , and add egg whies to make a firm mixture. Then
take a good quantity of fresh pork fat, put it in the frying pan, and when
it boils, make fritters; and when they are cooked, take them out and
sprinkle with sugar.
The explanation:
"The names tortelli and ravioli were applied indiscriminately in the
fifteenth century, both to the filled pasta shapes that we know today, which
were always cooked in broth and served with grated parmesan, and to fritters
like these, which were fried and served with sugar or honey. Admittedly the
basic mixtures were often similar - purées or pastes of cheese, eggs, cooked
vegetables or meat or fish - but the cooking processes were quite different.
It's not so much that people were careless in their use of language, but
there was general confusion until filled pasta became widespread and
appropriated the names. As their name suggests, these medieval totally
derived from the larger torte, and had very similar fillings."
We have already discussed how there are recipes for fillings wrapped in
pasta and then boiled. Does anyone else have a recipe for fritters where
they were called tortelli or ravioli?
Murkial
Christi Redeker
Digital Equipment Corporation
Colorado Springs, Colorado
719/592-4504
christi.redekerat digital.com
Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 00:37:13 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfrat best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - autumn feast report (long)
At 5:55 AM +0000 5/4/98, Kornelis Sietsma wrote:
>The next dish was fresh Pasta with Cheese. I had some foolish volunteers
>who offered to make pasta, so they spent several hours during the day
>mixing dough and drying strips of pasta on clothes-horses.
One of the virtues of dried pasta is that you can make it and dry it days
in advance--which is what we have done for Pennsic.
David/Cariadoc
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 09:13:31 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troyat asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Seeking wheat illumination - OOP
Christina Nevin wrote:
> I've never made pasta before so thought I may as well do it right the first
> time and use durum wheat. Problem is, I can't find any. Now I know semolina
> is made of durum wheat, so my question (which is probably a stupid one, but
> never mind) is this: is there a difference? That is to say, can I make pasta
> out of the semolina, or should I keep looking for durum wheat? It looks a
> bit granular to make dough from. Any suggestions appreciated!
>
> Lucretzia
If you're talking about the granular semolina _flour_, and not couscous
or something, you can indeed make pasta from it, but you need to be sure
to knead the bejeezus out of it. Many new pasta makers miss this
essential [read that to mean, I did]. Use the rollers on your machine to
knead your dough until it is smooth, elastic, and almost shiny, like
satin. If the outside surface looks granular, you may need to add a tiny
bit more water, but the trick is to roll out the dough flat, with your
machine, then fold it like puff pastry or something similar, to evenly
distribute the gluten and any dryish outer surface throughout the dough.
Roll, fold, roll again, fold, etc., until you get a satiny smooth
laminated dough. It may take a while to get the hang of it. Only then do
you begin to worry about rolling it thinly.
Adamantius
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 08:36:27 -0500
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryDat Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - Seeking wheat illumination - OOP
Semolina is the coarse residue from boulting. The name derives from the
Latin, semola, meaning bran. The primary usage is in making pasta.
Adamantius' advice for working with semolina is on target.
Bear
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 11:15:47 -0500
From: david friedman <ddfrat best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Anthro and cooking
At 9:55 PM -0400 8/29/99, Philip & Susan Troy wrote:
>IIRC, the earliest known Chinese pasta references I've seen are from
>roughly the 9th century C.E., albeit from secondary sources because I'm
>illiterate. I'm pretty sure there are recipes for various boiled dough
>sheet dishes (tracta) in Cato's De Re Agricultura. Possibly a bit coarse
>and heavy by today's standards, but then most of the medieval Italian
>pasta was too, and no one disqualifies that as pasta.
I believe Charles Perry had an old PPC article in which he concluded that
the evidence for pasta in classical antiquity was ambiguous. On the other
hand, there are lots of Islamic pasta recipes that predate Marco Polo, so
it seems hard to believe that, if the Europeans wanted to borrow pasta from
somewhere, they would have had to go all the way to China to find it.
David/Cariadoc
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1999 07:04:47 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troyat asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Italian Cuisine
Mordonna22at aol.com wrote:
> So, if there is a Roman recipe for pasta, how could there be Italian recipes
> pre-dating Pasta??
Well, technically, there could have been pasta before Rome, and probably
was, but I get your drift.
I believe Cato's De Re Agricultura contains recipes for stacked
structures along the lines of lasagna under the basic heading of tracta
(or some similar term; it's too early in the morning: actually a great
gig, I don't have to be responsible for anything I say before I'm
awake). I remember there being an article on this in one of the fairly
recent Petits Propos Culinaires.
One reason, perhaps, for the confusion on Roman and medieval pasta is
that modern milling techniques aren't that old, perhaps 18th century,
and the kind of fine pasta now made industrially from hard wheats (not
to mention extruded spaghetti) wouldn't have been possible in period.
Whether that means the Italian pasta of earlier ages was coarse and
granular, and somewhat gnocchi-like, or whether it was similar to the
kind of noodles we can easily make at home with AP flour (plain flour to
British-speakers) is uncertain. My suspicion is the former, because some
medieval recipes tend to talk about boiling pasta in good broth for an
hour (eeeeeee-ewwwww!) which would create a sort of brothy, soplike
pudding-ey mass.
Adamantius
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 03:25:56 EDT
From: Mordonna22at aol.com
Subject: SC - Check out The History of Pasta in Rome
<A HREF="http://www.cucina.italynet.com/news/2.htm";>Click here: News</A>
The author gives a compelling argument that lasagne type noodles were peasant
fare from early Roman days.
Mordonna
Date: Sun, 03 Oct 1999 01:16:20 +0100
From: Thomas Gloning <Thomas.Gloningat germanistik.uni-giessen.de>
Subject: SC - ancient pasta
Thanks, Hauviette, for pointing to the paper of Stefano Milioni.
<< is the author of a paper on Pasta in existence in ancient
Rome. Visit the link available through this Roman food page at:
http://www.ancientsites.com/~Caius_Livius/ >>
I read the text with great interest. On the other hand I found several
claims poorly documented or even doubtful. Let me mention two.
E.g., he quotes the Marco Polo-text: "(he saw and tested) lasagne
similar to those that we prepare with wheat flour", indicating that
lasagne were already in use in Italy when he saw them in China. Now, if
I am not mistaken, the original text of Marco Polo's travelogue is
written in French, and I would like to know the word translated here as
"lasagne".
Then: one of his main claims, that ancient "lagana" are the same as
later italian "lasagne", seems to be doubtful. According to the Latin
dictionary of Georges, "laganum" has two uses: 1) 'dünner Ölkuchen,
Ölplatz, in Öl gebackene Plinse, als leichte Speise für Kranke (Celsus);
als Speise für Ärmere (Horaz). 2) 'das Blatt, die Lage eines aus
mehreren Schichten (Lagen) bestehenden Kuchens (Apicius). (roughly:
'thin cake, baked in oil' (Celsus, Horaz), 'sheet of dough' (Apicius)).
André, in his edition of Apicius, says _laganum_ 'feuille de pâte'
('sheet of dough'). The etymological dictionary of Italian of
Cortelazzo/ Zolli does not mention a connection between lat. _laganum_
and it. _lasagne_.
Then, there is the use of pictorial representations: he says that the
tools necessary to prepare pasta are to be seen in some 4th-century-B.C.
tomb; after the experience with the "Spaetzle-tool" in a medieval
"Sachsenspiegel", I think one has to be very careful to draw inferences
from what one sees to the function of tools. After all, the tomb is a
RICH man's tomb, and pasta are said to be food of the poor.
Now, I am not saying that there were not ancient pasta. I just don't
know about that. Did anybody look at André, L´alimentation et la cuisine
à Rome yet?
All I am saying is that the points made in the paper of Stefano Milioni
paper ('The history of pasta in Italy') deserve caution and further
checking.
Thomas
Date: Sun, 03 Oct 1999 08:58:51 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troyat asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - ancient pasta
Mordonna22at aol.com wrote:
> Thomas.Gloningat germanistik.uni-giessen.de writes:
<snip>
> (roughly:
> 'thin cake, baked in oil' (Celsus, Horaz), 'sheet of dough' (Apicius)).
> André, in his edition of Apicius, says _laganum_ 'feuille de pâte'
> ('sheet of dough'). The etymological dictionary of Italian of
> Cortelazzo/ Zolli does not mention a connection between lat. _laganum_
> and it. _lasagne_. >>
>
> Hmmm, of course, my homemade lasagne noodles are made from a "sheet of
> dough"...........but of course, that means nothing.........I'm sure your
> source is impeccably accurate........can't really tell, must depend on your
> translation..............
>
> Mordonna
Approaching this from another angle, if not any more impeccable, I refer
you to the English recipes for loseyns, which appear as though they
might be named for the pasta cut into a certain size and shape. The
modern term would be lozenges, which has both culinary and heraldic
connotations in period, with a mostly medicinal definition today, still
based on shape. This is a sort of common-sense guess, and I don't have
supporting info from a dictionary or anything.
Similiarly, though, pappardelle (a wide-noodle pasta similar to lasagne,
although not generally served in layers today) appear as though they
might be named for their shape ("pieces of paper", or something close to
that) and exist in period English recipes which suggest they're
culinarily interchangable with loseyns.
Possibly an Italian heraldry book might tell us if lozenge-shaped fields
for ladies' devices were used in period, and if so, what they were called?
Adamantius
Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 12:12:15 -0500
From: david friedman <ddfrat best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - ancient pasta
At 8:58 AM -0400 10/3/99, Philip & Susan Troy wrote:
>Approaching this from another angle, if not any more impeccable, I refer
>you to the English recipes for loseyns, which appear as though they
>might be named for the pasta cut into a certain size and shape.
I'm pretty sure I remember a PPC article, possibly by Charles Perry, that
was arguing that the causation ran the opposite direction. The recipe name
was supposed to be derived from the Arabic name of a similar Islamic
recipe, and the name of the shape from the recipe name.
David/Cariadoc
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 14:42:53 -0500 (EST)
From: Robin Carrollmann <harperat idt.net>
Subject: Re: SC - medieval graters?
On Wed, 8 Dec 1999, Jeff Gedney wrote:
> > I think at least some of them must have been. The recipe from de Nola
> > that calls for a grater is for a kind of cheese dumpling. The dough is to
> > be forced through the holes on the reverse side of grater, and allowed to
> > fall into boiling water. You can't really do that with a box grater.
>
> Sort of like Spaetzle?
I am not that familiar with the composition of spaetzle, but yes, AFAIK
these dumplings are made in the same way. I belive that there is also a
recipe or two in Granado that uses a grater in the same way. One is for
fideos (noodles) which can be made in a spaetzle-like manner, or mixed to
a thicker consistency and rolled out and cut. There's also -- I think
mortruelo (sp?), which is some kind of liver pate dumpling. I'm posting
from work and don't have my sources at hand.
> brandu
Brighid
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 23:10:42 EST
From: LrdRasat aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - cooking times
Bronwynmgnat aol.com writes:
<< And other than cooking time, is fresh pasta much different than dried
pasta (serious question; to my knowledge, I have never had fresh pasta)?
Brangwayna Morgan >>
Fresh pasta cooks very quickly, approximately 30 seconds to 2 minutes
depending on the thickness of the pasta.
Ras
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 19:16:37 -0600
From: Magdalena <magdlenaat earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: SC - cooking times
Bronwynmgnat aol.com wrote:
> And other than cooking time, is fresh pasta much different than dried
> pasta (serious question; to my knowledge, I have never had fresh pasta)?
In a word, yes. Oh yes. Yes indeed. Actually, it depends somewhat on what you
call fresh pasta. Fresh pasta in the plastic seal box at the grocery store
tastes better than dried, and is softer. Fresh "I made it at home pasta" is much tastier and much, much softer. Almost 'melt in your mouth' softer. (At least mine is.) The taste and mouthfeel difference isn't high enough that I typically use fresh, but it is worth the time or money to occasionally indulge. Hmmm... I feel an urge for spaghetti for dinner coming on.
- -Magdalena
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 08:48:20 +0100 (MET)
From: Par Leijonhufvud <parleiat algonet.se>
Subject: Re: SC - cooking times
On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 Bronwynmgnat aol.com wrote:
> And other than cooking time, is fresh pasta much different than dried
> pasta (serious question; to my knowledge, I have never had fresh pasta)?
Fresh pasta has cooking times of 2-3 minutes vs. dried (real) pasta at
7-13 minutes.
/UlfR
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 22:56:17 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troyat asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Macrows vs the computer
Seton1355at aol.com wrote:
> Oh and PPS: Do you have a recipe for _macrows_? I'd love to have a recipe
> for it. :-)
Well, I can easily tell you how they tend to be made, although I'm a
little too fried for small-print recipe transcribing right now. All they
are is a noodle made of flour and water mixed to make a firm dough which
is kneaded until smooth and non-sticky, then rolled out thinly and cut
into strips. Some recipes call for them to be hung up and dried a bit,
some don't.
They get boiled in stock or water, drained, and served in a bowl with
butter and grated cheese "ruayne", a not-very-old, rich white cheese,
something like new brie without the rind, named, apparently, for the
town of Rouen in Normandy. Some versions of the basic recipe call for a
sprinkling of spice powder on top.
I've found lovely eggless noodles, both dry and fresh ones, in some of
the Asian markets in my area, that are a nice substitute for making your
own, both because they are eggless, and they tend to be made from a
relatively soft wheat. I don't think these are supposed to end up al dente.
Adamantius
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 06:27:55 -0700
From: Ronda Del Boccio <serianat uswest.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Macrows vs the computer
Stefan li Rous wrote:
> Newbie Cook question: I've seen this term before, "al dente" and it
> is probably in some of my modern cookbooks, but what does it mean?
>
> Was this the way pasta was cooked in period?
"al dente" means literally "to the teeth." it describes
pasta cooked so that it slightly resistant to the bite
without being hard or crunchy. (In other words, not mushy,
not crunchy) Having a fairly long history of family lore
passed down to me, I can say it's been a practice for
awhile, but I don't know just how long.
Serian
Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 07:53:32 -0600
From: "RANDALL DIAMOND" <ringofkingsat mindspring.com>
Subject: SC - Re: SC- Macrows vs the computer
My earliest recipe for macrows is one in in
Elisabeth Aryton's ENGLISH PROVENTIAL
COOKING which she states is from a feast
of Richard II in 1390. I don't see eating it
with the fingers though as it had cheese too.
MACARONI CHEESE! Jesse!
"Macrows. Take and make a thin foil of dough, and carve
it into pieces, and cast them on boiling water, and seeth
it well. Take cheese and grate it and butter cast beneath
and above.... and serve it forth."
She references C. Anne Wilson on the pasta, but is not
clear whether or not the recipe on preparation is also from
Wilson's references. She mentions two more instances
of "maccharoni" in English cooking prior to the eighteenth
century. Does anyone have any idea where she pulled the
above recipe from? Also, grating infers a rather hard cheese.
What kind of cheese would likely have been used? Cheddar
is definitely not right as cheddaring is not period.
Akim Yaroslavich
Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 10:49:47 -0800
From: "Laura C. Minnick" <lcmat efn.org>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: SC- Macrows vs the computer
This looks alot lot the version in _Curye on Inglysche_ which would
certainly be the right time. I've used Jack and Parmesan (fresh grated,
not the stuff in the can) and they both worked fine. Don't use
mozzarella- it just maes a mess.
'Lainie
RANDALL DIAMOND wrote:
> My earliest recipe for macrows is one in in
> Elisabeth Aryton's ENGLISH PROVENTIAL
> COOKING which she states is from a feast
> of Richard II in 1390. I don't see eating it
> with the fingers though as it had cheese too.
> MACARONI CHEESE! Jesse!
>
> "Macrows. Take and make a thin foil of dough, and carve
> it into pieces, and cast them on boiling water, and seeth
> it well. Take cheese and grate it and butter cast beneath
> and above.... and serve it forth."
> Akim Yaroslavich
Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 00:40:12 EDT
From: CBlackwillat aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Dumplings
LrdRasat aol.com writes:
> Could you share the original recipe (preferably also the English translation)
> for those on the list who may not have access to this important recourse?
> I have it but many do not.
>
> Ras
Sure. Here it is, as it appears in the Redon text "The Medieval Kitchen":
WHITE RAVIOLI
Take some good provatura and pound it well, then, while continuing to pound,
add a little butter, some ginger, and some cinnamon. For one provatura add
three well-beaten egg whites and an appropriate amount of sugar. Mix all
these things together. Then make ravioli the length and thickness of a
finger. Then roll them in good flour. Note that these ravioli should be
made without a dough. Boil them gently so that they do not break. Remove
them when they have boiled, and place them in a bowl with sugar and cinnamon.
You can color them with saffron.
Redon's Redaction (ingredients only, since the procedure is fairly well
explained above)
1 1/4 # soft white cheese
1 1/2 Tblspoons butter, at room temperature
2 egg whites, lightly beaten (I beat them rather firm, personally, as it
forms a better dumpling)
4 Tblspns sugar
Flour for dredging
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
salt
a few threads saffron, crumbled (optional)
I have found that if you substitute the sweet spices for dill and parsley or
tarragon, and increase the salt a little, these make great savory dumplings.
Balthazar of Blackmoor
Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 13:36:11 -0500
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryDat Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: SC - Beginners Redaction Challenge - Lasagne
I'm in the mood to play and while I will probably take up Phlip's challenge,
I noticed that the herb pie might be a little scary for a real novice, so I
thought I would toss out a very simple, inexpensive recipe to play with, but
with a lot of room for creativity.
Here is a recipe for lasagne from Liber de coquina. A transcript of the
original recipe follows the English translation.
Bear
*****************************************************
Of lasagne
To make lasagne take fermented dough and make into as thin a shape as
possible. Then divide it into squares of three fingerbreadths per side.
Then take salted boiling water and cook those lasagne in it. And when they
are fully cooked, add grated cheese.
And if you like, you can also add good powdered spices and powder them on
them, when they are on the trencher. Then put a layer of lasagne and powder
{spices} again; and on top another layer and powder, and continue until the
trencher or bowl is full. Then eat them by taking them up with a pointed
wooden stick.
*****************************************************
De Lasanis
Ad lasanas, accipe pastam fermentatam et fac tortellum ita tenuem sicut
poteris. Deinde, divide eum per partes quadratas ad quantitatem trium
digitorum. Postea, habeas aquam bullietem salsatam, et pone ibi ad
coquendum predictas lasanas. Et quando erunt fortiter decocte, accipe
caseum grattatum.
Et si volueris, potes simil ponere bonas species pulverizatas, et pulveriza
cum istis super cissorium. Postea, fac desuper unum lectum de lasanis et
iterum pulveriza; et desuper, alium lectum, et pulveriza: et sic fac usque
cissorium uel scutella sit plena. Postea, comede cum uno punctorio ligneo
accipiendo.
Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 01:15:41 EDT
From: CBlackwillat aol.com
Subject: SC - Lasagne Challenge
Allright. Game On!! Here is Balthazar's First On-Line Redaction:
Please bear in mind that I still have a little trouble preparing food for
small amounts of people, so my redaction may be quite large. Also, any
comments from "those in the know" would be greatly appreciated.
The Original:
"To make lasagne take fermented dough and make into as thin a shape as
possible. Then divide it into squares of three fingerbreadths per side.
Then take salted boiling water and cook those lasagne in it. And when they
are fully cooked, add grated cheese.
And if you like, you can also add good powdered spices and powder them on
them, when they are on the trencher. Then put a layer of lasagne and powder
{spices} again; and on top another layer and powder, and continue until the
trencher or bowl is full. Then eat them by taking them up with a pointed
wooden stick."
Balthazar's Version
3 lbs Semolina Flour
2 lbs AP Flour
6 cups warm water (110 deg F)
3 oz compressed yeast
1 oz salt
1 lb parmesan cheese, grated
3 Tb caraway seed, ground
1 Tbsp Ginger, ground
2 Tb anise, ground
3 Tb mace, ground
Method:
1) Place water and yeast in mixer bowl and sprinkle in 1/2 the AP flour and
the salt. Let sit until bubbly (about 15 minutes at warm room temp).
2) Add remaining flours and mix with dough hook at low speed for 10 minutes,
or until dough is smooth and elastic. Remove from mixer and knead an
additional 10 minutes by hand. Form into a smooth ball, wrap in a damp cloth
and place in a warm spot until doubled in bulk.
3) Meanwhile, combine spices and set aside. Bring 3 gallons water to a boil
and add a little salt.
