Stefan's Florilegium

pasta-msg

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pasta-msg - 2/22/02

Period pasta. Period referances. Recipes. Noodles, Manicotti.

NOTE: See also the files fd-Italy-msg, flour-msg, dumplings-msg, cheese-msg,
cheesemaking-msg.

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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
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Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous
mark.s.harris@motorola.com stefan@florilegium.org
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Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 15:02:21 -0800 (PST)
From: gswitzer@loop.com
To: Multiple recipients of list <sca-caid@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.)

jstaplet@adm.law.du.edu
University of Denver
College of Law
Ext. 6288

From: "S.Thomas" <morgan@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 <macdj@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: Uduido@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" <troy@asan.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 10:44:59 -0400
Subject: Re: SC - Manicotti

Uduido@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 <ddfr@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
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

From: david friedman <ddfr@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
ddfr@best.com
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

From: gfrose@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 <troy@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: gfrose@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: rousseau@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
rousseau@scn.org
Seattle, Washington

Date: Sun, 3 Aug 1997 16:19:07 -0500
From: skunkkiller@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: gfrose@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 <sbloch@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
sbloch@panther.adelphi.edu

Date: Mon, 04 Aug 1997 19:57:48 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy@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: zarlor@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)
zarlor@acm.org

Date: 19 Sep 1997 14:38:26 -0700
From: "Marisa Herzog" <marisa_herzog@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: mfgunter@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 <meadhbh@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 <ddfr@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" <ivantets@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 <troy@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 <LrdRas@aol.com>
Subject: SC - Stroganoff

acrouss@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 <ghesmiz@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 <Argente@aol.com>
To: sca-east@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." <TerryD@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" <harper@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 @ idt.net

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 22:04:45 -0800
From: david friedman <ddfr@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" <harper@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 @ idt.net

Subject: period noodles
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 11:48:10 -0500
From: Stephen Dale <sdale@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 <ddfr@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 <troy@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: vjarmstrong@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.Redeker@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 quantit�, e pestale forte nel mortaio: mettivi
su del cascio fresco con esse et un poco di farina, e distempera con albume
d'ova, s� che sia duro. E preso del grasso del porco fresco in bona
quantit�, metti ne la padella, s� 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 - pur�es 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.redeker@digital.com

Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 00:37:13 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfr@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
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 09:13:31 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy@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." <TerryD@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 <ddfr@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
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1999 07:04:47 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy@asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Italian Cuisine

Mordonna22@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: Mordonna22@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.Gloning@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) 'd�nner �lkuchen,
�lplatz, in �l gebackene Plinse, als leichte Speise f�r Kranke (Celsus);
als Speise f�r �rmere (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)).
Andr�, in his edition of Apicius, says _laganum_ 'feuille de p�te'
('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 Andr�, L�alimentation et la cuisine
� 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 <troy@asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - ancient pasta

Mordonna22@aol.com wrote:
> Thomas.Gloning@germanistik.uni-giessen.de writes:
<snip>
> (roughly:
> 'thin cake, baked in oil' (Celsus, Horaz), 'sheet of dough' (Apicius)).
> Andr�, in his edition of Apicius, says _laganum_ 'feuille de p�te'
> ('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 <ddfr@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
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 14:42:53 -0500 (EST)
From: Robin Carrollmann <harper@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: LrdRas@aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - cooking times

Bronwynmgn@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 <magdlena@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: SC - cooking times

Bronwynmgn@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 <parlei@algonet.se>
Subject: Re: SC - cooking times

On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 Bronwynmgn@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 <troy@asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Macrows vs the computer

Seton1355@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 <serian@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" <ringofkings@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" <lcm@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: CBlackwill@aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Dumplings

LrdRas@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." <TerryD@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: CBlackwill@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.

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" <betpulib@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.

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 <troy@asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Lasagne Challenge

CBlackwill@aol.com wrote:
> stefan@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." <TerryD@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_ennis@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 <troy@asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: Kuskenole, a question

RuddR@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 <ddfr@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 <troy@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 <troy@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" <rlong@srrc.ars.usda.gov>
Subject: Re: SC - Homemade period noodles/pasta

From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <rcmann4@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 (@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 <selene@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" <ringofkings@mindspring.com>
Subject: SC - Macaroni and Cheese NOT OT NOR OOP!

Susan Fox-Davis <selene@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: tgl@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 <ddfr@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
ddfr@best.com
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/

Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 14:19:53 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy@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" <troy@asan.com>
To: sca-cooks@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 <bachv@paganet.de>
To: sca-cooks@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 <johnna@sitka.engin.umich.edu>
To: sca-cooks@ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Noodles/Pasta

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-cooks@ansteorra.org
From: david friedman <ddfr@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
ddfr@best.com
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/

From: Sandragood@aol.com
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 17:03:15 EDT
To: sca-cooks@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" <troy@asan.com>
To: sca-cooks@ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Noodles/Pasta - LONG (Charles Perry)

Sandragood@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: Sandragood@aol.com
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 20:22:22 EDT
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Noodles/Pasta - LONG (Charles Perry)
To: sca-cooks@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" <raghead@liripipe.com>
To: <sca-cooks@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" <troy@asan.com>
To: sca-cooks@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" <raghead@liripipe.com>
To: <sca-cooks@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" <raghead@liripipe.com>
To: <sca-cooks@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-cooks@ansteorra.org
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy@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.decker@worldnet.att.net>
To: <sca-cooks@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

<the end>