fd-Sicily-msg - 2/24/08 Food of medieval Sicily. NOTE: See also the files: fd-Greece-msg, fd-Italy-msg, Sicily-msg, fd-Africa-msg, olives-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: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 14:19:51 -0500 (GMT-05:00) From: Christiane <christianetre at earthlink.net> Subject: [Sca-cooks] Scappi vs. the Sicilians To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org From: Ariane H phoenissa at netscape.net: I've had arancini before, they're excellent! And check this out - I was just looking through Scappi (Venice, 1570) and found what looks like the period version (and sweet rather than savory) of this dish: ============================================= Thank you for posting the Scappi recipe! [See frittours-msg - Stefan] It's interesting to see that he had a rice fritter recipe. I think arancini would be perfectly period for a Sicilian feast, though! Someone had suggested to me off list that an interesting event wold be a "Sicilian Vespers" fighting event (French vs. the Sicilians), and I've been posting specifically Sicilian recipes in the hope that folks may find them useful. Scappi published his recipes, but they are from a mainland Italian viewpoint, specifcally Roman, and he was never exposed to the Sicilian kitchen traditions. There are virtually no Sicilian recipes printed from the medieval/Renaissance period, however, but there is a very long, very oral tradition, and the Siculo-Arab style of cooking varies greatly from that of mainland Italy. My grandmother did not consider herself to be Italian, as many Sicilians still do today. Cooks are now discovering recipes that families have known for generations, and are finally writing them down. Yes, it took 500 years to do it, but hey, ! better late than never. The sweet-and-sour flavors of Sicilian dishes and the tradition of stuffed foods are the legacy of the Arabs, as are one-dish meals. The intensely sweet Sicilian dessert dishes also are their legacy. The Greeks left their legacy with the olive, the grape, and the caper. In the golden age of Sicily under the Normans, they hired Arab cooks for their kitchens, but introduced the concept of meats roasted on a spit. After the expulsion of the Muslims and Jews, especially under the Spanish Inquisition, pork gained status among the peasantry -- a pig to slaughter showed wealth and Christian conformity. My Aunt Marie still insists on making a pork roast every Christmas Day. It was just proper in their neighborhood. Anchovies and squid and octopus and tuna have always been part of Sicilian cooking. I would not serve any of these at the average feast, however, because of expense, allergies, and the general distaste most folks have for strong-flavored fish or things that look like Cthulu landed on their plate. I now enjoy octopus, but found it perfectly revolting as a child. Gianotta Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 10:23:40 -0500 (GMT-05:00) From: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net> Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Mediterranean food To: ekoogler1 at comcast.net, Cooks within the SCA <sca-ooks at ansteorra.org> Here's what Clifford Wright has to say about the use of butter and other animal fats in medieval Sicilian cuisine. What's really interesting to me is that he mentions the village where my grandmother came from, Corleone. "In the fourteenth century and up until the beginning of the eighteenth century, animal fats such as butter, bacon, lard, mutton fat (perhaps a vestige of the Arab presence), and beef suet were the fats used in Sicilian cooking. In fact, the preferred cooking fat in fifteenth-century Sicily was butter. According to the stricfizarii (taxation records), these were the largest purchases. In Corleone, a mountain town of western Sicily, butter was sold in a quartara, a kind of narrow-necked earthenware vessel and was sometimes the only food to accompany the bread available to the agricultural workers who used it frequently in place of cheese. Although olive oil, the cooking fat most closely associated with Sicilian cooking today, has been produced continually throughout Sicilian history, it was rare and expensive until recently. Although butter was used more than olive oil in Sicily, and it was a primary cooking fat, its production and distribution was nevertheless limited. In the Middle Ages, only the Jews bought olive oil in quantity as pork fat was forbidden to them (the Muslim Sicilians having suffered their final expulsion in the 1230s). The Jewish cooks fondness for olive oil is partly behind this, but also most merchants dealing in Sicilian olive oil for export were Jews. Don't let the abundant use of olive oil in contemporary Sicilian recipes fool you into thinking that olive oil was always abundant in Sicily. When olive oil, with its modest production, was used, it was used on bread or for seasoning dried vegetable soups." There are some useful essays on Mr. Wright's site about food history for the Mediteranean region. http://www.cliffordawright.com Gianotta Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 19:51:56 -0500 From: "M. Traber" <mtraber251 at earthlink.net> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Mediterranean food To: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>, Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> Anybody else here been to Sicily? a very marginal rocky place. They have some olive orchards. They have lots of goats, and a fair amount of sheep and cows. You squeeze an olive once a year, and then feed the squeezed out residue to the goats, sheep and cows, OR you can cure the olives and eat them all year. You can *squeeze* a goat, sheep or cow teat every day. You get butter from the milk. Now, *which* makes more sense? a once a year limited fat, or one that replenishes every day? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Aruvqan, nicknamed Margali Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 19:54:38 -0600 From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at woldnet.att.net> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cassata To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> Here are a couple of quotes on the subject of cassata. Bear "There are a great number of Sicilian desserts that bear the Arab imprint, and several that bear Arab names; of which the most famous is the 'cassata siciliana.' 