4) When dough is ready, punch it down and divide the dough in half. Work one
half of the dough at a time, keeping the other covered until ready to use.
Roll out each half of dough using a rolling pin or broom handle to 1/16 of an
inch, or as thin as possible (you may have to further divide the dough to get
it as thin as necessary). Using a sharp knife or pastry wheel, cut the dough
into 2x2 inch squares, wrap in film or waxed paper, and refrigerate (or
freeze) until ready to cook. Repeat with second half of dough.
5) When ready to prepare the dish, drop the dough by small batches into the
boiling water and cook briefly, or until the dough rises to the surface.
Remove and keep warm until all dough has been cooked.
6) Butter or oil a serving dish, and place a layer of cooked dough on the
bottom. Sprinkle with grated cheese, and then with a little of the spice
mix. You may wish omit mixing the spices in the initial recipe, and instead
sprinkle each layer with a seperate spice. Continue the layering until the
dough is used up (this may have to be done in seperate serving dishes).
Sprinkle the top layer with a mixture of the cheese and spices, and serve hot.
Note: As an alternative (though not documented) you may wish to include the
spices in the actual dough. This dish would probably be very good for
serving at a feast where advanced preparation is required, as the dough could
be cooked ahead of time, frozen in a single layer, and then simply reheated
in boiling water at service time.
Again, please do not be hesitant to comment on this redaction. For instance,
suggestions for another Italian period cheese would be appreciated.
Balthazar of Blackmoor
(who, by the way, considers a modern fork to be nothing more than a good,
pointed stick)
Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 00:30:23 -0400
From: "Bethany Public Library" <betpulibat ptdprolog.net>
Subject: SC - Lasagne Challenge
Bal wrote:
<<< The Original:
"To make lasagne take fermented dough and make into as thin a shape as
possible. Then divide it into squares of three fingerbreadths per side.
Then take salted boiling water and cook those lasagne in it. And when they
are fully cooked, add grated cheese.
And if you like, you can also add good powdered spices and powder them on
them, when they are on the trencher. Then put a layer of lasagne and powder
{spices} again; and on top another layer and powder, and continue until the
trencher or bowl is full. Then eat them by taking them up with a pointed
wooden stick.">>>
<<Bal's version snipped for brevity>>
Having made this recipe en masse, we once chose to interpret it as not
layered, but "stacked". We made our noodles in the shape of diapers (that's
diamonds or kites to you). Presentation: arrange 8 diapers in a star pattern
with one point facing inwards. Strew with the cheese and spices. Re-layer
exactly on the top of the former diapers. Stacked in this fashion they hold
their shape fairly well. We froze them like this for the event, and then
simply re-heated and served.
What you get is a thick moravian star shape dusted with the spices on top.
It's also easier to get to it with the skewers or pointed sticks.
Aoife
Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 07:30:26 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troyat asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Lasagne Challenge
CBlackwillat aol.com wrote:
> stefanat texas.net writes:
> > Balthazar, where is this original recipe from?
>
> Stefan, I am not certain, but I think it may be from Kiber de coquina, or
> Martino's Libro de arte coquinaria. It was posted as a redaction challenge,
> and so I gave it a shot. I can't remember who the original poster was (I
> think it may have been Bear or Suleyman), or the subject line of the original
> post.
IIRC, Bear posted it. It's from the Morgan Library's MS Buhler 19,
recently published in an edition by Scully entitled "The Neapolitan
Recipe Collection"
Adamantius
Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 09:05:26 -0500
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryDat Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - Lasagne Challenge
the lasagne recipe is from Liber de coquina.
Bear
Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 13:34:03 EDT
From: "Catherine Hartley" <caitlin_ennisat hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Lasagne Challenge
You can find it (the original, a translation, plus a redaction) in "The
Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Itlay" By Odile Redon, et al.
Caitlin of Enniskillen
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 21:26:43 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troyat asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: Kuskenole, a question
RuddRat aol.com wrote:
> What is the cressee recipe? What medieval recipe collection is it in? Is
> there really an illustration that goes with it? Where can I find this
> source? I'd be interested in seeing this material.
Constance Hieatt and Robin Jones, "Two Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections
Edited from British Library Manuscripts Additional 32085 and Royal
12.C.xii", Speculum v. 61, October 1986, pp 859-882.
The original recipes are in 13th-century French, with an English
translation by Hieatt and Jones. Here's what it sez for cressee,
translated from Add. 32085 :
"5. Cressee [crisscross of noodles]. Here is another dish, which is
called cresee.Take best white flour and eggs, and make pasta dough, and
in the pasta dough put fine, choice ginger and sugar. Take half of the
pastry, (which is or should be) colored with saffron, and half (which is
or should be) white, and roll it out on a table to the thickness of your
finger; then cut it into strips, then cut it into strips the size of a
piece of lath; stretch it out on a table as illustrated [see diagram,
one color is presumably to be crossed over the other]; then boil in
water; then take a slotted spoon and remove the cressees from the water;
then arrange them on, and cover them with, grated cheese, add butter or
oil, and serve."
The diagram is a rectangular grid 4 squares high by eight wide.
> Rudd Rayfield
Adamantius
Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 23:39:45 -0500
From: david friedman <ddfrat best.com>
Subject: SC - Cressee webbed
We had a small cooking workshop today, and one of the things I did
was cressee--the other Anglo-Norman recipe with a picture. I thought
it was interesting, so took some pictures with my new digital camera.
You can find the result at
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/cressee/cressee_recipe.htm
My thanks to Adamantius for pointing out cressee and its picture in a
recent post.
The instructions say to roll out the pasta dough to the thickness of
a finger, which I take to be about 3/8". I'm not assuming that this
is the same "finger" unit as in the Cuskynoles, which would be
somewhat more. But even at 3/8, it is pretty thick. It works
reasonably well that way, but it occurred to me that one interesting
variant to try would be to roll the whole thing thin after it was
assembled but before it was boiled.
One problem with the recipe is getting enough contrast in color
between the plain and the yellow strips. One way is by using a lot of
saffron--but the result looks better than it tastes, unless you
really like saffron. Another possibility that Elizabeth suggested but
that I have not yet tried is to use the egg yolks in what will be the
yellow dough and the whites in what will be the plain dough.
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2000 13:13:39 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troyat asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Cressee webbed
david friedman wrote:
> The instructions say to roll out the pasta dough to the thickness of
> a finger, which I take to be about 3/8". I'm not assuming that this
> is the same "finger" unit as in the Cuskynoles, which would be
> somewhat more. But even at 3/8, it is pretty thick. It works
> reasonably well that way, but it occurred to me that one interesting
> variant to try would be to roll the whole thing thin after it was
> assembled but before it was boiled.
This was the point of my question regarding the workability of the
recipe. 3/8" seems rather thick, but we don't know for sure how tough or
glutenous this dough is, since that would depend largely on the flour
used and how long it's kneaded. Also, if it _is_ that thick, can it be
compensated for by a longer boiling? It occurs to me that thicker pastas
seem to tend to be dropped into boiling water, and then simmered, rather
than cooked at a full rolling boil, for a longer time. This also adds a
bit of credibility to the 17th century English vermicelli recipes that
speak of boiling them for an hour.
An added issue is the question of whether a good amount of sugar has any
significant effect on the texture: it is considered by bakers to be a
dough tenderizer.
Regarding your variant, in which you roll the woven strips again, did
you roll them to finger thickness after weaving, or thinner? Oh, I've
just gone back and reread. Sorry. Now, another possibility, which the
recipe itself seems to suggest, is that the woven structure is grasped
by the ends (which would also help pinch the ends together) and
stretched to some unspecified additional length, which would also tend
to put some strengthening tension (I think) on the entire thing, while
thining it at the same time.
> One problem with the recipe is getting enough contrast in color
> between the plain and the yellow strips. One way is by using a lot of
> saffron--but the result looks better than it tastes, unless you
> really like saffron. Another possibility that Elizabeth suggested but
> that I have not yet tried is to use the egg yolks in what will be the
> yellow dough and the whites in what will be the plain dough.
Maybe. I had gotten the impression, from sources like Scully, that a
number of recipes calling for eggs may be calling for the yolks only, in
any case. On the other hand, a lot of pasta is made from a relatively
yellowish durum flour in any case, sometimes artificially colored. On
occasions when I've made pasta with AP or "plain" flour, it often seems
to cook to a fairly pale color, and if I add saffron to the dough,
especially if in the form of whole threads, I'd think the change in
appearance would be reasonably noticable. I wonder if it's possible that
the flavor of saffron that is less than fresh is lost before its
capabilities as a colorant. Or maybe these people just like it.
Adamantius
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 00:02:34 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troyat asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Double cream
Sue Clemenger wrote:
> Don't know why it wouldn't work, although you might want to experiment
> first. The recipe sounds very similar to some Alfredo sauces I've seen
> recipes for.
> --Maire
>
> deborah minyard wrote:
> > Now that I'm more informed (Thanks to all), here'es my quandary
> > I've found double cream 5.95 for 6 oz.
> > The recipe is a pasta with a sauce of double cream, parmesan cheese,and
> > nutmeg. Would it work just as well with reduced whipping cream or added
> > butter? The fease it for about 80-90 people.
It ought to work if you time it right. You could probably do this with
about two gallons of heavy cream, a pound or so of unsalted butter,
maybe 8-10 pounds of dry pasta, or about 12 pounds fresh pasta.
Basically what you do is heat about 3/4 of the cream in a wide,
heavy-bottomed pan like a brazier, until it begins to reduce and
thicken. Stir frequently to avoid burning, and watch for any tendency to
boil over. Keep the butter cold, and cut it into small pieces, maybe 1/2
Tbs. chunks or smaller. When the cream has thickened enough to coat the
back of your spoon, remove from the heat and start adding the butter a
few pieces at a time, stirring constantly until the butter is fully
melted and incorporated into the cream before adding the next batch,
another few pieces. As you progress you can add more butter at each
interval. When your butter is all whipped into the sauce, you can add
your hot boiled noodles and toss in 2-3 pounds of grated Parmaggiano.
Toss until the cheese is incorporated (you can figure out your own
nutmeg input, I don't do that newfangled stuff), and adjust the
moistness with the remaining cream. Consider adding some salt to taste,
but _after_ the cheese is included.
Yes, this does resemble some Fettucine Alfredo recipes, although the
cream is not in the original from Alfredo's Restaurant in Rome. It uses
only a particularly white local butter similar to that French stuff from
the Loire Valley that is used to make real beurre blanc, Parmaggiano, a
bit of the water from boiling tha pasta, salt and pepper.
Does this come from a period source?
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 12:37:18 -0600
From: "Robbin Long" <rlongat srrc.ars.usda.gov>
Subject: Re: SC - Homemade period noodles/pasta
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <rcmann4at earthlink.net>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I'm playing around with a Lenten recipe from Granado: noodles
(made from flour, bread crumbs, oil, water, and saffron), and served
with a garlic-walnut sauce. (Yes, I will post the recipe when I have
translated and redacted it.)
I've never made pasta before, nor cooked with fresh pasta.
I've rolled out some of the dough (to about 1/16", which is as thin
as I can get it with a rolling pin). I cut it into thin strips, and have
them set aside and drying. The rest of the dough is in the fridge,
awaiting its turn. The recipe says to cut it into squares, or as
desired, so I figure I'll do a couple of small batches in different
sizes/shapes.
I know that fresh pasta requires less cooking time. How else does
it differ from the dried boxed stuff? How long can I store it, and in
what way? (Keep in mind this recipe has no eggs.) And what are
the other questions I should be asking, if I knew enough to ask
them?
Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
I have been lurking for a bit, but I think I can help with this. I haven't tried my hand with period recipes, yet, but I make my own pasta for mundane cooking.
If you are cooking pasta right after making it, allow only a 30 sec to 2 min cook time, depending, of course on the thickness and shape of the noodle. Experiment a little with this until you find a time that gives a good consistency. Try to stick with durum or semolina flour in your noodles (the two terms are not necessarily interchangeable, but both will work), as it gives a noodle that will stand up to the boil without falling apart. Be absolutely sure to get the liquid to boiling before adding the noodles and monitor them closely.
As for storage - in the short term, they keep very well fresh in the fridge for up to a week, but longer than that and they get mushy and may mold. Use a tupperware container that allows a little air space, rather than a plastic bag. For slightly longer term, dry the noodles in a dry place - those in humid climes may wish to do this in a very low oven - for one to two hours (dry and somewhat stiff, but still pliable), then bag them and freeze them. They will keep up to two months. You can also completely dry the pasta (at 24 hours) and store it in a sealed brown paper bag in the pantry for several weeks, but I notice a big drop in taste by this method. If the pasta is dried thoroughly, even egg-based mixtures can be stored this way.
If you want to be period, then I would continue to roll and cut the pasta as you are doing. Alternatively, if you can find it, there is a ridged board that is used to cut Japanese soba and udon noodles in a traditional style that dates back into our period. However, if you want to abandon technique for ease, I really think there is absolutely no substitute for a Mercato Atlas 150 hand-crank pasta machine. Extruded noodles are simply not the same as the rolled and cut. The texture becomes firmer and more substantial from the rolling process. Expect to pay anywhere from $29-$65 depending where you shop.
How are they different - taste mainly. There really is no comparison. I especially prefer them in baked pasta dishes, as it is not necessary to pre-boil them, and they absorb flavor more readily.
Broinnfhionn
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:03:34 -0800
From: Susan Fox-Davis <seleneat earthlink.net>
Subject: SC - Macaroni and Cheese NOT OT NOR OOP!
OK, I don't use the sweets in it. But how is this NOT macaroni and cheese?
Another translation I've seen has the cook poke a hole in the paste 'fillet'
which makes a long, holed noodle, very like the classic Blue Box.
" Roman Noodles. Blend meal which has been separated from chaff with water in
the best way. When it has been blended, spread it out on a board and roll it with a rounded and oblong piece of wood such as bakers are accustomed to use in such a trade. Then when it has been drawn out to the width of a finger, cut it. It is so long you would call it a fillet. It ought to be cooked in rich and continually boiling broth, but if, at the time, it must be cooked in water, put in butter and salt. When it is cooked, it ought to be put in a pan with
cheese, butter, sugar, and sweet spices."
- Platina's De honesta voluptate (On Right Pleasure), the M. E. Milham 1998
translation, p. 329
Selene
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 18:20:36 -0600
From: "RANDALL DIAMOND" <ringofkingsat mindspring.com>
Subject: SC - Macaroni and Cheese NOT OT NOR OOP!
Susan Fox-Davis <seleneat earthlink.net> wrote:
>>>>OK, I don't use the sweets in it. But how is this
NOT macaroni and cheese? Another translation I've
seen has the cook poke a hole in the paste 'fillet'
which makes a long, holed noodle, very like the
classic Blue Box.<<<<
This one can't be anything else:
"Macrows. Take and make a thin foil of dough, and
carve it in pieces, and cast them on boiling water, and
seeth it well. Take cheese and grate it and butter cast
beneath and above..... and serve forth." c. 1390 at
a feast for Richard II. This is listed in Platina I think.
Recipe from Provencial English Cooking by Elisabeth
Ayrton, Harper & Row 1980.
Akim Yaroslavich
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 01:19:44 +0100
From: tglat mailer.uni-marburg.de
Subject: SC - Pasta
<< Any more I can make? >>
Strangolapreti? (Manoscritto Lucano #53, ca. 1524)
Th.
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 22:14:00 -0800
From: david friedman <ddfrat best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - In a pasta making mood
>How about period dishes? I'm thinking of homemade
>pasta for my "Grande Feast".
My favorite period pasta is rishta; you can find the recipe in the
_Miscellany_. I've never done it with a pasta machine, but I suppose
you could.
Does anyone know if extruded pasta is period? As best I recall, none
of the period descriptions I know imply that that is how it is being
made.
- --
David Friedman
ddfrat best.com
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 14:19:53 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troyat asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - In a pasta making mood
david friedman wrote:
> >How about period dishes? I'm thinking of homemade
> >pasta for my "Grande Feast".
>
> My favorite period pasta is rishta; you can find the recipe in the
> _Miscellany_. I've never done it with a pasta machine, but I suppose
> you could.
I assume you could. I prepared rishta in quantity for an event a while
back, using dried Chinese eggless noodles (the pasta in rishta is a
simple wheat-flour-and water dough, IIRC), and it was good, but I think
I'd prefer a somewhat more saucy dish; the final stages of cooking
involve letting the dish rest over low heat for an hour or so. I get the
impression that in that hour, the eggless noodles will absorb almost all
liquid in the dish, almost without the actual liquid quantity mattering.
You get a sort of moist kugel, unless you keep the pasta quantities controlled.
For that matter, does rishta, which has so many other ingredients,
really count as a pasta dish?
Adamantius
Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2001 11:02:56 -0400
From: "Philip W. Troy & Susan Troy" <troyat asan.com>
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Noodles/Pasta
Gwynydd Of Culloden wrote:
> I was having a discussion with a friend and he happened to mention that
> "Marco Polo brought noodles back from China". I told him that I really
> didn't think it was true but, when he asked, I couldn't tell him what the
> earliest known European recipe for pasta was. Can anyone help here?
Well, unless there are sources I'm not aware of (well obviously there
are, but you know what I mean), it's actually an interesting question. I
don't recall seeing any pasta recipes in the various Harpestraeng ms
variants, and they appear to date from somewhere around 1250 C.E. They
seem to represent a cuisine from a part of the world that has easy
access to hard wheats.
On the other hand, BL ms. Add. 32085, an English ms. written in French,
dates from very shortly thereafter, maybe 1275 C.E. It has three obvious
pasta recipes (a ravioli, a woven particolored mat of noodles called
cressee, and -- ta da -- kuskynole, a fruit-filled pasta that gets
boiled and then grilled). This suggests that pasta was known in
_England_, as well as, possibly, in French court cookery, right around
the time Marco was leaving for the Far East. Assuming, rightly or
wrongly, that Marco "brought back" the idea of pasta to Italy upon his
return in 1295, we're talking about a negative number of years for the
idea to be established in England. That's quick.
More likely, the English pasta recipes are either simply descended from
foods known from the Roman Empire in Europe (for example, the tractae
Cato describes), or perhaps either "brought back" by early Crusaders or
carried across Europe from al-Andalus, where Islamic pasta dishes were
presumably well known.
Adamantius
Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2001 18:43:30 +0200
From: Volker Bach <bachvat paganet.de>
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Noodles/Pasta
Gwynydd Of Culloden schrieb:
> I was having a discussion with a friend and he happened to mention that
> "Marco Polo brought noodles back from China". I told him that I really
> didn't think it was true but, when he asked, I couldn't tell him what the
> earliest known European recipe for pasta was. Can anyone help here?
The poor man gets blamed for everything, doesn't
he...
Apparently the idea of boiling dough is hardly
uncommon. Laurioux traces the etymological origin
of lasagna to 'laganum', a Roman dish that, in
Roman times, was probably baked rather than boiled
(but then again, so's lasagna). He also traces
'tria' (a medieval Neapolitan expression for what
he thinks are vermicelli) to the Muslim 'ittriya'
(no reference for this). Does anyone know of a
Middle Eastern source for pasta-like recipes? 13th
century texts (he refers to an article "Pates" by
himself in Medievales 17 (1989) for details on
this, which I don't have handy) are the first to
mention the words, and by the 14th century we have
recipes and treatments in books on dietetics (a
contemporary edition of the Tacuinum Sanitatis is
mentioned, unfortiubately without identifying the
edition). None of these sources to my knowledge
makes any reference to China or Messer Millione.
Got my reference: 12th century geographer Abu
Abd'Allah Idsrisi (sp?) mentions the large-scale
production of dried noodles (ittriya) in Trabia in
(then still heavily Muslim-dominated) south Italy.
Goodbye to that theory.
Giano
Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2001 14:21:06 -0400
From: johnna holloway <johnnaat sitka.engin.umich.edu>
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Noodles/Pasta
Gwynydd Of Culloden wrote:
> I was having a discussion with a friend and he happened to mention that
> "Marco Polo brought noodles back from China". I told him that I really
> didn't think it was true but, when he asked, I couldn't tell him what the
> earliest known European recipe for pasta was. Can anyone help here?
>
> Gwynydd
Johnnae llyn Lewis sends greetings.
Suggest to your friend that he needs to read the two articles
by Charles Perry in PPC #9 entitled "The Oldest Mediterranean
Noodle: A Cautionary Tale." pp.42-45. 1981. and
"Notes on Persian Pasta" PPC #10; pp. 48-49. 1982.
Or since that is a bit of a bother take a look at
http://www.mrsleeperspasta.com/pasta_101.html for an article
entitled PASTA 101 which seems to reproduce an article entitled
PASTA: Where It Came From and How It Got Here
by Corby Kummer
from "The Atlantic Monthly," July, 1986.
That should explain the pasta problem.
Johnna Holloway
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 11:27:04 -0700
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
From: david friedman <ddfrat best.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Noodles/Pasta
>Gwynydd Of Culloden schrieb:
>> I was having a discussion with a friend and he happened to mention that
>> "Marco Polo brought noodles back from China". I told him that I really
>> didn't think it was true but, when he asked, I couldn't tell him what the
>> earliest known European recipe for pasta was. Can anyone help here?
>
>The poor man gets blamed for everything, doesn't
>he...
>
>Apparently the idea of boiling dough is hardly
>uncommon. Laurioux traces the etymological origin
>of lasagna to 'laganum', a Roman dish that, in
>Roman times, was probably baked rather than boiled
>(but then again, so's lasagna).
Does he discuss the alternative that it derives from "losinge" via
"Loseyns," which is a 14th c. English (I think) pasta recipe. I'm
pretty sure that Charles Perry has a discussion somewhere, probably
PPC, that links "losinge" "lasagne," and something Arabic. And I
think he has an article arguing that there is no clear evidence of
pasta in classical antiquity.
>He also traces
>'tria' (a medieval Neapolitan expression for what
>he thinks are vermicelli) to the Muslim 'ittriya'
>(no reference for this). Does anyone know of a
>Middle Eastern source for pasta-like recipes?
Al- Baghdadi and Ibn al-Mubarrad both have pasta recipes; the former
predates Marco Polo by fifty years or so. I believe pasta recipes
show up in the earliest post-Roman European cookbooks, which are
roughly contemporary with Marco Polo.
--
David Friedman
ddfrat best.com
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
From: Sandragoodat aol.com
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 17:03:15 EDT
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Noodles/Pasta - LONG (Charles Perry)
For those who may not have access to the articles mentioned by Charles Perry,
his notes on Persian Pasta were reprinted in the Medieval Arab Cookery book
that was printed this year. It has most if not all the articles published in
the Islamic Culture newsletter/magazine which is what PPC printed.
For those that are unable to obtain either, I have included some excerpts
from them. I appologize for the length but I know first hand how frustrating
it can be not to have access to or funds to acquire needed refrences. Being
new to the list I hope I have not overstepped.
Please note that I am unable to include the various alphabet pronunciation
marks (I cannot think of the correct terms for the dots, dashes, etc. that
show up in other languages) and only give the spellings.
These have been taken from the newly published Medieval Arab Cookery by
Maxime Rodinson, A. J. Arberry & Charles Perry, Prospect Books, 2001.
"The first recorded Iranian noodle dish is lakhsha. There are scattered
references to it in Persian literature, but in the absence of medieval
Persian cookery books we must go to the tenth-century Arabic compilation
Kitab al-Tabikh for a recipe. The instructions call for a stiff dough of
flour and water, 'rolled out thin with a rolling pin and cut with a knife
into strips.'"
" A noodle of some description was being made in the Greek-speaking world by
the year 500 under the name itria, and one wonders whether there is a
connection between it and lakhsha."
" In Islamic times, at least, itriya referred to a small soup noodle which
could be made by twisting bits of kneaded dough into shape, rather than
rolling and cutting, so the Greek pasta may have been a different sort of
noodle from the start."
"As of the thirteenth century, however, lakhsha had disappeared from Arabic
cookbooks and there was a new word for noodle, rishta, which is still common
in Iran, the Arab world and Turkey. Rishta is the only word for noodle in
the several thirteenth century Arabic cookbooks and in the poems of the
fourteenth-century Persian rhymester Bushaq (Abu Eshaq-e Hallaj of Shiraz)."
Hope this wets your whistle enough. I also hope it helps.
THL Elizabeth Donnan
(in the middle of her next A&S research project which this happens to be a
part)
Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2001 18:28:52 -0400
From: "Philip W. Troy & Susan Troy" <troyat asan.com>
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Noodles/Pasta - LONG (Charles Perry)
Sandragoodat aol.com wrote:
> "The first recorded Iranian noodle dish is lakhsha. There are scattered
> references to it in Persian literature, but in the absence of medieval
> Persian cookery books we must go to the tenth-century Arabic compilation
> Kitab al-Tabikh for a recipe. The instructions call for a stiff dough of
> flour and water, 'rolled out thin with a rolling pin and cut with a knife
> into strips.'"
>
> " A noodle of some description was being made in the Greek-speaking world by
> the year 500 under the name itria, and one wonders whether there is a
> connection between it and lakhsha."
>
> " In Islamic times, at least, itriya referred to a small soup noodle which
> could be made by twisting bits of kneaded dough into shape, rather than
> rolling and cutting, so the Greek pasta may have been a different sort of
> noodle from the start."
>
> "As of the thirteenth century, however, lakhsha had disappeared from Arabic
> cookbooks and there was a new word for noodle, rishta, which is still common
> in Iran, the Arab world and Turkey. Rishta is the only word for noodle in
> the several thirteenth century Arabic cookbooks and in the poems of the
> fourteenth-century Persian rhymester Bushaq (Abu Eshaq-e Hallaj of Shiraz)."
It's probably worth noting that while rishta may be the only word for
noodle in the 13th-century Arabic sources, it is not the only pasta. Off
the top of my head, I can recall shushbarrak, which is a meat-filled
pasta dish, and then there's another whose name I forget (tutmaj?) which
calls for slices to be cut off a roll of dough, and then struck like a
coin with the thumb. These last seem to be sauced with yogurt and mint,
IIRC, and the shushbarrak are alive and well, and virtually unchanged,
in modern-day North Africa.
Adamantius
From: Sandragoodat aol.com
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 20:22:22 EDT
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Noodles/Pasta - LONG (Charles Perry)
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
Adamantius writes:
> I can recall shushbarrak, which is a meat-filled
> pasta dish, and then there's another whose name I forget (tutmaj?) which
> calls for slices to be cut off a roll of dough, and then struck like a
> coin with the thumb. These last seem to be sauced with yogurt and mint,
> IIRC, and the shushbarrak are alive and well, and virtually unchanged,
> in modern-day North Africa.
Thank you for adding about the ravioli style pasta. I left it out because I
was so long winded in my previous post. I admire those of you that can spout
information from the top of your head. I have only just begun my research so
have not yet memorized the names and pages of these dishes. Many of my
friends that have a copy of the book can do just that. I have to refer to
the actual book. :-)
For clarification though, salma is the noodle that is struck like a coin.
Tutmaj is a noodle that is rolled out and cut. They are both served with a
yogurt, mint and garlic sauce and are both served with fried meats. The only
other difference in the two is salma mentions onions also.
Shushbarak is a tutmaj dough stuffed with meat and served in a yogurt sauce.
Rishta is more like a beef soup with noodles.
It is important to note also that rishta is a dried noodle whereas salma and
tutmaj are both a fresh noodle.
Elizabeth Donnan
From: "E. Rain" <ragheadat liripipe.com>
To: <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 09:41:19 -0700
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Timbale was: Disturbing item from the CIA
good morning from Eden, who needs an excuse to stop translating for a
while...
Gunthar wrote re the CIA comment that Timbales have been around for a
millennium:
> Very pretty and tasty looking. But once the
> chef had presented the dish he made the statement
> "A dish exactly like was served over 1000 years
> ago." Um....excuse me? Not only was the tomato
> sauce a major giveaway but I haven't seen anything
> like a timbale in any corpus. And how old is ziti?
Well the word "exactly" was certainly out of line, and the time frame was
stretched past the data I have available, but timbale like dishes do appear
in the medieval Italian corpus:
Torta de Lasagne, from the 14th c. Neapolitan "Liber De Coquina" is a dish
lined with lasagne then filled with raviolis, eggs, cheese etc in layers.
It's then decorated with a dough sculpture, but the basic dish is there.
The Torta Parmesana present in at least 3 different 14th c. Italian texts
lines a pot with "paste" and then fills it with layers of pastas, meat, eggs
etc. See PPCs 59 & 61 for a discussion of this dish and it's development
into modern timbales (though I don't care for the article's claim that the
dish goes back to Babylonian times)
I'm told timbales are heavily present in Scappi, but I haven't worked with
it much yet to confirm this myself. (so many books so little time!)
As for Ziti, if you look at the Martino corpus (Italian 15th c.) you find
"To make a devised meat after the Romane manner." which is pasta which you
form by wrapping it around a stick to make hollow straws i.e. ziti or penne.
Eden - Italian girl
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 13:04:06 -0400
From: "Philip W. Troy & Susan Troy" <troyat asan.com>
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Timbale
Michael Gunter wrote:
>> but timbale like dishes do appear in the medieval Italian corpus:
>
> Great information! Thanks! I need to play with
> these recipes sometime. I'd love to do them.
I can't and won't say they don't, but it should be noted that at least modern timbale are more or less the containers they're cooked in, with a huge variety of ingredients and varying cooking methods. Some have a lining pastry, many don't, some are essentially schtuff mixed with custard and baked in a bain-marie. and most of them are fairly small, along the lines of a double shot glass. Which is not to say they could not share a common ancestry with Italian torta of various types, but then a lot of Italian tortas from period have survived, in largely unchanged form, to the present day.
Adamantius
From: "E. Rain" <ragheadat liripipe.com>
To: <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 13:15:41 -0700
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Timbales/Tortas
Adamantius wrote:
> >> but timbale like dishes do appear in the medieval Italian corpus:
>
> I can't and won't say they don't, but it should be noted that
> at least modern timbale are more or less the containers they're cooked in,
> with a huge variety of ingredients and varying cooking methods. Some have
> a lining pastry, many don't, some are essentially schtuff mixed with
> custard and baked in a bain-marie. and most of them are fairly small,
along the
> lines of a double shot glass. Which is not to say they could not share a
> common ancestry with Italian torta of various types, but then a lot of
Italian
> tortas from period have survived, in largely unchanged form, to the
present day.
Hmm, sounds like you're mostly seeing Timballini (single serving timbale) I
usually think of timbale on the grand scale myself.
Here's the modern definition from Fant & Isaac's Dictionary of Italian
Cuisine:
"Timballo - Timbale; traditionally, a pie or varied ingredients molded and
baked; sometimes, =Bomba; sometimes a filled pastry. Today, even lasagna is
sometimes classed as a kind of timballo. A timballetto or timballino is an
individual, unmolded serving."
Very open to interpretation :->
FYI the term comes from Timpano, an Italian word for drum, and does not seem
to have been used in a culinary context pre 1600 (Florio doesn't include it
& I haven't come across it looking at various earlier cookbooks) the first
definite citation I can find right now is 1778, per the PPC 61 article, If
anyone has the full text of scappi & wants to skim for timbale I'd love to
have that link confirmed, it's not among the excepts included in Faccioli.
14th & 15th c recipes seem to use only variants of the word torta...
Vincente asked:
> Eden, do you have the texts/translations? These sound
> absolutely fantastic.
I've only done a partial redaction so far, but yeah, it's shaping up pretty
amazingly.
PPC 59 has the 14th c. Neapolitan text for Torta Parmesana I think
translated into English.
If you can read 14th c. Venetian ;-> it's also on Thomas' website:
http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~gloning/frati.htm recipe#112 more Italian
versions can be found in Faccioli's "L'arte della cucina in Italia"
Failing that, the proceedings of this years Oxford Symposium on Food &
Cookery should include my translation of the 14th c. Tuscan version :->
Eden
From: "E. Rain" <ragheadat liripipe.com>
To: <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 13:21:17 -0700
Subject: [Sca-cooks] still on Timbales
Mercedes wrote:
> Mario Batali made somthing similar on his show - he called it
> a pastitsio I believe
That would be a variant of the Venetian name for the dish: pastisso/pastizzo
Eden
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 06:25:22 -0500
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troyat asan.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] again from Purgatory
Also sprach 'Lainie:
>And as regards teh Blue and Yellow box, he sez:
>> I've yet to see any documentation that _macaroni_ in it's modern shape
>> is historic. Pasta and cheese, yes, I've seen enough of that, mostly a
>> flat, wide noodle like modern lasagne. ANd not covered in processed
>> cheddar, American, or Velveta.
>
>Cartwheels? Dinosaurs? Spaceships? Footballs? I have a vague memory of
>Wookie-shaped pasta, but perhaps I'm lucky and just hallucinating
>that...
>
>Pasta is pretty easy to make flat. How far back do pasta extruders and
>such go? Master A? Phlip? Y'all know about that sort of thing? What
>about manicotti? Ziti? And long skinny spaghetti?
Platina mentions tubular pasta, rolled by hand and then pierced with
an iron rod, a skewer or something like that. IIRC. He's probably not
the first.
Adamantius
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.deckerat worldnet.att.net>
To: <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] again from Purgatory
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 07:26:00 -0600
IIRC, the first mention of gnocci is late 13th Century and extruded pasta
appears in the 14th. I also seem to remember something about tubular pasta
and Platina (15th Century), but my copy is not at hand.
Bear
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 00:24:06 -0400
From: Angie Malone <alm4at cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Medieval English lasagne?
To: <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
On Tuesday, July 15, 2003, at 09:32 PM, Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius
wrote:
>>>
And what is lasagne (to most of the modern world this means lasagne
bolognese or some close variant thereof) made of? I mean, apart from the
tomato ragout? Largely flat pasta and cheese, no? Rather like the almost
identical 14th-century Italian version published in the 19th century in
the Libro di Coquino? I think there's also a recipe for it in the
Neapolitan collection recently edited/published by Scully.
<<<
Just checked - no close matches in the Neapolitan Recipe Collection.
Some references to lasagne, but no layered dishes of noodle and cheese.
How does the one from Libro di Coquino read?
- Doc
----------------------------
There's a a recipe in the medieval kitchen(Redon, Sabban and Serventi) for
lasagne. However it is 'fermented dough' with the cheese and spices. I
just made it for our last event in June and it came out pretty
good. Although we did have some trouble cooking it which the chemistry
experts think had to do with letting it rise too long. Mostly because the stove we were using was older than sin and water took forever to boil.
It says in the book "Other Italian books contain recipes for lasagne made
of flour and water and boiled in meat broth on meat days and almond milk
for days of abstinence. Another element that made us choose this version
in the Liber de Coquina is that it is the only one to explain clearly how
lasagne are made-by rolling out the dough and cutting it into squares three
finger-breadths a side--and how they are eaten; with a little pointed
wooden stick.
Angeline
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 00:32:43 -0400
From: "Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantiusat verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Medieval English lasagne?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Also sprach Daniel Myers:
>>>
Just checked - no close matches in the Neapolitan Recipe Collection.
Some references to lasagne, but no layered dishes of noodle and
cheese.
<<<
Close match to what, and why the fixation on layers? It should be
noted that even now, not all lasagne dishes are layered. Some still
just toss the ingredients and let gravity do the layering.
Looking back on the English Hares in Papdele recipe, which has
Italian near-equivalents, it is not really clear that the dish is
intended to be layered, although loseyns are mentioned as one option
for the starchy substrate. Wafers are another; interesting that no
option like pappardele ["pieces of paper'] is mentioned, unless
that's covered by loseyns and by the dish name itself.
> How does the one from Libro di Coquino read?
It's translated in "The Medieval Kitchen" as follows:
"Of lasagne. To make lasagne take fermented dough and make it into
as thin a shape as possible. Then divide it into squares of three
fingerbreadths per side. Then take salted boiling water and cook
those lasagne in it. And when they are fully cooked, add grated
cheese.
And, if you like, you can also add good powdered spices and
powder them on them, when they are on the trencher. Then put a layer
of lasagne and powder [spices] again; and on top another layer and
powder, and continue until the trencher or bowl is full. Then eat
them by taking them up with a pointed wooden stick." [LC 412]
The mention of cutting the dough into squares three fingers wide,
roughly 2 - 2 1/2 inches, perhaps, suggests to me that losenges
(either the heraldic shape or maybe just a reference to
cross-hatching) are indicated by the name, and it is layered, just
not with ricotta, mozzarella, and meat ragu (nor with ragu bolognese
and vegetables balsamello). I guess what qualifies as lasagne depends
a great deal on people's preconceived notions.
So, I don't have the Neapolitan Recipe Collection here in front of me
(although it probably is within three feet of me; I just can't find
it). I'm pretty sure it has pasta recipes. What does it tell us about
lasagne?
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 05:53:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: Louise Smithson <helewyseat yahoo.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Medieval Italian recipes for Lasagna was Re:
Medieval English Lasagna
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
And what is lasagne (to most of the modern world this
means lasagne bolognese or some close variant thereof)
made of? I mean, apart from the tomato ragout? Largely
flat pasta and cheese, no?
OK had to weigh in on this one. The earliest Italian
MS on cooking seem to come from the 14th/15th century
with very little accurate dating other than that.
Here are the earliest examples I could find in my
collections (newly expanded by some ILL).
De le lasagne
Togli farina bona, bianca; distempera con acqua
tepida, e fa che sia spessa: poi la stendi
sottilmente, e lassa sciugare: debbiansi cocere nel
brodo del cappone, o d'altra carne grassa: poi metti
nel piattello col cascio grasso grattato, a suolo a
suolo, come ti piace.
Of the lasagna
Take good white flour, temper with tepid water and
make it that it is dense/thich: then stretch it thin,
and let it dry: one has to cook it in capon broth or
other fat meat broth: then put it in the plate with
grated cheese, layer on layer, as you please.
Il Libro della cucina, del sec XIV, Bologna Presso
Gaetano Romagnoli 1863. From MS N 143 University of
Bologna.
Chi vole fare alesagne, tolla bona farina bianca et
falla bollire in brodo de capuni. Se non fosse tanta,
mictice de altra acqua, et mectace del sale a bollire
con essa, et tragala in uno catino, et mectano del
cascio assay, et burla sopra il tagliaturi del grasso
del capone.
If you want to make lasagna, take good white flour and
let them boil in capon broth. If perhaps you don't
have enough add more water and add salt to boil with
these, and take out and put in a bowl/dish, and add
enough cheese and butter above and chopped capon fat.
Anchi se possono fare lesagne in pavese. Tolale et
facale cocere che non sciano troppo cocte, et tragale
del vaso, et lavale ad dui acque frede, ad cio ch'el
siano desillo metereace spetie et caffarano, et poy se
volionu frigere.
Also one can make lasagna of Pavia. Take them and put
them to cook so that they are not too much cooked, and
pull from the pan, and wash twice in cold water and so
that they are (of yellow ?? dubious trans) add spices
and saffron, and then you want to fry them.
Bostrom Ingemar, ed. Anonimo Meridionale, Due Libri di
Cucina. Acta Universitatis, Romanica Stockholmiensia,
11. Stoclholm. Almqvist & Wiksell 1985. Libro B
dated to the first half of the 15th Century.
Couldn't find any lasagna made from pasta in the
Maestro Martino collection. Claudio Benporat. Cucina
Italiana del Quattrocento. Biblioteca dell Archivum
romanicum Seri I. Storie Letterature, Paleografia 272
(this is 14th Century
Per fare lasagne di pelle di capone
Togli la pelle del cappone cotto e tagliala inpezuoli
e ponila in brodo di capone grasso e fallo bollire per
ispatio di meza hora con uno pocho di zaffarano dipoi
fa le minestre con un pocho di caso di sopra e con
spetie.
To make lasagne of capon skin.
Take the skin of cooked capons and cut into pieces and
put in fat capon broth and let it boil for the space
of half an hour with a little bit of saffron then make
the dish with a little bit of cheese above and with
spices.
Last one, something with nuts not cheese.
XXXVIII. Lasagne.
Se tu voy fare lansagne de quaressima, toy le lasagne
e mitile a coxere, e toli noxe monde e ben pesta e
maxenate, e miti entro le lasagne, e guardale dal
fumo; e quando vano a tavola, menestra e polverizage
de le specie, del zucharo.
XXXVIII. Lasagne.
If you want to make lasagne in lent, take the lasagne
and put it to cook, and take walnuts peeled and well
beaten and ground, and put into the lasagne, and guard
from smoke, and when it goes to the table, serve and
powder with the spices and sugar.
Translation of Libro di cucina/ Libro per cuoco
(14th/15th c.) (Anonimo Veneziano)
In conclusion, yup the italians had lasagna. Lots of
variants too.
Helewyse de Birkestad.