'Cassata' comes from the Arab word 'qas'a'. a large steep-sided terracotta bowl used to mold this amazing cake; made of marzipan, sponge cake, and sweetened ricotta." Simeti, Mary Taylor, "Pomp and Sustenance: Twenty-five Centuries of Sicilian Food", 1989. "For centuries, all of the 'cassat' of Sicily were made by nuns in their convents, and there are stories that those nuns worked so hard before Easter that some even forgot their regular devotions. They were busy making the quintessential Sicilian dessert that combines tastes brought by the Arabs with the 'pan di spagna' that came with the Spanish. Some think that the word 'cassata' comes from the Arab 'qas'at'. big deep bowl; others convincingly argue that it comes from the old Sicilian word 'caseata'; from the Latin 'caseus' for heese. Field, Carol, "The Italian Baker", 1985. Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 15:23:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Chicken baked in bread recipe To: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>, Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> I have a copy, but wasn't very impressed with it as a history book. It is more a modern cookbook with recipes that the author claims goes back into history, but never documents her suppositions. Huette --- Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net> wrote: > Arrggh. The title of Mary Taylor Simeti's book > is "Pomp and Sustenance: 25 Centuries of > Sicilian Food." Not "25 Years." > > But I am looking forward to getting my hands on > this book, it's supposed to have a lot of food > history in it. > > Gianotta Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2005 15:20:22 -0500 From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Chicken baked in bread recipe To: "Christiane" <christianetrue at earthlink.net>, "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> The book is interesting. The true historical value may be open to question, but the quotes scattered through the book point to useful sources. It's also a pretty good read. Bear > Arrggh. The title of Mary Taylor Simeti's book is "Pomp and Sustenance: 25 > Centuries of Sicilian Food." Not "25 Years." > > But I am looking forward to getting my hands on this book, it's > supposed to have a lot of food history in it. > > Gianotta Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 10:08:45 +0200 From: Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pasta Experiment (long) To: Barbara Benson <voxeight at gmail.com>, Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> Am Dienstag, 14. Juni 2005 23:52 schrieb Barbara Benson: > 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 working with. This is fascinating. Please keep us posted. As to Norman Sicily, I would suggest looking at some dietetics texts. If you can get your hands on the Viaticum, count yourself lucky (I haven't yet), but the Salernitan Regimen Sanitatis should be easier. This was written in Salerno around that time and reflect local practice and contemporary medical opinion. Another thing you might want to look at are the Anglo-Norman Cookery Books. They are not italian, but from what I read about Norman Sicily it seems they retained quite a bit of their traditions. > The Norman Kingdom of Sicily - Matthew Is this any good? I just bought a new German book on medieval Sicily, and I'm looking for more info. Giano Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 07:07:19 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] 12th Century Italian was 10th C. Cornish? To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org> There's a chapter in *Regional Cuisines of Medieval Europe. A Book of Essays*. Edited by Melitta Weiss Adamson. New York: Routledge, 2002. which concentrates on Sicily. Actually Travels with a Medieval Queen by Mary Taylor Simeti might also be good. Simeti offers a delightful, reflective reconstruction of a journey undertaken in 1194-1195 by the Sicilian princess Constance from the dark forests of Germany back to her ancestral island in the company of her cold, conquering husband, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI. It came out in 2001 and used copies (really cheap) are available. Johnnae Lilinah wrote: > But the other two have me a bit mystified: > - anything 12th c. Italian > There's a nice amount of later Italian, but i'm not sure about > recipes from the 1100s. Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2006 06:04:42 +0200 From: Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] 10th C. Cornish? To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org> Am Mittwoch, 25. Oktober 2006 02:26 schrieb Terry Decker: >> Alternatively, since parts of southern Italy were, I think, still >> inhabited by Muslims at that point, you could use Muslim recipes. >> There are sources from both just after and a couple of centuries >> before the 12th century, although little of the latter has been >> translated. > > That might work, although the Muslims were pushed out of Sicily in 1091. > Since Sicily still prepares a number of dishes similar to their Arabic > counterparts, it's obvious the cuisine didn't change overnight. There were Muslims in Sicily well into the 13th century, and the Norman kings of Sicily (and no doubt other members of the upper classes) had Muslim cooks. While nothing is stated about the cooks of Emperor Frederick II that I know of, he had a large number of Muslims in his retinue, including physicians, dancers, falconers, bodyguards, concubines and scribes. The Saracens don't disappear from Southern Italy until the ethnic cleansing of the later 13th century, though their settlement area and influence slowly dwindles. And anyway, it's not like the cuisines of the Maghreb and southern Italy aren't similar to start with. Evidence is unfortunately thin on the ground, but from everything we can see it seems that in terms of everyday material culture, the differences between ordinary Christians and ordinary Muslims (and Jews) were very small. The church occasionally frets about this at the time. Giano <the end> Edited by Mark S. Harris fd-Sicily-msg 7 of 7