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 09:36:49 -0400
From: "Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantiusat verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Medieval Italian recipes for Lasagna was Re:
Medieval English Lasagna
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Also sprach <jenneat fiedlerfamily.net>:
Hmmm... so we don't have any dating of lasagna in an italian manuscript before 1390? Or do we?
It's a little unclear, but we do have a claim that Italian recipes go
back at least to the 14th century, of which most is before 1390. It
seems more likely, statistically, that if there's a 14th-century
recipe, it's from before 1390, rather than in the ensuing eleven
years.
Of course, that's not intended as anything but speculation.
Regardless, it would seem to refute both English claims of having
developed lasagne significantly before the Italians, and Italian
claims that what the English developed (or acquired) was not actually
lasagne. Whatever it was or was not, it appears to be nearly
identical to what the Italians were making at the same time and
calling lasagne.
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 10:20:43 -0400
From: Daniel Myers <docat medievalcookery.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Medieval English lasagne?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
On Wednesday, July 16, 2003, at 12:32 AM, Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus
Adamantius wrote:
Also sprach Daniel Myers:
Just checked - no close matches in the Neapolitan Recipe Collection.
Some references to lasagne, but no layered dishes of noodle and
cheese.
Close match to what, and why the fixation on layers? It should be
noted that even now, not all lasagne dishes are layered. Some still
just toss the ingredients and let gravity do the layering.
Most people in the US (and in the UK?) expect "Lasagne" to be a layered
dish. I was looking for something that was similar to the layered
noodle and cheese dish described in the article (which referred to FoC).
[...]
So, I don't have the Neapolitan Recipe Collection here in front of me
(although it probably is within three feet of me; I just can't find
it). I'm pretty sure it has pasta recipes. What does it tell us about
lasagne?
Let's see...
Using Scully's translations:
16. Roman Macaroni. Finger-width noodles, boiled in broth, served with
butter. Makes reference to lasagne - "Out of fine flour make a dough
that is a little larger than for lasagne...."
17. Vermicelli. The expected type of noodles colored with saffron and
garnished with Parmesan cheese.
128. Squash Torte. Sounds like a squash & cheese dessert pie, near
the end of the recipe says to "put small lasagne on top" part way
through baking.
130. Spelte Torte. Similar recipe to #128 above, with spelte instead
of squash.
132. A Sienese-style Tartara. Sort of a custard with ground almonds
and cheese. Suggests that you can add "a ladleful of lasagne cooked in
good broth".
158. Eggs in the Shape of Ravioli. Ravioli with eggs as a filling.
The recipe starts, "Make a dough as for lasagne..."
159. Offelle. A sort of raisin-cheese ravioli. Calls for "a thin
pastry dough as for lasagne".
181. Rice Torte. A rice and almond dish. Says to make "a lower and
an upper crust for it with broad, thin lasagne."
So what it really comes down to is how you define the word. If one is
using the term "lasagne" to indicate the shape of the noodle, then yes
any and all of the above recipes would be a match, but if "lasagne" is
understood (as most Americans would) as a sort of casserole with layers
of wide flat noodles and other fillings (usually including cheese) then
none of these are a very good match.
- Doc
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edouard Halidai (Daniel Myers)
http://www.medievalcookery.com/
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 05:35:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: Louise Smithson <helewyseat yahoo.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: ooking for a period cheese filled
pasta/lassagna dish served cold (long)
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
Cc: Easter95at aol.com
I got this message yestrday and I know I've heard cheese filled pasta
dishes being discussed here previously, but I don't remember that any
of them were served cold.
Stefan
> From: Easter95at aol.com
>I am looking for a recipe for a cold dessert lasagna that
> was served at an SCA feast I attended a number of years ago. It was
> very simple, just sweet cheese filling and lasagna noodles. Have you
> heard or seen a recipe for this kind of dessert?
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Carolyn B.
This is a reuest for a dish I have seen no sign of in
any of my cookbooks (which I browse regularly). I
have translated quite a few cheese + pasta recipes,
some ravioli, agnoloti and lasagna recipes. Nearly
every single one ends with the instruction to "serve
hot" r "keep warm under a cover". Of course it could
be someones interpretation of the way that the
rennaisance and earlier Italians made lasagna. Cooked
pasta layered with cheese, sugar and cinnamon. If you
use a light hand with the sugar and cinnamon
component, and use a salty cheese, such as parmesan,
you have a savory dish. If you were to use a heavier
hand with the sugar and cinnamon and used a sweet
cheese, such as ricotta, you could end up with a sweet
dish. In the menus that I have translated from cappi
(16th Century source) there are references to
macaroni salad, but from my reading that is simply
macaroni cooked and tossed with olive oil, as I have
been unable to find actual recipes or references to
such. The Italians to this day tend to be very simple
with their salad dressings, which consist of olive oil
and vinegar. So it may be that the dish in question
was just a sweet redaction of a savory dish, served
cold instead of hot.
I couldn't find a lasagna recipe in Scappi that would
work for ths dish but there is a maccaroni recipe
(essentially smaller flat noodle shapes) which because
of the addition of rosewater, cinnamon and sugar could
be interpreted as a sweet dish. This is from the
second book of Bartolomeo Scappi, Opera. Dell'arte del
Cuinare. (Venetia, 1570), libro II, pg 78, cap
CLXXIIII
Per far minestra di maccaroni alla Romanesca
Impastisi una libra di fior di farina con oncie
quattro di mollica di pane bianco, che sia stata in
molle in latte di capra tepido, & quattro rossi
d'uova due oncie di zuccaro passato per lo setaccio,
& impastata che sarà essa pasta in modo che non sia
troppo liquida, & mescolata che sarà per lo spatio di
mezo hora sopra una tavola facciasene sfoglio con il
bastone, lasciando asciugare esso sfoglio, con ilruzzolo di ferro o di legno, taglinosi I maccaroni, &
fatti che saranno, lascinosi asciugare, & volendoli
cuocere con acqua semplice, faccioanosi cuocere in un
vaso grande, ove sia acqua assai, & sale abastanza, &
quando l'acqua bollirà, ponganosi dentro maccaroni,
percioche se si ponessero in acqua fredda andarebbeno
al fondo, & farebbeno una pasta, come fa ogni sorte di
pasta tirata, bolliti che saranno per meza hora,
facciasis il saggio se saranno teneri, & non essendo
lascinosi bollire fin' a tanto ce siano ben cotti, &
cotti che saranno habbiasi apparecchiato un piatto
grande d'argento, o di stagno, o di terra
spolverizzato grossamente di cascio grattato, zuccaro,
& cannella, & fette di provatura fresca, & pongasi una
parte d'essi maccaroni che sian bene scolati
dall'acqua, & sopra essi maccaroni spolverizzisi
cascio, zuccaro, & cannella, & fetter di provatura, &
bocconcini di butiro. In questo modo se ne faranno
tre fuoli, & si sbrufferanno di acqua di rose, & si
copriranno con un'altro piatto, & i lascieranno stare
su le ceneri calde o in forno caldo temperatamente per
meza hora, & si serviranno caldi.
To make a dish of Roman macaroni
Mix together one pound of flour with four ounces of
crumb of white bread that has been soaked in warm
goats mil, and four egg yolks, two ounces of sieved
sugar. Blend this pasta together making sure that it
is not too wet, knead well for half an hour on a
table. Roll the dough into sheets with a rolling pin,
leave it thicker than the one (recipe) above. Leave
tis sheet to dry, then with a disc cutter of iron or
of wood cut the macaroni, making them thus, let them
dry. You want to cook them in simple water, make them
cook in a large pan with plenty of water and enough
salt. When the water boils put in the macaoni,
because if you put them in cold water they will sink
to the bottom and become a single (lump) of pasta. As
one makes every kind of thin pasta, boil them for half
an hour, making sure that they are tender, but do not
leave them to boil until they arewell cooked. When
they are cooked have ready a large silver, iron or
ceramic plate that has been dusted heavily with grated
cheese, sugar and cinnamon, and slices of fresh
mozzarella. And put on some of these macaroni, that
have been well drained of watr. Above these macaroni
sprinkle cheese, sugar and cinnamon, slices of
mozzarella and little pieces of butter. In this way
one makes three layers, and then sprinkle with
rosewater and cover it with another plate, and leave
it in the hot cinders or in a edium hot oven for half
an hour and serve hot.
For more translations from Italian, including menus
and other cheese filled pasta recipes I would
recommend my web site
www.geocities.com/helewyse
Helewyse de Birkestad
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 00:03:46 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfrat daviddfriedman.com>
Subject: Re: Rishta- was Re: [Sca-cooks] pasta with meat
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Cariadoc mentioned rishta as a favorite pasta with meat and Phlip asked:
> What rishta are you referring to? A quick search on Google got me a bunch of
> Indian and Pakistani movie and music references, and one obviously modern
> revipe, containing pasta, but also bell peppers and no meat.
He means the one from Al-Bagdadi; here is the version we have in the
Miscellany:
Rishta
al-Baghdadi p.45/7
Cut fat meat into middling pieces and put into the saucepan, with a
covering of water. Add cinnamon-bark, a little salt, a handful of
peeled chickpeas, and half a handful of lentils. Boil until cooked:
then add more water, and bring thoroughly to the boil. Now add
spaghetti (which is made by kneading flour and water well, then
rolling out fine and cutting into thin threads four fingers long).
Put over the fire and cook until set to a smooth consistency. When it
has settled over a gentle fire for an hour, remove.
1 lb lamb
1/2 stick cinnamon
1 t salt
6 T peeled chickpeas (canned will do)
3 T lentils
4 c water
2 c flour
3/8-1/2 c water
"Boil until cooked": about 1 hour. For noodles, mix flour with about
1/2 c cold water (just enough to make an unsticky dough). Knead
thoroughly, roll out, cut into thin strips. Add to pot, simmer 1/2
hour being careful not to let it stick to the bottom and scorch,
serve.
Elizabeth/Betty Cook
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 07:08:51 -0600
From: Sue Clemenger <mooncatat in-tch.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] pasta with meat
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
ISTR several Islamic dishes that feature meat and pasta. Think they're
in the _Miscellany_. I've always wanted to try the one with lamb and
yogurt and onions. Think the "noodle" in this case is little
coin-shaped things, but I could be misremembering....
--maire
"Harris Mark.S-rsve60" wrote:
> Margaret's comment:
> In that case, definitely make him a huge bowl of macrows, maybe with some
> chunked hot dogs thrown in. He'll be happy, it will be more-or-less
> period, and you don't have to worry about the kitchen staff snitching the
> Ho-hos.
> <<<<<
> had me wondering about whether period pasta dishes had meat mixed in
> with them.
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 10:15:02 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfrat daviddfriedman.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] pasta with meat
To: mooncatat in-tch.com, Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
You are not misremembering:
Salma
Ibn al-Mabrad p. 20/D4
Dough is taken and twisted and cut in small pieces and struck like a
coin with a finger, and it is cooked in water until done. Then
yoghurt is put with it and meat is fried with onion for it and mint
and garlic are put with it.
> ISTR several Islamic dishes that feature meat and pasta. Think they're
> in the _Miscellany_. I've always wanted to try the one with lamb and
> yogurt and onions. Think the "noodle" in this case is little
> coin-shaped things, but I could be misremembering....
> --maire
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 13:56:12 +0800
From: drakeyat webone.com.au
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] handmade pasta
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
> Making it by hand also sounds very long and labor intensive,
> so I don't know if I will ever try it but it would be
> interesting to know about.
I thought so to. The I found a pasta maker in an italian deli (A$45)
and
have never looked back. I make ravioli, tortellini, numberous types of
fettucini. It's a hell of a lot of fun and very easy to use. You do
the
primary kneading and then you rolls and knead the past though the
machine
until you break the gluten, You narrow the rollers though easch
pass
(about 4-5) until you have thin enough pasta.
You can then get fancy (Flavoured pastas and the like). I've even done
Kiriel's chocolate pasta recipe...
> Wha are the taste/texture differences between fresh and dried pasta,
> either homemade or store-bought after both have been boiled?
It's smoother, silkier and cooks much quicker. Tastier too...
Drake
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 21:22:27 -0400
From: johnna holloway <johnnaat sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Extruded pasta
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
david friedman wrote:
> The rishta recipe (13th c. Islamic) specifies rolling out the pasta; as
> far as I can recall, none of the 13th or 15th c. Islamic recipes refer
> to extruding it. Modern pasta makers, on the other hand, extrude. Does
> anyone have evidence on when extrusion came in as a way of making
> pasta?
That new work Pasta by Serventi and Sabban goes into this. It seems to
be in the air, according to them in the 16th century when the "ingegno
per li maccheroni" was in use. This is literally they say, a macaroni
engine. They mention that the guild of vermicelli makers in Naples was
requiring an extrusion press by 1579 when it was incorporated into the
charter.
I gave the full details on the book in a post earlier this week.
Johnnae llyn Lewis
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 12:49:13 -0700 (MST)
From: Linda Peterson <mirhaxaat morktorn.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Food in 1632? sorta OP/OT
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 jenneat fiedlerfamily.net wrote:
>> The pasta itself, while they would have had pastas, the modern
>> extruded "spaghetti" would have been unavailable.
>
> I suspect that there is a way to make spaghetti without modern machinery,
> probably by stretching out rolled dough-- like making milleflori beads.
I watched an Iron Chef make noodles by hand during the show once. Rolled
out a sheet of dough, loosely rolled it up like a scroll, sliced off the
noodles one at a time, high speed. Those puppies were square spaghetti,
about three thirtyseconds of an inch on each side, completely regular.
Amazing!
Mirhaxa
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 17:41:40 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magisterat verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Macaroni
To: mirhaxaat morktorn.com, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Also sprach Linda Peterson:
> I think she's asking about the shape. Were there any extruded pasta in
> period? My impression is they were all cut from flat sheets?
>
> Mirhaxa
I believe both Platina (and presumably Martino) as well as at least
one or two other Italian sources, such as that Neapolitan manuscript
Scully has an edition of, call for macaroni to be made by rolling the
dough into firm, pencil-thin cylinders, and then poking an iron
needle, like a knitting needle, into it along its length.
So while not extruded per se, something like perciatelli seems to be
the end result.
Adamantius
Date: Tue, 08 Jun 2004 14:47:42 -0700
From: Susan Fox-Davis <seleneat earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Macaroni
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
The mac'n'cheese in Platina has you roll the paste into fingers and poke
a skewer through them. A bit like the fabled Kraft Dinner type Mac,
yes? Not necessarily elbow-shaped but one step closer anyway.
Blue Box Kid Selene C. <G>
Date: Wed, 09 Jun 2004 11:28:36 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnaat sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Macaroni
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Martino explains it. Pasta is rolled out into tubes around a stiff
wire which is then withdrawn. The extrusion press came about
in the late 16th century according to Serventi & Sabban in their
book Pasta The Story of a Universal Food. US edition is by
Columbia University Press, 2002.
Johnnae
> The mac'n'cheese in Platina has you roll the paste into fingers and
> poke a skewer through them. A bit like the fabled Kraft Dinner type
> Mac, yes? Not necessarily elbow-shaped but one step closer anyway.
> Blue Box Kid Selene C. <G>
Rosalyn MacGregor wrote:
>Did the pasta noodles now know as macaroni have
>a different name in the SCA
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:37:17 -0600
From: Christina L Biles <bilesclat okstate.edu>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: grain in milk dishes
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
Jadwiga said:
>>> Ok, guys, how do you cook grain dishes in milk, as in the millet
>>> cooked in milk Platina suggests?
I don't know. Every time I've tried to cook something milk, be it grains
or pears or whatever, the milk separated into curds & whey. I have a
speculation that raw milk may react differently, but I don't have a source
for it.
>> I am more and more of the opinion that not cooking our grains in broth is
>> doing people a disservice in the feasthall.
It isn't just the grains. Platina's noodles in broth recipe (Roman
Noodles) was just insanely popular at my last feast, and I used plain
dried noodles, not even hand made. It was a cheap and easy filler dish (I
thought) to provide a bed for the meat skewers. I expected most of it to
come back. Instead, we had demands for more, more, more coming back to
the kitchen.
Now I cook noodles in broth as a side dish at home. ;>
-Magdalena
Roman Noodles
Blend meal which has been separated from chaff with water in the best way.
When it has been blended, spread it out on a board and roll it with a
rounded and oblong piece of wood such as bakers are accustomed to use in
such a trade. Then when it has been drawn out to the width of a finger,
cut it. It is so long you would call it a fillet. It ought to be cooked in
rich and continually boiling broth, but if, at the same time, it must be
cooked in water, put in butter and salt. When it is cooked, it ought to be
put in a pan with cheese, butter, sugar, and sweet spices.
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 20:51:03 -0500
From: Bill Fisher <liamfisherat gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: grain in milk dishes
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:37:17 -0600, Christina L Biles
<bilesclat okstate.edu> wrote:
> Now I cook noodles in broth as a side dish at home. ;>
> -Magdalena
>
> Roman Noodles
> Blend meal which has been separated from chaff with water in the best way.
> When it has been blended, spread it out on a board and roll it with a
> rounded and oblong piece of wood such as bakers are accustomed to use in
> such a trade. Then when it has been drawn out to the width of a finger,
> cut it. It is so long you would call it a fillet. It ought to be cooked in
> rich and continually boiling broth, but if, at the same time, it must be
> cooked in water, put in butter and salt. When it is cooked, it ought to be
> put in a pan with cheese, butter, sugar, and sweet spices.
I did this for a feast and made them by hand for it. It went over really well.
I omitted the sugar as the king had requested an "atkins" friendly feast.
I liked the dish better without the sugar, the sugar and the cheese contrasted
too much when I made it at home, unless you were using a loose curd
cheese or ricotta. (was ricotta period? ) I used parmesan, basil and
tarragon, along with some butter I made at home.
Cadoc
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 10:00:21 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magisterat verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pasta Sheets
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Also sprach Lonnie D. Harvel:
> I keep hearing about pasta sheets. Cooking shows and books tell me
> to use them. But I have yet to see them available in any store I
> have been in, including the market stores and specialty stores. Does
> anyone know of an online source? (or for those in the Atlanta-ish
> area, do you know of a local source?)
You may find them in the refrigerated pasta section of large
supermarkets, or in some of the gourmet shops in your area. You may
need to ask for cannelloni sheets or fresh lasagne. Failing that, you
can try using egg roll wrappers, but those use a different flour and
are a little different in texture (not being durum wheat, as a rule).
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 10:03:47 -0600
From: "Michael Gunter" <countguntharat hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Pasta Sheets
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
> We got these from a food supply company- Metro-Web, not Sysco. But I think
> others would have them also.. Gunthar? Any commentary appreciated, as I was
> only on the fringes of the kitchen.. Pyro
I was quite surprised at the quality of the pasta sheets we got. I rather half expected dried lasagne. These came frozen and separated by wax paper. And delivered by a bulk grocery supplier.
You will probably have to go to a higher end market to find fresh pasta sheets or even the frozen ones. My local Albertsons doesn't have them.
You can also make them in quantity pretty easily.
Gunthar
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 19:03:21 -0400
From: Elaine Koogler <ekoogler1at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Martino Coro's pasta recipe?
To: Christiane <christianetrueat earthlink.net>, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Christiane wrote:
> Does anyone here now of a translation of Martino Corno's cookbook
> that contains a recipe titled "De arte Coquinaria per vermicelli e
> macaroni siciliani (The art of cooking Sicilian vermicelli and
> macaroni)"?
>
> I find many references to this recipe, circa 1000 AD., but not the
> recipe itself! Argh!
>
> Gianotta
I have a copy of the recently published version of Martino's book, De
arte coquinaria, translated by Jeremy Parzen as "The Art of Cooking, the
First Modern Cookery Book", and have looked in it for your recipe.
However, I did not find a recipe titled as you indicate. There are two
recipes, one for Sicilian Macaronia, the second for Vermicelli:
Sicilian Macaroni:
Take some very white flour and make a dough using egg whites and rose
water, or common water. If you wish to make two platters, do not add
more than one or two egg whites, and make sure that the pasta is very
firm; then shape it into long, thin sticks, the size of your palm and as
thin as hay. Then take an iron rod as long as your palm or longer, and
as thin as string and place it on top of each stick, and then roll with
both hands over a table; then remove the iron rod and the macaroni will
be perforated in the middle.
These macaroni must be dried in the sun and they will last for two or
three years; they will last particularly well if you make them under an
August moon; cook them in water or meat broth; and place them on
platters with generous quantities with generous quantities of grated
cheese, fresh butter, and sweet spices. This macaroni should be
simmered for two hours.
Vermicelli
Thin the pasta as above, cut into thin strings, and break into small
pieces with your fingers just like little worms; and set it to dry in
the sun, and it will keep for two or three years. When you wish to cook
it, do so in meat broth or good fatty pullet broth, for one hour. Then
serve in bowls, toped with grated cheese and spices.
In case it is not a meat day, cook it in almond milk with sugar or in
goat's milk. But because achieve the sufficient boil required by
vermicelli, boil first in a little water, as is done for rice. And the
sme holds fr lasagne and /triti/, also called /formentine/. All of
these pasta dishes should be made yellow with saffron, except when they
are cooked in milk.
Hope this helps....
Kiri
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 23:05:31 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnaat sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Martino Corno's pasta recipe?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Christiane wrote:
> Does anyone here know of a translation of Martino Corno's cookbook
> that contains a recipe titled "De arte Coquinaria per vermicelli e
> macaroni siciliani (The art of cooking Sicilian vermicelli and
> macaroni)"?
>
> I find many references to ths recipe, circa 1000 A.D., but not the
> recipe itself! Argh!
>
> Gianotta
I suppose you mean such places as
http://www.mamatheresa.com/history-pasta.htm
where it mentions
Around the year 1000, we have the first documented recipe for pasta in
the book "De arte Coquinaria per vericelli e macaroni siciliani", (The
Art of Cooking Sicilian macaroni and Vermicelli) written by Martino
Corno, chef to the powerful Patriarch of Aquileia. Pasta was certainly
well known in Arab countries, where still today they speak of
"makkaroni". From these countries it spread to Greece and Sicily (then
an Arab colony). In fact, Palermo was the first historical capital of
pasta, because it is here that we have the first historical sources
referring to the production of dried pasta in what seems like a
small-scale industrial enterprise. In 1150, Arab geographer Al-Idrisi
reports that at Trabia, about 30 km. from Palermo, "they produce an
abundance of pasta in the shape of strings ("tria" in Arabic) which are
exported everywhere, in Calabria and in many Musim and Christian
countries, even by ship."
I don't know where they get the year 1000 dating for Martino, but you are
right in that it seems to have been published somewhere and numerous
sites have adopted it as the truth.
Anyway the recipes that Kiri provided seem to be the ones you want.
There's more on the topic of vermicelli in Pasta. The Story of a Universal Food
by Serventi and Sabban. See pages 233 to 235. That's a really good source
for pasta history.
Hope this helps.
Johnnae
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 09:39:32 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From: Christiane <christianetrueat earthlink.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Martino Corno's pasta recipe?
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
Johnnae,
Thanks to you and Kiri for your help; what irks me about this is that
even the Italian Websites say exactly the same thing.
As an aside, the reference to such pasta as "tria" is still a dialect
word for pasta in Sicily and southern Italy today. According to Mary
Taylor Simeti and other food writers, it comes from the Arabic itrjia
(for string). And finding that out cleared up a mystery for me as to
why my grandma occasionally referred to vermicelli or spaghetti as
such.
The general fact that there seems to have been a 12th century pasta
factory near Palermo seems to be undisputed. How the Arab-Sicilians
cooked it and with what, I don't know, but I keep stumbling across a
modern-day recipe for pasta with chickpeas "tria e ceci" most often
attributed to Lecce. Guess where the Muslims who were pushed out of
Sicily were resettled or fled to?
So I offer this modern-day recipe that has very deep roots:
300 grams of tria (typical pasta from Lecce, substitute fresh
vermicelli or fresh ribbon pasta)
2 stalks of celery, chopped
1 white onion
3 cloves garlic (I added this in, the simple version I found doesn't
call for it)
250 grams of dried chickpeas
salt
3 bay leaves
extra-virgin olive oil
Soak the chickpeas with a little baking soda overnight; rinse and
drain. Simmer the chickpeas with the bay leaves, celery, and a little
salt until tender; keep adding water so there is an inch of water over
the chickpeas at all times, you're going for soupy here. Boil the
pasta; drain and set aside. In a large frying pan, fry the finely
minced onion and one clove of garlic, crushed, in the olive oil until
browned. Take the other two cloves, and brown them in another pan with
some oil until browned, then remove. Fry half the pasta in the
garlic-infused oil until crisp. Then add the drained boiled pasta to
the chickpeas (do not drain the chickpeas), mix well, let sit for a few
moments, and top with the fried pasta.
There are variations of this recipe adding crushed red pepper, tomato,
rosemary, and anchovies. It must be made with fresh pasta, however,
otherwise it's just pasta e ceci.
Is there a similar Arab dish? Now I am really curious
Gianotta
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 11:52:01 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magisterat verizon.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Martino Corno's pasta recipe?
To: Christiane <christianetrueat earthlink.net>, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Also sprach Christiane:
> There are variations of this recipe adding crushed red pepper,
> tomato, rosemary, and anchovies. It must be made with fresh pasta,
> however, otherwise it's just pasta e ceci.
>
> Is there a similar Arab dish? Now I am really curious
First look at this:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~westher/recepten/RISHTA.htm
Then see this:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/islamic_wo_veggies.html#8
The second is a period Islamic recipe for rishta: it's a little
different, but there's a recognizable common subtext, I'd say.
Adamantius
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 11:47:28 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From: Christiane <christianetrueat earthlink.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Essay on macaroni origins (Re: Martino Corno's
pasta recipe?)
To: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magisterat verizon.net>, Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Gotta love Clifford A. Wright.
http://www.cliffordawright.com/history/macaroni.html
In it, he cites the medieval Islamic rishta recipe cited in the
Miscellany. Lots of footnotes and historical references to pasta secca
(dried pasta) in medieval records, and references to when hard wheat
was developed and cultivated.
Gianotta
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 10:49:37 -0700
From: lilinahat earthlink.net
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Rishta (was Re: Martino Corno's pasta
recipe?)
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
Christiane <christianetrueat earthlink.net>
> Thank you. Very interesting, I had wondered if there were Middle
> Eastern pasta dishes, and what the period ones were (I had read the
> Miscellany so briefly and so long ago that rishta didn't stick in my
> head).
The book, "Medieval Arab Cookery", published by Prospect Books in
2001, would be of great use to you.
First, there's a substantial essay on Middle Eastern pastas written
by Charles Perry.
Then, in his introduction to the Kitab al-Tibakha, a 15th cookbook
from Damascus that is clearly NOT for the wealthy, but the average
person, Perry notes the "surprising" prominence of pasta dishes.
And, of course, there are quite a number of recipes that include
noodles or pasta in the several cookbooks, translated and published
in their entirety, along with foot notes, in "Medieval Arab Cookery",
not just in the Kitab al-Tibakha. These include, but are not limited
to rishta, itriya, salma, tutmaj, and shushbarak (like ravioli or
capelletti).
I would think that "Medieval Arab Cookery" would be of use to you.
--
Urtatim, formerly Anahita
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 13:29:20 +0000
From: nickiandmeat att.net
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Redaction done this weekend
To: CalontirCooksGuildat yahoogroups.com (Group-CCooks)
Cc: Group-SCACooks <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Libro Novo (Banchetti) by Cristoforo Messisbugo from the 1557 edition
of the Libro Novo printed in Venice as translate by Master Basilius
Phocas (MKA Charles A. Potter)
The following recipe:
51 C TO MAKE TEN PLATTERS OF OBLONG RAVOLI IN THE LOMBARDY STYLE,
FOR A DAY OF MEAT AND FOR LENT
Take Swiss chard well washed, and mince, and you shall fry it in six
ounces of fresh butter, note that it does not take the smoke. And then
when it shall be fried you shall leave it to cool a while, then you
shall put it in a pot with two pounds of good hard cheese well grated,
and four eggs, and four ounces of sugar, a uarter (ounce) of pepper,
and a ounce of cinnamon, and you shall mix everything well together.
Then you shall make your pastry sheet with a small amount of butter and
an egg, and then make your small ravioli long, which you shall cook in
good broth or a day of meat and for a Lenten day in water with butter.
And then when they shall be ready for the banquet, you shall put over
them a pound of good grated cheese, and a quarter (ounce) of pepper,
and three ounces of sugar, blend together everyting.
And then when they shall be ready to set for the banquet you shall
cover them with other plates, and you shall put them over hot ashes, so
that they would stay hot till it is enough that you shall want to send
to table. And note that such likesmall ravioli you with it can serve,
and alone, and for covering capons, ducks, pigeons, and others you
want.
I made two versions of ravoli dough. One was unbleached flour - It
worked fairly smooth, easy to handle, roll out, sealed extremely well.
The other version I used semolina flour mixed with a bit of the
unbleached flour (I ended up adding 2 tables of unbleached flour to the
semolina flour).
The recipe I ended up with was 2 & 1/2 cups flour, 1 egg and 1 egg
white. I cut in four tablespoons of butter and a 1/2 teaspoon of salt
(next time I will increase the salt to the full teaspoon called for in
the recipe.) I also added a tablespoon of water to the semolina batch,
but only a half tablespoon to the unbleached batch.
The semolna batch - was much fussier to work with when trying to make
the ravoli. It tore easily, and just didn't want to seal tightly.
When cooked both batches pretty much looked alike. But the semolina
batch was slightly toothier to eat. I liked it better I don't know
if this because this is how I expect the ravoli noodle to taste or
what. It wasn't chef-boy-r-dee tender.
The filling:
I stopped at a small cheese import store and got some aged provolone,
parmesan, and pedano (a grating cheese).
I bought one bunch of red chard at the grocery store. I chopped the
leaves fine - expecting it to cook down more than it did. It didn't act
like turnip/mustard/spinach greens at all. It held up surprisingly well
during the stir fry/sautee in butter before mixing with the cheese
mixture. I ended up with about 1 & 1/2 cups of the chard mixture.
I used approximately 1/3 cup grated of each cheese. I added 2 eggs,
and 1/2 teaspoon of grated pepper, and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon. And
two tablespoons of turbinado (raw) sugar. Okay flavoring - nothing to
make the taste buds jump.
I daubed the mixture in rounded teaspoons onto the bottom later of
dough, marked between the mixtures with egg wash and laid the top
noodle over it. Then, I pressed between the lumps to help -bond- the
layers of dough together, before I cut the noodles apart.
The ravioli was boiled in strained chicken stock. I strained the
noodles and moved them to serving bowls.
I sprinkled the mixture of cheese/sugar/cinnamon/pepper over the top.
It melted onto the noodles in a pleasing pattern, aroma.
I like the cooked texture of the semolina noodle better. I need to
granulate the sugar finer next time before using it. The flavor was
good but not anything to write hoe about.
Next time I believe I would like to try pecorino romano, pedano, and
some Gorgonzola. I would like the flavor to -pop- a bit more.
I also want to try one of the puff pastries next. Perhaps Thursday
night...
Kateryn de Develyn
Barony of Ceur d'Ennui
Kingdom of Calontir
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 12:49:57 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From: Christiane <christianetrueat earthlink.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Redaction done this weekend
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
Just to let you know, semolina dough needs a lot of working to become
pliable, and as you know already it's tough stuff to knead. The book I
am reading about Sicilian cooking says families who made huge amounts
of pasta (some had businesses going) often worked the dough with their
feet.
Gianotta
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 10:21:58 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magisterat verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Redaction done this weekend
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Also sprach nickiandmeat att.net:
> I made two versions of ravoli dough. One was unbleached flour - It
> worked fairly smooth, easy to handle, roll out, sealed extremely
> well. The other version I used semolina flour mixed with a bit of
> the unbleached flour (I ended up adding 2 tables of unbleached flour
> to the semolina flour).
>
> The recipe I ended up with was 2 & 1/2 cups flour, 1 egg and 1 egg
> white. I cut in four tablespoons of butter and a 1/2 teaspoon of
> salt (next time I will increase the salt to the full teaspoon called
> for in the recipe.) I also added a tablespoon of water to the
> semolina batch, but only a half tablespoon to the unbleached batch.
>
> The semolina batch - was much fussier to work with when trying to
> make the ravoli. It tore easily, and just didn't want to seal
> tightly.
>
> When cooked both batches pretty much looked alike. But the semolina
> batch was slightly toothier to eat. I liked it better. I don't
> know if this because this is how I expect the ravoli noodle to taste
> or what. It wasn't chef-boy-r-dee tender.
My experience has been that semolina pasta doughs benefit from a rest
overnight in the fridge. It's as if you can make a dough and moisten
the granules of meal and get them to stick together in what feels
like a cohesive pasta dough, and sort of behaves like one, but isn't
quite one until the individual granules have time to soften in the
presence of liquid. When cooked, the un-"cured" dough seems to be
kind of coarse and soggy. I won't go any deeper into the science of
it right now; it's just been my observation.
If you knead the dough until it's as smooth and elastic as you can
get, then wrap it up and refrigerate it for a few hours or overnight,
then knead and roll it out again, it seems to behave more like what
we expect from a fine pasta dough.
Adamantius
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 10:19:06 -0400
From: "Mairi Ceilidh" <jjterlouwat earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Redaction done this weekend
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Bravo! I am SO glad to see someone else using Libro Novo. Have you tried
Messisbugo's version of pasta? It is made with bread crumbs in addition to
the normal pasta ingredients. Good stuff, until you have to do it by hand
for a feast for 100.
My experience with semolina versus unbleached flour has been exactly the
opposite of yours. I love semolina and the way it works. Making pasta with
regular flour is a trial to my religion. Of course, that could be affected
by the oppressive humidity we usually live with in North Trimaris.
Please keep us posted on other experiments with recipes from the Libro Novo.
There's a lot of great stuff in there.
Mairi Ceilidh
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 20:06:31 +0000
From: nickiandmeat att.net
Subject: [Sca-cooks] (no subject)
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
David Friedman wrote:
<<I don't see any salt in the recipe you quote above--do you have
another recipe with information on making pasta?
Also (Elizabeth's question) it's odd that the original has butter and
cheese and eggs, but then gives a Lenten alternative for cooking it.
Do we know if Lenten customs in Italy at the time permitted eggs and
dairy?
>>
I added salt because all the modern recipes I referred to in my
research added salt. Not a good reason. I will eliminate the salt
when trying it with the pecorino cheese (which is extremely salty.)
The lenten version of the recipe also cooks the ravoli in water with
butter added. I know very little about the Italian lenten customs.
The area these recipes are from are the northeastern part of Italy
around Venice - almost into the Alps. Perhaps they followed a more
lenient form of fasting/lent?
There is another variation of the recipe given later in the book (given
below). It also directs you to make the ravioli with cheese and eggs and
to boil the ravoili (in lent) in water to which butter has been added.
Kateryn
57 D TO MAKE RAVIOLI FOR A DAY OF MEAT OR LENT FOR TEN PLATTERS
Take silver beet (chard) well washed and cut, and put in a pot with six
pounds of good grated cheese, and two pounds of fresh butter, and eggs
numbering twenty, and a ounce of pepper, and a half-ounce of ginger,
and a ounce of cinnamon, and two (loaves) of grated bread passed
through the sieve, and a half-pound of raisins, and mix everything
together.
And then get a half-pound of white flour spread over a table and with
named mixture you shall make your ravioli, large or small according to
what you shall want, and you shall put them to cook in water, and on a
day of lent with butter and a small amount of saffron in named water,
and you shall make them to cook slowly so that they do not burst.
Then you shall ready for the banquet with good cheese grated over them.
And for a day of meat you shall want to make them cook in good broth
with saffron and raisins in the mixture. And when they are cooked you
shall take cheese, sugar, and cinnamon mixed together, and when you
shall want to ready for the banquet, you shall cast in the platter, on
top and bottom, the cheese.
And when you want to vary, you can make with out silver beet with a
small amount of ricotta (cheese).
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 16:37:29 +0000
From: nickiandmeat att.net
Subject: [Sca-cooks] RE: Further ravoli refinement
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org (Group-SCACooks),
CalontirCooksGuildat yahoogroups.com (Group-CCooks)
51 C TO MAKE TEN PLATTERS OF OBLONG RAVOLI IN THE LOMBARDY STYLE, FOR A
DAY OF MEAT AND FOR LENT
Libro Novo (Banchetti) by Cristoforo Messisbugo
from the 1557 edition of the Libro Novo printed in Venice
translated by Basilius Phocas (MKA Charles A. Potter)
Take Swiss chard well washed, and mince, and you shall fry it in six
ounces of fresh butter, note that it does not take the smoke. And then
when it shall be fried you shall leave it to cool a while, then you
shall put it in a pot with two pounds of good hard cheese well grated,
and four eggs, and four ounces of sugar, a quarter (ounce) of pepper,
and a ounce of cinnamon, and you shall mix everything well together.
Then you shall make your pastry sheet with a small amount of butter
and an egg, and then make your small ravioli long, which you shall cook
in good broth for a day of meat and for a Lenten day in water with
butter. And then when they shall be ready for the banquet, you shall
put over them a pound of good grated cheese, and a quarter (ounce) of
pepper, and three ounces of sugar, blend together everything.
And then when they shall be ready to set for the banquet you shall
cover them with other plates, and you shall put them over hot ashes, so
that they would stay hot till it is enough that you shall want to send
to table. And note that such like small ravioli you with it can serve,
and alone, and for covering capons, ducks, pigeons, and others you
want.
Okay, this time I tried a different cheese, and a different sugar also.
Final recipe ends up resembling the following:
Filling:
1 bunch swiss chard (minced or finely chopped) This comes to approx 1
& 1/2 to 2 cups.
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 tablespoon grated pepper
1/4 pound grated pecorino tuscano (a slightly salty cheese - but not
as salty as pecorino romano)
1/4 pound grated Grana Padano (plain Italian hard cheese for grating)
3 eggs
4 tablespoons sugar (raw or muscavo)
Dough:
3 cups semolina flour
1 cup unbleached wheat flour
4 eggs
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup water
butter - 4 tablespoons (softened)
1 beaten egg (for sealing)
1 gallon boiling chicken broth - can substitute water and 1 stick butter
Mix dough up and allow to sit in refrigerator while mixing up filling.
Mix grated cheeses, sugar, pepper and cinnamon together. Remove 1/2
cup of this mixture and set it aside (to be used for topping later).
Add swiss chard and eggs to main mixture and thoroughly incorporate the
eggs and swiss chard with the cheese and spice mixture.
Remove a quarter of the dough from the refrigerator. Roll out as
thinly and as rectangularly as possible. Take a beaten egg and brush
onto 1 / 2 the dough. Daub rounded teaspoons of the cheese/chard
mixture onto the egg-brushed side of the dough at regular intervals
about an inch apart. Fold the non-egg brushed side of the dough over
the top. Tamp down gently between the mounds of filling. Use a
cutting utensil of your choice to cut and seal the individual squares
of ravoli.
Set aside and repeat with another quarter of the dough. Repeat until
all dough and filling is used up.
Drop a handful of the ravoli squares into the boiling broth one at a
time. They will float when they are almost done cooking. Cook for
another 2 - 3 minutes after they begin to float. Remove and strain.
Cook small batches so that the ravoli do not stick together. Sprinkle
with the reserved cheese and spice mixture just before serving.
NOTES: I used the pecorino and that made a tremendous flavor
difference in the set I did with raw/turbinado sugar. The set I did
with the muscovo sugar - the actual flavor of the sugar tended to
overwhelm the flavor of the cheese - but was very tasty nonetheless.
I had to process the raw sugar though my processor to grind it finer
otherwise I had gritty textured (after cooking no less) ravoli filling.
Further observations - I have some of the uncooked ravioli in the
freezer as well as the cooked to test out freezing/making ahead for
feasts possibilities. I'll let you all know how that turns out.
Kateryn de Develyn
writing this day from the Barony of Coeur d'Ennui in the Kingdom of
Calontir
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 05:15:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: Louise Smithson <helewyseat yaoo.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] sugar and flour in 16th c Italy (was the thread
on pasta)
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
I had to get involved in this thread. The interesting thing is that the
posted redactions are accurate to the recipes. However, the choice of
brown sugar and semolina are ones I would not have made based on my
understanding of both the sugar trade in Italy and both the current production of home-made pastas in Italy and recipes from various 16th
and early 17th century manuscripts.
On sugar: by the 16th century Venice was the center of the sugar trade
for all of Italy. They had extensive processing facilities both in
Venice and in Sardinia. Sugar cane was actually grown in Corsica too.
They were using the sugar to make trionfi. Incredible works of boiled
sugar. What was prized was white sugar, clean sugar and what was often
referred to as fine sugar. The recipes all refer to it as a white
food. They had mastered the art of producing sugar without molasses in
it. Sugar with molasses will not work to make sugar paste, it just
won't set, neither can you get it to candy properly to make confits.
There may have been lower grades of sugar but a high class household,
one serving food to nobility would pride itself on serving the whitest
(and therefore healthiest) foods. So consequently the appropriate
choice for sugar in most if not all 16th century recipes is actually
pure white cane sugar. There are also a lot of posts on this on the
florilegium.
www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-SWEETS/sugar-sources-msg.html
www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-SWEETS/sugar-msg.html
Flour in pasta: interestingly enough very little of the pasta made at
home by Italians is made from Semolina flour. I lived there and I
don't remember it ever being used once. In Giuliano Buglialli's book
"Classic techniques of Italian cooking" he gives 6 recipes for pasta
used commonly in Italy, only one has semolina. The remainder are made
with common or garden all purpose flour. In Italy today the flour used
is commonly Farina typo O, which is still a low protein flour (compared
to a hard wheat durham). It is mostly the dried commercial pasta which
is made with Durham wheat. If you look at the pasta recipes from 16th
century sources what they call for mostly is fior di farina, which the
flower of flour. Or the finest, whitest, most bolted wheat. When you
cook i it will have a softer consistency than al dente pasta made with
semolina. But considering that some of the early pasta recipes call
for the pasta to be cooked for 30 minutes and more, al dente may not be
a!
desired
texture.
> From Scappi: habiasi uno sfoglio di pasta alquanto sottile, fatto di
> fior di farina, acqua di rose, sale, butiro, zuccaro, & acqua tepida,
Have a sheet of pasta that is relatively thin, made from flour, rose
water, salt, butter, sugar and warm water
> From Giovnni del Turco (1636). Epulario e Segreti vari.
Si piglia fiore de farina, dua ova et sale secondo la quantità che ne
vorrai fare e si fa pasta con aqqua fredda bene dimenata e distendila
sottile.
One takes flour, two eggs and salt, dependent on the quntity that you
want to make, and one makes the pasta with cold water, knead it well
and stretch it out (roll it out) to a subtle (thin) sheet.
> From Messisbugo:
poi farai la pasta con farina, e zaffrano, e un'uovo, e farai le
spoglie ben sottili
Ten make the pastry with flour, saffron and an egg, and make a sheet
that is nice and thin
Helewyse
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 12:34:26 -0400
From: Johna Holloway <johnnaat sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Cacciocavallo with pasta?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Christiane wrote:
> In the north of Italy, where the Lombard ravioli recipe is from, was
> it more common in period to use soft wheat for pasta-making instead of
> hard wheat? I've found a very few modern references that say soft
> wheat is common today in homemade pasta-making in the north of Italy,
> but those are modern references.
>
> Gianotta
Most of your questions could probably be answered with
reading Pasta. The Story of a Universal Food
by Serventi and Sabban. Read the text and then check out the
footnotes. It was translated and published
in English in 2003 by Columbia University Pres.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/023112/0231124422.HTM
You could read the original Italian edition, if you want.
It's a really good source for all things pasta.
Johnnae
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 17:52:19 -0400
From: Barbara Benson <voxeightat gmail.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Pasta Experiment (long)
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Greetings,
I am working on a new feast with a realitively close turnaround. Right
now I am in research mode. This is an unusual situation for me in that
it is a region and time period where there are no culinary
manuscripts. By preference I tend to stick very late period and work
with existant manuscripts.
Because someone else selected the theme or this feast I find myself
in unfamiliar waters. Specifically Norman Sicily at the end of the
reign of Roger II. One of the texts I have been reading for clues as
to what to serve is "Pasta" by Serventi and Sabban. It states that
Sicily during the 12th ad 13th centuries was the primary exporter of
Dried Pasta. So I thought that would be a logical foodstuff to serve.
So, further in the text they discuss the different manuscripts that
have directions for preparing the pasta. Apparently the general
Medieva/Rennisance concensus is that pasta, dried or fresh, needed to
be cooked for between 30 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. And the concept of al
Dente is decidedly OOP.
So, today I abused some pasta. The only thing that I keep in my house
is Whole Wheat Pasta, so I do not know how that imitates possible
period pasta - it might hold up better than others. I used fettucini
because that is what I had.
I put a pot of salted water on to boil and tossed the pasta in (I did
not wait for the boil) and set the timer for 30minutes. Considering
that these same recipes usually call for boiling the pasta in fatty
broth or almond milk I decided that the - gallon of water per pound of
pasta - concept is most likely modern also. I had enough water in the
pot for the pasta to swim a bit, but no more than 3/4 inch headroom.
Stirring occasionally I removed some pasta at 30 min to try it out.
Suprisingly it still had some body and did not tend to fall apart as I
assumed it would. By no stretch of the imagination was it "al Dente"
but it had some tooth resistance.
I kept the pot going for another 30 minutes to see what would happen.
I stirred occasionally and had to add more water to prevent the pasta
from becoming un-submerged. After the second 30 min I removed
additional pasta for taste testing. This pasta provided no tooth
resistance, but you could pick a single piece up with tongs without it
falling completely apart. The noodles had a silky mouth feel but
retained their noodle shape.
Pushing on to the third 30 minutes I started t see some significant
changes. I had to add more water because much of it was boiling off
and being absorbed. About 5 - 10 minutes past the 1st hour I started
to see a skin forming on the surface of the water. I stirred it back
in. After a little while longer there started to be clumps of starch
forming in the water independantly of the noodles. I allowed it to go
for the final 30 minutes until the water had boiled down until the
noodles were almost exposed.
The taste test on this was significantly different. It was almost
impossible to pick up a single piece of pasta with tongs, they just
fell apart. But strangely they maintained their identity as noodles.
They fell apart into small noodle chunks, but they did not turn into
bowl of mush as I had thought they might. The mouth feel was even
softer than before, with the starch being a definite prescence.
I saved the pasta water to see what had happened. I walked away and
when I returned a skin of gelatinous stuff had formed on the top (like
pudding). I stirred it in with my fingers and the water itself was
goopy. Lots of starch.
So, I just went to the market and purchased regular old linguini and
will repeat my experiment with the different pasta. I have no idea
what, if anything, will be different.
If anyone else has experimented with this I would love to hear your
results. Also, if anyone has any suggestions as to places I might look
to find more info on the Cuisine of Norman Sicily I would love to hear
it. I will append a list of books I am currently woking with.
Glad Tidings,
--Serena da Riva
books I am reading for Norman Sicily inspiration:
Pomp and Sustanance - 25 Years of Sicilian Cooking - Simeti
Pasta- Serventi and Sabban
Celebrating Italy - Field
The Norman Kingdom of Sicily - Matthew
Roman Cooery - Grant
Taste of Ancient Rome - Giacosa
A Book of Middle Eastern Food - Roden
The Anon Andalusian Cookbook
Siren Feasts - Dalby
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 09:39:35 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From: Christiane <christianetrueat earthlink.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Pasta experiment (long)
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
Because someone else selected the theme for this feast I find myself
in unfamiliar waters. Specifically Norman Sicily at the end of the
reign of Roger II. One of the texts I have been reading for clues as
to what to serve is "Pasta" by Serventi and Sabban. It states that
Sicily during the 12th and 13th centuries was the primary exporter of
Dried Pasta. So I thought that would be a logical foodstuff to serve.
So, further in the text they discuss the different manuscripts that
have directions for preparing the pasta. Apparently the general
Medieval/Rennisance concensus is that pasta, dried or fresh, needed to
be cooked for between 30 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. And the concept of al
Dente is decidedly OOP.
=============================================================
Al dente may not be as OOP as you think.
I have, myself, cooked dried pasta for at least half an hour, in broth
or a broth-like sauce. The key was a very low heat that produced an
extremely gentle simmer. Done right, you don't even have to add liquid
to it. Yes, the liquid in the pan will reduce, but that's the idea
anyway.
Americans tend to boil the hell out of their pasta, I've been told. The
way my aunts and my grandmother cooked pasta, and the way I've been
doing it, is bring the water to a boil, add the pasta, boil for a
minute, and then turn the heat way down and let it barely simmer for 25
minutes. Sure, it takes longer, but I have never overcooked my pasta in
this fashion. Some folks will boil the water, add the pasta, boil for
longer (5 minutes), and then shut off the heat and let the pasta sit in
the extremely hot water for awhile. The pasta turns al dente and the
cook can turn her attention to other matters without worrying about the
pasta boiling over.
I have never done open-hearth cooking, but I would imagine boiling in
this fashion would be similar to swinging the hook to put the pot over
the fire, and then swinging it away from most of the heat. I would also
think this is a more efficient use of limited hearth space and fuel.
It's tricks like these that the recipe books don't tell us, because
every cook then knew these things.
Oh, BTW, the most notable Norman contribution to Sicilian cooking is
salt cod. I personally think this is why Roger kept the Muslim cooks
around. Unfortunately some Sicilian-American families are still
subjecting their families to baccala on Christmas Eve to this very day.
I pity them, unless they of course love baccala, then I can only be
puzzled.
For your dayboard, if you have one, please do think about the chicken
baked in bread recipe that came from the emir of Catania.
Gianotta
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 12:03:38 -0400
From: Barbara Benson <voxeightat gmail.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re Pasta Experiment Update
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
On 6/14/05, Vladimir Armbruster <vladimir_armbrusterat hotmail.com> wrote:
> Keep us informed as to the futures of this, this missive was a very
> interesting read!
Greetings,
OK, an update. I went out and purchased standard semolina based pasta
as opposed to the whole wheat and repeated my experiment. The results
were not exactly what I expected. I began with linguine of between 1/8
and 1/4 inch wide.
The results at 30 minutes were almost identical. More "tooth" than I
expected, but not too sticky. When I was about 10 - 15 minutes past
the 30 min mark I began seeing "free range gluten" and a skin forming
as opposed to this occurring between 1 and 1 1/2 hours with the whole
wheat. But the texture at 1 hr was very similar to the 1 hr mark with
the whole wheat, only not as grainy. In the whole wheat you could
definitely tell there were larger bits of wheat in there with the
grainy texture among the silky feeling pasta. With the regular pasta
it was just silky with some slimy just for fun.
If you had just come in after an hour and a half and looked in my pot
you would swear that I was cooking Japanese Udon style noodles. The
noodles had puffed up to 3 times the original size and were snowy
white. And this is where I had my big surprise. They were fall apart
tender, but not so much as the whole wheat noodles were. They had a
lovely silky feel in the mouth and the weight of long noodles would
make them fall apart if lifted.
Again I saved the pasta water and again it gelatanized. (sp?). One
thing I did differently was that I left all of the pasta in the
strainer over the sink and then went out to eat. I wanted to see what
it did when it cooled. I expected what my hubby affecionately calls
"block o' starch" but that is not what happened. After a couple of
hours I was still able to toss the noodles and they did not stick to
each other particularly badly. They did stick, but it was not
difficult to separate them. Of course the noodles that were on the
surface of the mound had hardened and dried out, but the rest were not
in bad shape.
The other difference was that I had my husband home to taste the
process. He did not mind the 30 minute version, said it was a bit soft
but no problem. He really did not like the 1 hour version. He has
major texture issues with the elbow macaroni that you typically get
with macaroni and cheese and he said it reminded him of that. But
surprisingly he did not mind the 1 1/2 hour version. I believe it got
beyond that point of slimy and that is what bothered the hubby.
So, that's the scoop. Next step is to figure out what to serve it with
and how that works.
Glad Tidings,
Serena da Riva
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 13:49:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshavat yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Manti
To: Christiane <christianetrueat earthlink.net>, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Not by that name. There is a similar Persian dish called "joshparag",
which is a meat ravioli
cooked in yoghury and triangular in shape, but two arms of the triangle
are twisted together.
Charles Perry doesn't mention manti as a relative. He does link it to
Turkish meat pie called
"borek" and to a Russian meat ravioli "pelmeni".
As for "Medieval Arab Cookery", Amazon wants $60 for the book.
Hopefully, you have another $35 +
s/h gift certificate?
Huette
--- Christiane <christianetrueat earthlink.net> wrote:
> Last night, we went to the other Turkish restaurant for dinner. My
> husband stuck with doner
> kebab, but I tried manti, a Turkish meat-filled ravioli. I am now
> hooked.
>
> The ravioli were small, triangular, and homemade, with a perfect pasta
> covering surrounding
> delicately spiced ground meat. They came bathed in a sauce of yogurt,
> garlic, and cayenne pepper
> with a little butter. Maybe a touch of sour cream. No tomato.
>
> So, I went looking online today for manti references, and one I pulled
> up was a reference from
> "Serving the Guest: a Sufi Cookbook and Art Gallery." The reference
> said manti were one of the
> most ancient dishes in Turkic cuisine. How ancient, I don't know. Does
> "Medieval Arab Cookery"
> make mention of them? (by the end of July this book should be mine,
> mine, mine, I have a $25
> gift certificate to Amazon.com).
>
> Gianotta
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 16:14:48 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From: Christiane <christianetrueat earthlink.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Manti
To: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshavat yahoo.com>, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
Not by that name. There is a similar Persian dish called "joshparag",
which is a meat ravioli
cooked in yoghury and triangular in shape, but two arms of the triangle
are twisted together.
Charles Perry doesn't mention manti as a relative. He does link it to
Turkish meat pie called
"borek" and to a Russian meat ravioli "pelmeni".
---------This was definitely not pie-like. I've been looking for manti
recipes on the Web; the ravioli are cooked separately and then covered
with the yogurt sauce. Found out that manti are called in modern Turkey
are called "Tatar bregi" or "boerek of the Tatars." Manti were said to
have originated in central Asia; I found some Uzbek references to them.
Gianotta
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 22:57:53 -0400
From: ranvaigat columbus.rr.com
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Manti
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
> Not by that name. There is a similar Persian dish called
> "joshparag", which is a meat ravioli
> cooked in yoghury and triangular in shape, but two arms of the
> triangle are twisted together.
> Charles Perry doesn't mention manti as a relative. He does link it
> to Turkish meat pie called
> "borek" and to a Russian meat ravioli "pelmeni".
Josh means goat or mutton or meat in Indian cooking, and I would
guess that it means the same in Persian. Parag sounds a lot like
Pierogi, which is a Polish filled dumpling or pastry. Filling
wrapped with pasta and boiled or pastry and fried. So Joshparag
could mean meat dumpling.. basically a meat ravioli.
---------This was definitely not pie-like.
Borek or bric are a filling wrapped with flaky pastry or these days
filo and either baked or fried. Some are appetizer size, some are a
handheld meal, some are a pie.
Ranvaig
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 11:33:54 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magisterat verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Manti
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
On Jun 24, 2005, at 10:57 PM, ranvaigat columbus.rr.com wrote:
>> Not by that name. There is a similar Persian dish called
>> "joshparag", which is a meat ravioli
>> cooked in yoghury and triangular in shape, but two arms of the
>> triangle are twisted together.
>> Charles Perry doesn't mention manti as a relative. He does link
>> it to Turkish meat pie called
>> "borek" and to a Russian meat ravioli "pelmeni".
>
> Josh means goat or mutton or meat in Indian cooking, and I would
> guess that it means the same in Persian. Parag sounds a lot like
> Pierogi, which is a Polish filled dumpling or pastry. Filling
> wrapped with pasta and boiled or pastry and fried. So Joshparag
> could mean meat dumpling.. basically a meat ravioli.
>
> ---------This was definitely not pie-like.
>
> Borek or bric are a filling wrapped with flaky pastry or these days
> filo and either baked or fried. Some are appetizer size, some are
> a handheld meal, some are a pie.
>
> Ranvaig
I STR there being a recipe for shushbarrak (see joshparag above) in
al-Baghdadi, and the dish is still made in virtually the same way in
parts of North Africa and, presumably, still in parts of the Middle
East. I know I've seen it in modern cookbooks: sometimes the
frequently-used garlic-mint-yogurt sauce is a raw combination, or it
can be a yogurt-based "white sauce" stabilized with some kind of meal
or starch. It seems likely kishik (sp?) might occasionally (or
frequently) be used, that dried, powdered yogurt-bulgur mixture.
Because of the starch, it can be brought to a boil without fear of
curdling.
As mentioned elsewhere, the dough is pretty much a standard eggless
pasta, rolled out thin ("like cut tutmaj"), and filled like ravioli,
agnolotti, etc., and boiled, not baked. I think the identifying
characteristic common to all of these dishes people have been
discussing is the fact that the food is wrapped in dough.
Adamantius
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 09:56:25 -0700 (PDT)
From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshavat yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Manti
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
This is from "Medieval Arab Cookery", page 254, third paragraph:
"The word was 'joshparag'[there is a line over the o that I cannot reproduce], from 'josh', the root of the verb 'to boil', and an uncertain second element whigh may be related to 'parcha', 'piece'. The obscurity of the derivation had been felt even by Iranians, because the word had been altered to 'gush-e barreh', 'lamb's ear'. In Arabic, the word has also been altered by folk
etymology to 'shushbarak' or 'shishbarak', as if connected with the words for skewer and the small Turkish meat pie 'borek'."
Sometimes reading too quickly is a dangerous thing. Charles Perry didn't say that it was connected to borek. I misread what he wrote. Sorry.
Huette
Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2005 12:57:21 -0700
From: lilinahat earthlink.net
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] paella
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
Cealian Of Moray wrote:
> I tend to believe noodles would have been a more modern adaptation. Less
> likely to be period then say rice or peas, beans. Not sure how fast noodles
> would have spread form Italy into the Iberian peninsula.
Why would noodles have to come to the Iberian peninsula from Italy?
The Muslim arrived in the Iberian Peninsula in 711. There's a long
history of noodles in Islamic cuisine, both long and short noodles.
And the non-Muslim Iberians could learn from the Muslims, since there
was a great deal of cultural sharing and intermarriage.
As for noodles in Italy, there are some recipes that suggest that the
Romans had some noodly dishes, using short pasta bits. Since the
Romans had long been in the Iberian Peninsula before the Fall of
Rome, it's conceivable that short pasta bits came to Iberia that way.
--
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2005 11:43:48 -0400
From: Cindy Renfrow <cindyat thousandeggs.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Fwd: History of pasta
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
Hello! I thought some of you might enjoy this:
> One site on gastronomy : www.histoiredepates.net with an original text
> of Liliane Plouvier. History of pasta from Babylonne to XXI° century.
> Old receipes. For the moment the site is only in french.
Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 12:11:30 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnaat sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Pasta, noodles, mush and [Sca-cooks] Apicius' polenta
recipe
To: grizlyat mindspring.com, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
You might want to loan in or buy a copy of
Pasta The Story of a Universal Food by
Silvano Serventi and Françoise Sabban
Translated by Antony Shugaar
Columbia University Press.
It's an academic text goes into pasta in the west and the east.
Less than $20 now on Amazon.
Johnnae
Nick Sasso wrote:
> You make a good food archeology point here. snipped
> This is a fascinating line of thought for me in running through the rampant
> variation on boiled semolina/grain (course to fine) that turns variously
> into sheet pasta, extruded and shaped pastas, dumplings and puddings of
> sort.
>
> niccolo difrancesco
> (a fervent devotee to the simple elegance of pasta as food and
> palette for art)
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 07:59:17 -0800
From: "Nick Sasso" <grizlyat mindspring.com>
Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Sheet Pasta for Ravioli
To: "'Kerri Martinsen'" <kerrimartat mindspring.com>, "'Cooks within the
SCA'" <sca-cooksat ansteorra.org>
If you can get access to USFoodservice supplier through a friend who has a
restaurant or other account with them, their Roseli brand label has sheet
pasta for about $16 for 10 pounds (40 sheets). They are 8" x 10.5" to fit
half size pans, and hold well frozen for months. Lasagna was never so easy!
They are simple to use, and the texture and taste is very good. I assume
Sysco and other foodservice companies have something similar.
The companies down here will actually set up accounts for SCA groups, so it
could be worth looking into. You'd have to get the order through your
group, and probably have to go pick it up. Not a simple thing like going to
the grocery mega-mart, but a quality product in case others are
interested.
niccolo difrancesco
> I am making squash ravioli for a feast in January and have a
> question: To save time/labor it was suggested to use wonton
> wrappers as the pasta for the ravioli. Well I tried that and
> didn't like it. The texture was just wrong.
>
> anyone have a suggestion for me for A)a decent pre-made
> pasta for ravioli B) where I could get same, or C) any clues
> on making pasta by hand.
>
> Vitha
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 09:54:07 -0400
From: "grizly" <grizlyat mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Early morning craving...
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooksat lists.ansteorra.org>
-----Original Message-----
> And some boring fettucine, too. A little gorgonzola, and it
> becomes a gnocchi sauce. Some sheeted pastred, spinach and
> feta, and you get spinach lasagna ala bechamella (technically
> ala alfredo).
>
> niccolo pizza difrancesco
> (see? Pizza really is my middle name)
Gnocchi. He wrote "gnocchi". Niccolo, yer a dangerous man.
And me having just eaten breakfast, too... > > > > >
You just THOUGHT I was dangerous:
http://franiccolo.home.mindspring.com/se_vuoi_gnocchi.htm
Se vuoi I gnocchi: Togli lo cascio fresco e pestalo: poscia togli la farina
et intridi con tuorla d'uova a modo di magliacci. Poni il paiuolo al fuoco
con acqua e quando bolle, poni lo triso in su in uno taglieri, fallo andare
colla cazza nel paiuolo, e quando, sono, cotti, poni sopra li taglieri e
getta su assai cacio grattugiato.
If you want some Gnocchi, take some fresh cheese and mash it, then take some
flour and mix it with egg yolks as in making magliacci. Put a pot full of
water on the fire and, when it begins to boil, put the mixture in a dish and
drop into the pot with a ladle. And when they are cooked, place them on
dishes and sprinkle with plenty of grated cheese.
Niccolo's Recipe
serves 6 to 8
1 pound cream cheese
2 cups flour as needed
salt to taste
6 egg yolks
6 to 8 tablespoons grated cheese
pepper to taste
Beat cream cheese into a creamy paste (a stand mixer does this very well).
If it is too stiff, then push it through a ricer, food mill or sieve.
Completely mix in the flour using your hands or paddle on your mixer. Salt
and pepper to taste and add in the egg yolks one by one. Mix well before
adding next yolk.
For accurate portion control: Gently but firmly knead the dough until it is
supple and smooth and no longer overly soft. Chill for at least 2 hours in
refrigerator to let rest and hydrate. Cut into 4 equal pieces and roll with
your hands into a "rope" about the diameter of your index thumb. Cut off
dumplings every half inch and set aside in a single layer.
* * * For a more accurate preparation, place the whole glob of dough on a
plate and use a teaspoon to drop small dumplings directly into the water * * *
Bring large pot of water to boil. Salt so that it is almost the taste of sea
water. Drop a bunch of the dumplings (do not crowd the pan) into the water
and allow the dumplings to simmer until they rise to the surface. Cook for
45 to 60 seconds more. Remove with a skimmer and drain well.
Sprinkle liberally with grated cheese and serve immediately. These can hold
for 30 to 45 minutes in a warm pan in a single layer, but will decline in
quality and get gummy as they sit longer.
ORIGINAL TEXT & TRANSLATION
Frammento du un libro di cucina del sec. XIV by Olindo Guerrini as
found in The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy, by
Odile Redon et al.
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 10:23:57 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magisterat verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Early morning craving...
To: grizlyat mindspring.com, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooksat lists.ansteorra.org>
On Aug 7, 2006, at 9:54 AM, grizly wrote:
> For accurate portion control: Gently but firmly knead the dough until it is
> supple and smooth and no longer overly soft. Chill for at least 2 hours in
> refrigerator to let rest and hydrate. Cut into 4 equal pieces and roll with
> your hands into a "rope" about the diameter of your index thumb. Cut off
> dumplings every half inch and set aside in a single layer.
> * * * For a more accurate preparation, place the whole glob of dough on a
> plate and use a teaspoon to drop small dumplings directly into the
> water * *
I STR being the poor slob who made the goat-cheese-and-semolina
gnocchi at la Colombe d'Or for one summer, and for speed and
uniformity what we did was pipe them in long lines through a half-
inch pastry tube onto parchment-lined sheet pans, chilled them, and
then cut them with a bench knife and rolled the pieces in more semolina.
Adamantius
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 21:30:00 +1300
From: Adele de Maisieres <ladyadeleat paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Is couscous Medieval?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat lists.ansteorra.org>
Pat Griffin wrote:
> I was under the impression that while couscous could have been made during
> our period of interest, that we have no documentation to that fact. The
> question has come up on (of all things) the medieval encampments list, and
> set me to wondering. Can one of my dear friends tell me what the
> earliest reference seems to be?
I think it's mentioned in the anonymous Andalusian cookbook of the 14th
century.
http://daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/
andalusian_contents.htm
--
Adele de Maisieres
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 08:06:52 +0100
From: Volker Bach <carlton_bachat yahoo.de>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Is couscous Medieval?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat lists.ansteorra.org>
Am Donnerstag, 25. Januar 2007 08:27 schrieb Pat Griffin:
> I was under the impression that while couscous could have been made during
> our period of interest, that we have no documentation to that fact. The
> question has come up on (of all things) the medieval encampments list, and
> set me to wondering. Can one of my dear friends tell me what the
> earliest reference seems to be?
Perry discusses this in his essay 'Couscous and its cousins' (found in
Medieval Arab Cookery pp. 233-238). He believes it was invented in North
Africa around the 11th-13th century. It was certainly established, though
possibly still quite new, in the fifteenth and known in the fourteenth.
Giano
Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 10:43:55 -0500
From: "Pat Griffin" <ldyanneduboscat yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Mac & Cheese OOP
To: <ringofkingsat mindspring.com>, "'Cooks within the SCA'"
<sca-cooksat lists.ansteorra.org>
> Certainly your posted recipe is OOP (though quite yummy), but Mac
> & Cheese OOP? Naw. I have a period reference for Macrows circa
> 1390 that was served at the Court of Richard II. Anyone else
> found any period Mac & Cheese since I posed this question to the
> list several years ago?
> Akim Yaroslavich
> From THE FORME OF CURY,
A ROLL OF ANCIENT ENGLISH COOKERY.
Compiled, about A.D. 1390, by the Master-Cooks of King RICHARD II,:
MACROWS [1]. XX.IIII. XII.
Take and make a thynne foyle of dowh. and kerve it on peces, and cast
hem on boillyng water & see? it wele. take chese and grate it and
butter cast bynethen and above as losyns. and serue forth.
And
Para hazer macarrones, vulgarmente llamados fideos -- To make macaroni,
vulgarly called "fideos"
Source: Granado, 1599
Translation: Brighid ni Chiarain (Robin Carroll-Mann
Take two pounds of flour, and one pound of grated white bread passed
through the colander, and knead it with fat broth that
is boiling, or with water, adding four beaten egg yolks to mix with the
dough, and when the dough is made, in such a manner
that it is not very hard, nor too soft, but that it has its
perfection, and sprinkle both [sides of] the cheese grater with
the best of the flour, and put the paste upon the grater, and make the
fideos, and not having a grater make them upon a
board, drawing the fideos [the length of] three fingers thinly, and
put the least flour that you can, so that they remain
more tender, and have a care that you do not feed it again, in such a
manner that it becomes too soft or liquid, and when
they are made let them rest a little while, and then make them cook
in fat broth that boils, or in water in a wide vessel,
and when they are cooked, fit them on plates with grated cheese, and
with fresh buffalo cheese (which in Italy is called
probatura) which is not very salty, also grated, and with sugar, and
cinnamon, and morsels of fresh cow's butter upon the
plates, in turn, the one and the other, and let it baste on the plate
over the hot ashes.
Brighid
Lady Anne du Bosc
Known as Mordonna The Cook
Shire of Thorngill, Kingdom of Meridies
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 05:17:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Louise Smithson <helewyseat yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] good herbs
To: sca-cooksat ansteorra.org
De and Ranvaig wanted to know why I didn't want to use semolina flour
for making the pasta -
Essentially it is for reasons of both historical accuracy and ease of
use. The use of semolina or Durum wheat for pasta making really came
into use with the mechanization and commercialization of dried
pasta. Standard white flour does not make good dried pasta, durum
wheat does. The recipes in the medieval cookbooks use exactly the
same word (fine white flour or fine flour i.e. fior di farina bianca
or fior di farina) for the flour used in the pasta recipes as the
ones in the pastry, biscotti, and other recipes. This is especially
true for Scappi who throughout his book is very specific about his
ingredients (this doesn't mean that it is also true for the writers
of the anonymous venetian). Added to this the fact that in Italy
today it is very very unusual for home made fresh pasta to be made of
anything other than farina tipo 00 (which if anything is softer than
our AP flour, and white). It is not proof merely circumstantial evidence that leads me to the understanding that plain old AP flour is all you need. I
have also made pasta on many occasions with AP flour and it works
just fine, the starch gelatinizes on contact with water and the pasta
holds together just fine.
Mistress Rachaol of the Midrealm did some research into the best
approximation of period flours in Italy a few years ago, I'll ping
her and see what will come up (it may also be in the archives of this
very list).
For more takes on medieval pasta and lasagna see:
http://www.geocities.com/helewyse/stuffedpasta.html and
http://www.geocities.com/helewyse/lasagna.html
Helewyse
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 15:21:48 -0500
From: "Martha Oser" <osermartat msu.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cannoli Tubes/Forms
To: sca-cooksat lists.ansteorra.org
> would anyone on the e-mail list have tried using wood dowels
> to form cannolis? would anyone on the e-mail list have tried
> to make aluminum cannoli tubes/forms?
>
> the reason for making them is i have supplies on hand to make
> the cannoli tubes, i am just wondering if the additional time
> and effort to make the aluminum cannoli tubes/forms is worth it.
> --
> terry l. ridder ><>
I have tried making a fried shell for a similar purpose, using both wooden
dowels and metal forms. The wooden dowels will work, but the wood will
start to cook and darken at the ends where it sticks out from the dough
after a while. This will eventually affect the life of your cooking
oil and the flavor of the finished product.
Also, I found that the fried product was kind of hard to remove from the
wood as it tended to stick a little. I think the rougher texture of the
wood let the dough grab on more. Getting the fried shells off the metal
forms was infinitely easier! I'd definitely recommend using metal over
wood, and also just buying a set of metal forms rather than spending time
and effort making your own. They're cheap enough that it's worth it
not to waste the time.
I think I bought a set of 4 small forms (they come in two sizes) from
this outfit:
http://www.fantes.com/cannoli.htm
Notice that they also have cone-shaped molds for making cream horn
shells.
There are also a variety of options available on Amazon.com. Just do a
Google search for "cannoli forms" and see what comes up.
Helena
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 15:31:00 -0500
From: Gretchen Beck <grmat andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] cannoli tubes/forms
To: "terry l. ridder" <terrylrat blauedonau.com>, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooksat lists.ansteorra.org>
I've not tried cannoli making myself, but this site says that you can
make cannoli forms from broomstick handles. Also, there's a wonderful
description of being a kid and having to eat through the entire Italian
holiday meal to get to the cannoli.
<http://www.kqed.org/weblog/food/2006/11/hold-pie-pass-cannoli.jsp>;
toodles, margaret
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:23:51 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] question
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooksat lists.ansteorra.org>
On Jul 24, 2008, at 12:25 PM, Marcha wrote:
<<< Is couscous period? Inquiring mind needs to know
Bertha >>>
Apparently, yes. I'm not sure of the source off the top of my head,
but I vaguely recall a recipe for something like kusqussu, which
involved moistening semolina and rolling little pellets of the
resultant paste between the palms, drying them and steaming them
later...
Adamantius
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:57:17 -0400
From: "Elaine Koogler" <kiridonoat gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] question
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooksat lists.ansteorra.org>
On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 12:25 PM, Marcha <nigsdaughterat satx.rr.com> wrote:
<<< Is couscous period? Inquiring mind needs to know
Bertha >>>
Definitely period in the Middle East. In fact, Charles Perry wrote an essay
on the subject and included it in the "Medieval Arabic Recipes" book.
Kiri
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:03:23 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
From: Christiane <christianetrueat earthlink.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Angel's food and cannoli
To: sca-cooksat lists.ansteorra.org
The discussion about angel's food makes me wonder if the Catalan recipe for angel's food came from Sicily after the Aragonese got the Sicilian crown after the Vespers (1282); there were quite a few Aragonese and Catalan on the island after that, knights and merchants alike, and a lot of trade back and forth.
Or if the Sicilians got the idea of stuffing the cannoli with angel's food from the Catalan. Because the basic Sicilian cannoli filling recipe even today is fresh sheep's milk ricotta, sugar, and orange flower water (the addition of the candied fruit and chocolate seems to have come during Baroque times, as well as the use of vanilla, but ricotta-cream-filled cannoli themselves have been traced to Arab times). Some cooks sniff at the addition of bittersweet chocolate, saying it's a crutch, and like to use pistachios instead.
Either way, angel's food is a way to enjoy basic cannoli filling without fiddling with the shells! (And I can understand that; a kid, I would scrape out all of the filling from my cannoli and eat it with a spoon and broken-up pieces of the cannoli shell.)
Giannotta
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:50:11 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] So You Think You Know Pasta from NYT
Interesting article on pasta and the new book on pasta
in today's NYT "So You Think You Know Pasta".
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/dining/14ency.html?_r=1&;ref=dining
The book is Encyclopedia of Pasta and it's a cool reference tool for
those like pasta.
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/11106.php
Johnnae
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:27:26 +1300
From: Antonia Calvo <ladyadele at paradise.net.nz>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Roman noodles etc.
Stefan li Rous wrote:
<<< what is your recipe for "Roman noodles"? >>>
It's in Platina.: "Blend meal which has been separated from chaff with
water in the best way. When it has been blended, spread it out on a
board and roll it with a rounded and oblong piece of wood such as bakers
are accustomed to use in such a trade. Then when it has been drawn out
to the width of a finger, cut it. It is so long you would call it a
fillet. It ought to be cooked in rich and continually boiling broth, but
if, at the same time, it must be cooked in water, put in butter and
salt. When it is cooked, it ought to be put in a pan with cheese,
butter, sugar, and sweet spices."
Anyway, for 50 smallish portions of Roman noodles:
2kg casareccia* or similar pasta
650g fresh, mild, feta** or similar soft cheese cut into small dice
150g young provolone or other mild cheese, grated
100g butter, cut into small dice
Sugar and spices to taste (good with cinnamon and mace, I think, or
maybe some fennel and maybe 1/4c sugar)
Put the cheese and butter in a large tray (ie large deep roasting pan or
hotel pan-- big enough to hold all the cooked pasta.)
Cook the pasta (in broth or in salted water with a chunk of butter) and
drain. Immediately dump the hot pasta into the tray with the cheese.
Briskly scramble the pasta and cheese together-- it will take a minute
or two to get all the cheese melted and distributed. Sprinkle the sugar
and spices over and give it one more stir. Serve hot.
Success tips: the tray is important-- trying to distribute this much
cheese through this much pasta in a deep pot is a complete pain.
If you need more than 2kg of pasta, you'll either want to split it
between two trays or cook it in two batches.
Gratuitous biscuit/cookie recipe, from Max Rumpolt?
Take a fair flour/ clean egg yolks/ and a little wine/ sugar and anise/
make a dough with it/ roll it nicely long and round with clean hands/
and make little pretzels from it/ shove in a warm oven and bake/ that
you do not burn it/ but until nicely dry/ like this they will be also
crispy and good. You might also take cinnamon with it or not. And one
calls them Precedella.
5 egg yolks
3/4c. sugar
1/4c. sweet white wine??
1/2tsp. ground fennel seed or aniseed
1/2tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4tsp. salt
2c. flour
Preheat oven to 180?C (350?F). Beat the egg yolks and sugar together
until thick and pale, and then beat in the wine. Stir in all the dry
ingredients. The dough will be fairly sticky. Roll the dough into
"snakes" a little less than a centimetre wide and curl them into pretzel
shapes. Place on silicone paper or well-greased baking sheets and bake
10-15 minutes or until slightly browned. (I _think_ I get 2-1/2 dozen
from this).
*yes, Platina describes flat, cut noodles and casareccia are curly,
extruded noodles. My reasons for favouring casareccia are that they are
more robust than flat noodles and don't stick together as much, and they
are not as conspicuously modern as many of the other available pasta
shapes.
**I mean the soft wet-pack stuff, not the dry salted kind.
?Max Rumpolt is the Sex God of Germany and Ranvaig is his handmaiden.
??Don't fuss-- nice dessert wine works, but so does el cheapo asti spumante.
--
Antonia di Benedetto Calvo
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 01:49:31 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] A couple of questions-
On Dec 12, 2009, at 11:59 PM, Stephanie Yokom wrote:
<<< *"In the beginning, some time around, the chef made the noodles, and yea,
they were fettuccine and they were many and tooth tender. And the chef took
the abundance of noodles and tossed them with butter, and cream, and
Parmesan cheese, and crushed garlic, and chopped parsley."*
**
So, following this thinking above...TOTALLY period? (We eat our pasta like
this alot anyway) But just don't call it alfredo. >>>
All kidding aside, boiling fresh or dry pasta made with or without eggs is generally done in broth on a meat day, and in salted water on a non-meat day. It can be "sauced" with some of the fatty meat broth and melted butter, often tossed or layered with cheese and sprinkled with spice powder. Sometimes almond milk can be involved.
You'll find recipes for macrows/macaroni, loseyns/lasagne, and various cheese- or meat-filled ravioli-type pasta packages all served in this way.
The important thing about Alfredo Sauce is that it originally contained no cream, so it cannot really exist independently of the pasta. It's just the hot pasta tossed with butter and grated cheese, maybe some pepper, and a spoonful of the cooking water to emulsify it all. That, added to the fact that we know pretty clearly who this Alfredo guy was, and when he was born, etc., pretty well confirms that this particular process is fairly recent.
Commercial products designed to make the arduous process of laboriously tossing pasta with water, butter and cheese ('cause that's really complicated) simpler and easier are even more modern than the approximate date of 1927 commonly given for Alfredo's pasta dish.
Adamantius
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:21:00 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Period pasta sauce (was Re: A couple of
questions)
Here's a quote from the 16th century Milanese writer Ortensio Landi; the quote I have is taken from Mary Taylor Simeti's "Pomp and Sustenance," but originally was from Landi's "Commentary on the most notable and outlandish things found in Italy and elsewhere":
"In a month's time (if the winds are not against you) you will arrive on the affluent island of Sicily, where you will eat some of these macaroni that have taken their name from [the Greek word] 'beatify': they are usually cooked together with fat capons and fresh cheeses dripping with butter and milk on all sides, and then, using a wide and liberal hand, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon of the finest that can be found. Oh dear, how my mouth waters just remembering them."
The "fresh cheeses dripping with butter and milk on all sides," what kind of cheese do you think he was referring to? It certainly doesn't sound like Parmesan. Taking a look at the Florilegium and the cheese entries there, could Landi have been referring to a mascarpone?
Adelisa
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:14:29 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
To: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period pasta sauce (was Re: A couple of
questions)
How about a ricotta?
You might like
http://www.cliffordawright.com/caw/food/entries/display.php/id/50/
Johnnae
On Dec 13, 2009, at 1:21 PM, Christiane wrote:
<<< Here's a quote from the 16th century Milanese writer Ortensio Landi;
the quote I have is taken from Mary Taylor Simeti's "Pomp and
Sustenance," but originally was from Landi's "Commentary on the most
notable and outlandish things found in Italy and elsewhere":snipped
fresh cheeses dripping with butter and milk on all sides, and then,
using a wide and liberal hand, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon of
the finest that can be found. Oh dear, how my mouth waters just
remembering them."
The "fresh cheeses dripping with butter and milk on all sides," what
kind of cheese do you think he was referring to? It certainly
doesn't sound like Parmesan. Taking a look at the Florilegium and
the cheese entries there, could Landi have been referring to a
mascarpone?
Adelisa >>>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:49:55 -0500 (EST)
From: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period pasta sauce
On Dec 13, 2009, at 1:21 PM, I wrote:
<<< The "fresh cheeses dripping with butter and milk on all sides," what kind of cheese do you think he was referring to? It certainly doesn't sound like Parmesan. Taking a look at the Florilegium and the cheese entries there, could Landi have been referring to a mascarpone? >>>
Adamantius replied:
<<< I would think it's something in a cohesive mass, but barely. Buffalo-milk mozzarella? >>>
Actually, I think I have solved the mystery of what this fresh, dripping-with-milk-and-butter Sicilian cheese could be - fresh tuma (I understand it was originally made from sheep's milk, but it's more often made with cows milk today). Aged tuma is eaten as a table cheese, but the very fresh, just barely out of the mold (12 hours) stuff would be very similar to fresh mozzarella or a firm ricotta in texture, and it's weepy.
Here is Saputo of Canada's version of it:
http://www.saputo.ca/client/en/cons/Fromages/parlons.asp?id=119&;cat=1
There's a gourmet cheese store in South Philadelphia that sells a version of aged tuma, "Tuma Persa" ("Lost Tuma," so called because the producer of the cheese discovered a 100-year-old recipe for the cheese in a closet in his new home outside of Palermo, and recognized that this recipe had been lost). I should ask them if they have fresh tuma.
I found mention of a modern-day pastry from the Madonie Mountains of Sicily; they are stuffed with fresh tuma and flavored with chocolate and cinnamon. I guess they're using it similar to ricotta in cannoli.
So, if I were recreating the dish of pasta as described by Landi for a feast, I'd use a combination of very fresh mozzarella and ricotta, tossed with the hot pasta and then sprinkled with the cinnamon and sugar; I am betting that tuma would be so expensive it would be priced out of just about every feast budget.
Adelisa
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:00:10 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
To: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period pasta sauce
I contacted Mistress Eibhlin (the cheese laurel) yesterday about this
question.
She suggested:
<<< Mascarpone is a good assumption. Another possibility would be sour
cream or a clotted cream. We have more records on the hard cheeses
from this area than of the soft/fresh ones.
That recipe sounds really good!
Eibhlin >>>
I asked about ricotta and she wrote back:
<<< Not really wrong, but the texture doesn't really match what I
interpreted from the description. I find that in many cases where the
recipe mentions buttery or milky cheese that a cheese with a similar
texture works better. Ricotta is a pretty grainy cheese because it's
cooked to a high temperature. Mascarpone, sour cream, and clotted
cream are allowed to curd at much lower temps so you have a very
different flavor and mouth-feel with the final product.
Eibhlin >>>
So maybe a fresh mascarpone which I understand we can't get here due
to import restrictions.
Johnnae
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:35:27 -0500 (EST)
From: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Taganu d'Aragona
Poking around the Internet for more information about the use of tuma cheese in Sicily, I found this intriguing recipe in About.com for taganu d'Aragona, a traditional pasta baked dish that some claim has been made in and around the town of Aragona, Sicily, since the 1600s. The origin of the word taganu itself is rather obscure; it could be from Arabic (either a type of dish or the name of ibn al-Thumna, the emir of Catania) or the Sicilian translation of the Italian word timbale.
Now, I've seen other Sicilian timbale and taganu recipes, and they've all included tomato sauce and also rice. This one intrigued me because it quite clearly didn't use tomato sauce, and instead has saffron, cinnamon, and chicken broth; it also ditches the rice.
This is made as an Easter dish, traditionally. Though not documentable as period, I'd call it periodoid. It may be possible for late-period Sicily, but it's certainly not the pasta dish Landi described.
Prep Time: 75 minutes
Cook Time: 2 hours
Ingredients:
1 3/4 pounds (800 g) cavatuna or rigatoni
16 beaten eggs
1 1/3 pounds (600 g) tuma (a mild, creamy sheep's milk cheese), sliced
3 cups (150 g) grated well-aged pecorino
A pinch of cinnamon
A cup of hot chicken broth
A packet of saffron dissolved into the broth
8 slices day-old Italian bread
Abundant minced parsley
Lard
Salt & pepper
Meatballs and sliced hard-boiled eggs (optional)
Preparation:
Boil the rigatoni in salted water and drain them when they're still slightly al dente; while they're cooking take a terracotta pot large enough to hold everything, grease it well with lard, and lay four of the bread slices over the bottom of the pot. Beat the eggs and combine them with the parsley, grated cheese, and cinnamon. Drain the pasta when it's still slightly al dente, and transfer it to the pot, interlayering it with the sliced cheese and the egg mixture; when all is used up cover it with the remaining slices of bread, and the broth, in which you have dissolved the saffron. Put it all into a moderately hot (350 F, 175 C) oven, and bake until the liquid has been absorbed; it will take a while.
Remove the taganu from the oven when it's firm but not bone dry, slice it and serve it. It will keep well for several days.
Note: If you chose to use the meatballs or the eggs, mix them into the pasta.
Adelisa
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:37:01 +1300
From: Antonia Calvo <ladyadele at paradise.net.nz>
To: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period pasta sauce
Christiane wrote:
<<< Actually, I think I have solved the mystery of what this fresh, dripping-with-milk-and-butter Sicilian cheese could be - fresh tuma (I understand it was originally made from sheep's milk, but it's more often made with cows milk today). Aged tuma is eaten as a table cheese, but the very fresh, just barely out of the mold (12 hours) stuff would be very similar to fresh mozzarella or a firm ricotta in texture, and it's weepy. >>>
That looks like it would do well in quite a few "fresh cheese" dishes.
One of my pet hates is the equation of "fresh cheese" with either cream
cheese or ricotta, and I'm always on the lookout for better options.
On another note, I don't have the book in front of me, but I believe
Scappi makes many references to provatura cheese.
<<< So, if I were recreating the dish of pasta as described by Landi for a feast, I'd use a combination of very fresh mozzarella and ricotta, tossed with the hot pasta and then sprinkled with the cinnamon and sugar; I am betting that tuma would be so expensive it would be priced out of just about every feast budget. >>>
I couldn't spot a price for fresh tuma, but I find pasta with cheese
isn't excessively expensive to serve, even if cheese isn't exactly
economical. 200g of cheese + 50g of butter is plenty for 500g of dry
pasta, and that makes at least 12 feast portions.
--
Antonia di Benedetto Calvo
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:22:40 -0500 (EST)
From: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Recent cooking workshop
Cariadoc says:
<<< He who wants to make lesanga, take good white flour and boil it in
capon broth. If it is not so much, put in some other water, and put
in some salt to boil with it, and dump it in a broad, flat bowl, and
put in enough cheese, and throw over it the cuttings of the fat of
the capon. >>>
Recipe No. 1 may suffer from a translation problem and a knowledge gap problem. It seems to be directions for making lasagna noodles and how you can serve them up. I look at it as "make them from good white flour and boil them in capon broth to cook them; if more liquid is needed to boil them, add water and salt (to give it some of the flavor you'll lose by diluting the capon broth)." Then you put the noodles in a broad, flat bowl, and sprinkle them liberally with cheese and chopped-up chicken fat (perhaps from the capon you boiled to get the broth). The hot noodles melt the fat and the cheese together and you probably don't cook it any more than that.
Now on to recipe No. 2:
<<< If you want to make torteli of meat of fresh mixed pork, boil it so
that it is cooked, and beat it with a knife so that it is very good,
and take the pot and boil it and grind it in a mortar and put in up
to six eggs that are boiled and mix with the meat and put in good
spices and put in some good dry, grated cheese, and you want to make
this pie in a pie-shell of lasagna and one should not boil it in meat
broth and it should be given for dish with a long meat pottage of
pepper, and it is good. >>>
I see this as a variation of today's lasagna, instead of many layers of boiled noodles and filling, it's a layer of noodles, the filling (the pulverized meat, grated cheese, and hardboiled eggs, probably sliced), and another layer of noodles, with the whole thing being baked. If you're making the flat noodles out of white flour instead of semolina, and being that the fresh white flour noodles are much softer in texture than the durum ones, they'd bake up differently, probably not getting that rubbery dried texture. I am guessing you'd boil the noodles beforehand, which would make them noodles and not thin sheets of dough.
This is all guesswork for me; but the fact that today's "traditional" Neapolitan and Sicilian lasagna makers always include a layer of sliced hardboiled eggs, it's certainly intriguing to see just how old that tradition is!
Adelisa di Salerno
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 13:19:47 -0800
From: David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Lasagna and Tortelli
In an earlier post, I mentioned some puzzles associated with two
recipes in the Italian cookbook Rebecca has just translated. I think
I now have satisfactory, although not certain, answers to them.
(Due Libri di Cucine, Libro B)
LXVII
He who wants to make lesanga, take good white flour and boil it in
capon broth. If it is not so much, put in some other water, and put
in some salt to boil with it, and dump it in a broad, flat bowl, and
put in enough cheese, and throw over it the cuttings of the fat of
the capon.
The first time we tried this, at a recent cooking workshop, the
person who did it followed my usual rule of trying to take the recipe
as literally as possible on a first try. It didn't work very well. My
current conclusion, along lines suggested by two or three people, is
that the recipe assumes that you know you make lesanga by kneading
together flour and water and rolling or stretching out the resulting
dough, hence omits that step. The boiling is done to the pasta after
it is formed, rather than stirring flour into boiling broth.
No further cooking is mentioned, so I simply made the lesanga, cut it
into a few pieces, boiled them for ten minutes or so, put on it some
parmesan cheese and a little rendered chicken fat. Came out pretty
well.
LIII
If you want to make torteli of meat of fresh mixed pork, boil it so
that it is cooked, and beat it with a knife so that it is very good,
and take the pot and boil it and grind it in a mortar and put in up
to six eggs that are boiled and mix with the meat and put in good
spices and put in some good dry, grated cheese, and you want to make
this pie in a pie-shell of lasagna and one should not boil it in meat
broth and it should be given for dish with a long meat pottage of
pepper, and it is good
The first time we tried this, the assumption was that it was a baked
pie, even though it doesn't say so. I tried it again in three
different versions:
1. Line a pie pan with the cooked lesanga from the previous recipe,
fill it, bake it. Not very good.
2. Fill the cooked lesanga (pieces about 3"x6") with the filling and
boil it. Unworkable because the cooked lesanga sticks to itself.
3. Stuff the uncooked lesanga with the filling and boil it--taking
"tortelli" in its modern sense as stuffed pasta. Worked fine.
On further consideration, I'm pretty sure 3 is correct. For one
thing, checking the early 17th century Italian-English recipe Rebecca
has been using, I found that although one meaning of the word she
translated as "pie-shell" is indeed pie-shell, another is "skin."
Along the lines of "wonton skins," I think it plausible that the term
was used for the pasta wrapping. For another thing, the final "and it
should be given for dish with a long meat pottage of pepper" makes
more sense if these are small pastas served in a pottage than if they
are a pie served with a pottage--the cookbook doesn't generally
advise the reader as to what dishes go together.
And, finally, it works and is good.
--
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2010 11:17:02 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Ibn Battula"s Meals
<<< I shouldn't try to follow a thread when I'm tired.
The area you are describing is in the grain growing region of Southeast
Europe. While they might or might not have had durum, they would have had
wheat and I would generally assume that any pasta would be made from some
variety of wheat, except possibly in times of famine. Neither buckwheat nor
millet have gluten and any pasta made from them would likely be extremely
friable. >>>
Aren't soba noodles made of buckwheat?
<<< The term macaroni derives from the Italian "maccaroni" meaning "dumpling."
In the original usage, the word can be used to refer to almost any form of
pasta. IIRC, the first reference to tubular pasta shows up in early 15th
Century Italy (check for references before taking that as gospel), but I
don't remember that usage being outside of Italy. In my view, tubular pasta
is a remote possibility. It is much more likely that the pasta would be
flat noodles or dumplings.
Bear >>>
Maccaroni in fifteenth century Italian sources refers to at least two shapes
- something that resembles modern fettucine and something that resembles
modern penne. There may be more that I haven't seen. But my understanding is
that macaroni was the name used for what we would call spaghetti until the
19th century.
Angharad
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2010 08:24:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: Raphaella DiContini <raphaellad at yahoo.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Ibn Battula"s Meals- Italian macaronis
I have reference from a will witnessed and notarized in Genoa on February 2,
1279, of Panzio Bastion, a soldier, which listed in the inventory of his estate
a ('una bariscella plena de macaronis'), or "barrel full of macaroni". To me
this is important not only because of what's mentioned, but that it was
considered to be valuable enough to be named in a will.
Clearly, this doesn't speak to anything outside of Italy or give a definitive
shape description but it does verify the usage of this term in this time, and
the monitary importance of some dried pasta products.
Looking up the term "Maccaroni" the online 1611 Florio yeilds "A kind of meat
made of round peeces of paste, boyled in water and put into a dish with butter,
spice and grated cheese upon them."
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/florio/search/search.cgi
Raffaella
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2010 15:19:47 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Ibn Battula"s Meals
<<< Aren't soba noodles made of buckwheat? >>>
Soba noodles are made from a combiunation of wheat and buckwheat flours. It
is my understanding that those considered the finest are made from the
earliest harvested buckwheat and are 25 percent wheat to 75 percent
buckwheat.
As a point of confusion, any thin noodle can be generically referred to as
"soba."
<<< Maccaroni in fifteenth century Italian sources refers to at least two
shapes - something that resembles modern fettucine and something that resembles
modern penne. There may be more that I haven't seen. But my understanding
is that macaroni was the name used for what we would call spaghetti until the
19th century.
Angharad >>>
As near as I can tell, maccaroni derives from one of the Italian dialects
and in it's early usage was roughly a synonym for pasta.
Bear
From: gottskrieger at GMAIL.COM
Subject: Re: [CALONTIR] Period engines, was Re: [CALONTIR] Silk Banners
Date: September 16, 2011 7:41:38 PM CDT
To: CALONTIR at listserv.unl.edu
<<< I believe pasta was invented in China.
Baine >>>
Pasta is actually PRE-period middle eastern. Some sources indicated ancient Egypt.
What everybody recognizes as "the chinese pasta" is spagetti type noodles, or rather "round" ones. The creation process is done by "throwing" and twirling.
"European" pasta is made with the same basic ingredients, except its forms are either rolled out or pressed thru a form to create its shape. For example, Tube pasta (macaroni et al) is pressed, Ribbon pasta (fettucini etc) is rolled.
Saying "pasta" is like saying "beef". Different representations of the same thing occur across the map well before "period" began.
Franz
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2013 11:57:16 -0500
From: Saint Phlip <phlip at 99main.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Pasta in period
So, was playing around on the 'Net this morning, and found this picture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:6-alimenti,_pasta,Taccuino_Sanitatis,_Casanatense_4182..jpg
Making pasta; illustration from the 15th century edition of Tacuinum
Sanitatis, a Latin translation of the Arabic work Taqw?m al-sihha by
Ibn Butlan.
I'm thinking both works might be interesting to find out more about ;-)
--
Saint Phlip
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 21:40:46 +0000 (GMT)
From: galefridus at optimum.net
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pasta in period
Yeah, practically every illustrated version of the Tacuinum includes an image of folks making pasta. The illustrated Tacuina date anywhere from the late 1300s to the late 1400s. The original Arabic (not illustrated) is from the middle of the 11th century, and is a table of 280 items, mostly food and drink. The 35th entry is for al-atriyyah, which is translated as pasta threads.
-- Galefridus, who spent the past 18 months studying the Taqwim al-Sihha/Tacuinum Sanitatis and has just submitted the manuscript to PPC for publication.
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2016 23:21:38 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Kitchenaid pasta roller
<<< I received the Kitchenaid pasta roller. Not period but oh so much fun!
Shoshanah >>>
What does this do? Turn a blob of pasta into spegatti or other strands? Or
make other shapes of pasta? So why "oh so much fun"? :-)
How did they make various pasta shapes in period?
Stefan
=============
It's a KitchenAid attachment for the mixers that allows one to roll out a
sheet of dough in various thicknesses from which one can hand cut various
widths of flat pasta. There are several different versions of this
attachment including one that has cutting heads to produce the shaped pasta.
Flat pastas are rolled out and cut with a knife. Modernly, round pastas
tend to be extruded, but they likely started as a flat cut pasta whose
strands were rolled to get the round shape. Orzo are short cut round pasta.
Ravioli are made from two sheets of pasta dough, one dotted with filling,
then covered by the second sheet which is pressure sealed between the piles
of filling, then cut apart. Hollow pastas are shaped around a rod or wire.
Most shaped pastas can be cut from sheets of dough and shaped by hand. I
haven't figured out tortellini (probably late 15th Century) yet, but I
suspect that it is a ribbon cut from a sheet of dough dotted with filling,
then cut rolled and shaped. Gnocchi are dumplings.
The real question is not how pastas were made, but how can we date the
introduction of the different varieties?
Bear
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2016 22:44:28 -0700
From: Susan Lin <susanrlin at gmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Kitchenaid pasta roller
This is just the one that makes a single sheet of pasta, think- a lasagna
sheet. I have another hand roller I can pass the sheet through to get
spaghetti or linguini.
Mostly pasta was rolled and cut. Some shapes didn't come out until later
when metal dies were cast.
It's nice to have the big sheet done by the mixer because it takes less
time than the hand cranking machine or by hand. Since I can't stand for
long periods it helps.
Shoshanah
From the fb "SCA Cooks" group:
Nick Sasso
This is a pretty good source book for worked out recipes from primary sources.
Lasagne
Redaction by: Mistress Caitlin of Enniskillen (Catherine Hartley)
Serving Size: 12
Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoons yeast
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup Parmesan cheese -- grated
pepper -- to sprinkle
~~ Spice Mixture
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon clove -- ground
1/2 teaspoon grains of paradise
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg -- ground
Pasta: Dissolve the yeast in a bit of water and let proof. Dissolve salt in remaining water and add flour to form a dough not too stiff. Knead as you would dough. Cover and let dough rise for an hour. Bring pot of water to boil.
Punch down dough and knead dough. Roll it out until very thin (1/16th"). Use lots of flour to roll out dough. Slice long thin strips. If you stack dough, place noodles on parchment Use quickly or noodles will dry out.
Boil noodles about 2-3 minutes.
Layer noodles and grated cheese along with spices. Serve immediately. To melt cheese you can bake for a few minutes to speed up process.
Yield: 1 pan
Source:
Liber de Coquino/ The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy, by Odile Redon et al.
Primary Source:
Translation: To make lasagne take fermented dough and make into as thin a shape as possible. Then divide it into squares of three fingerbreadths per side. Then take salted boiling water and cook those lasagne in it. And when they are fully cooked, add grated cheese.
And, if you like, you can also add good powdered spices and powder them on them, when they are on the trencher. Then put on a layer of lasagne and powder [spices] again; and on top another layer and powder, and continue until the trencher or bowl is full. Then eat them by taking them up with a pointed wooden stick.
Notes: This is always a big hit...I like the noodle recipe as it is leavened. A lot of the macros and other "losyn" recipes make pasta that is not.
From the fb "SCA Cooks" group:
Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya
2:59pm Sep 27
Here's a circa 1430 recipe from an Ottoman manuscript for rishta
Preparation of rişte. Knead 600 dirhems of sifted white flour with the whites of 4 eggs, cut into fine noodles, and dry them in the sun. [Şirvânî left out the step in which the dough for the noodles has to be rolled out quite thin, before it is cut into noodles.]
Cook a chicken. And in its broth cook a sausage stuffed with fatty chopped meat, an abundance of black pepper, an onion [chopped], and sliced almonds. Place as well some small meatballs and crushed chickpeas in the pot, pour on it 200 dirhems of fresh butter and maintain it all hot on the embers.
Pour the pasta into the broth and allow it to boil, and pour on it a bowl of butter, [continue the cooking] until the pasta is impregnated with the butter.
Arrange on a dish, sprinkle with a little cinnamon and some sliced almonds, and decorate with the sausage and pieces of chicken.
Şirvânî, folio 124 verso-125 recto
My translation
David Friedman
3:46pm Sep 27
My rishta, from al-Baghdadi, is a great deal simpler:
Rishta
al-Baghdadi p.45
Cut fat meat into middling pieces and put into the saucepan, with a covering of water. Add cinnamon-bark, a little salt, a handful of peeled chickpeas, and half a handful of lentils. Boil until cooked: then add more water, and bring thoroughly to the boil. Now add spaghetti (which is made by kneading flour and water well, then rolling out fine and cutting into thin threads four fingers long). Put over the fire and cook until set to a smooth consistency. When it has settled over a gentle fire for an hour, remove.
Our Redaction
1 lb lamb 6 T canned chickpeas
4 c water 3 T lentils
1/2 stick cinnamon 2 c flour
1 t salt 3/8 - 1/2 c water
Cut up meat, combine it with water, cinnamon, salt, chickpeas, and lentils, simmer about half an hour. Mix flour with about 1/2 c cold water (just enough to make an unsticky dough). Knead thoroughly, roll out, cut into thin strips. Add to pot, simmer another 1/2 hour being careful not to let it stick to the bottom and scorch, serve. A favorite of ours.
<the end>