Extrememly rough draft of first part of Historic Italian Cooking class

[raffaellasworld]

I full expect that this will be edited, changed, rearranged, gutted and re-stuffed by the time I'm done with it, but this is my first insomina driven draft. (please note, the paper didn't cause the insomnia, a bad back did- this is just the current side effect). :) 

I really need a historical food geek icon, maybe something from Scappi?  

Historical Italian Cooking
 The focus of this class is food in pre-1700, Italy. The sources are primarily manuscripts written in this time and published in Italy, with some references to horticultural information about what may not have been eaten.  We will be looking at what they ate, how they ate it, and how you can find these resources to explore on your own.
 When you think of Italian food, what is the first thing that springs to mind? Pasta with lots of tomato sauce? Pizza?  Lasagna? Italian food has evolved and adapted in some ways, and in others has held on to many traditions.
 Tomatoes, which play such a big part in modern Italian cuisine are a new world food,  meaning that they came from South America, and were not introduced to Europe until it was brought back by early explorers, as were chilies, cocoa beans, and potatoes. The Spanish brought the tomato to Europe, and it grew easily in Mediterranean climates. Cultivation began in the 1540s. It may have been eaten shortly after it was introduced, though it was certainly being used as food by the early 1600s in the Mediterranean Basin. The earliest discovered cookbook with tomato recipes was published in Naples in 1692, though the author had apparently obtained these recipes from Spanish sources. However, in certain areas of Italy, such as Florence, the fruit was used solely as tabletop decoration before it was ever incorporated into the local cuisine in the late 17th or early 18th century. (ref 1) Tomatoes were thought “poisonous because many European members of the Solanaceae, commonly known as the nightshade family, have bitter fruits containing toxic or hallucinogenic compounds.” (ref 2)
 Another common myth is that pasta or noodles where unknown in Europe before they were brought back from Asia by Marco Polo. When Marco Polo returned to Italy in 1295 after twenty-odd years of travel he did write of the “noodles” he encountered. While “noodle like food” in China dates back as early as 3000BC, M. Polo’s encounter with them were hardly the first Italy had seen. (ref 3) A food historian discovered amongst a will witnessed and notarized in Genoa on February 2, 1279, that Panzio Bastion, a soldier, listed in the inventory of his estate a ('una bariscella plena de macaronis'), or “barrel of macaroni". (ref 4) Dried pasta was a favored in the 14th and 15th centuries by those traveling by boat as it would keep well on long voyages, and in the 15th Century records of Italian and Dominican monasteries various types of pasta were mentioned. (ref 3) Long before that, pasta had been a part of the Italian culinary experience. Roman Culinary Author, Apicius, in De re coquinaria (ref 5), describes lágana fried in oil and tossed with pepper and (that all-purpose Roman condiment) garum, aka fish paste, and tractae (evidently dried durum pasta) for thickening broth. He also elaborates on a rich, layered lágana dish involving meats, fish, sauce, and spices. 
 In the mythic land of plenty, known to the Italians as il paese di Cuccagna, and in medieval Europe as Cockaigne, there was a very peculiar mountain. The Italian version of the myth was first described by Boccaccio (ref 6). In this gastronomic utopia, which he calls Bengodi, a cauldron sits on top of a Parmigiano-cheese mountain and continuously spews forth maccheroni and ravioli that roll down the mountain's side, land in a rich capon broth, and are free for the taking by the poltroons. Such macaroni, however, were evidently synonymous with gnocchi, chestnut-sized or larger oblong balls of flour dough (not potato, which was another food from the new world), often pictured as served on a skewer. This shape accounts for the ease with which they could roll down the Cuccagna mountain.
 Ravioli, and Lasagna were both known to Medieval and Renaissance Italians, just not quite as we know them today. As noted above, references to lágana date back to the Romans, but in later sources such as Anonimo Veneziano, Libro di Cuchina there are pasta dishes with familiar sounding names, but with different flavor palettes than we are used to- a pork ravioli with sumac and currents in the filling that calls for a dusting of sugar to finish if you would like (which would have been a lavish display of wealth), and a walnut, spice and sugar dish that is layered and calls for lasagna or wide pasta noodles. There is also a fruit Pizza (look up reference to dish- ask Eden, if unable to document, drop note).
 These examples of perceptions we have about sweet and savory dishes being turned on their heads in the Middle Ages and Renaissance are just the tip of the iceberg and were not limited to the food of Italy by any means.  The cookbooks found in Italy and throughout the “old world” were more homogenous than we often think- copyright law were either non-existent or not enforced and as a result many cookbooks have recipes if not entire sections that were copied from previous sources.
 We also have to bear in mind the purpose and intended audience of these writings. They would generally have been intended for the cooks of wealthy households, and as a way to impart recipes that wouldn’t already be in their standard repertoire. This would explain the common lack of cooking instructions- a master cook wouldn’t need to be told how long to cook a capon, how to make a salad, or how to bake bread (or have it baked in the local bakery) so these cook books just guided them through spices, sauces or specialty dishes that they may not already be familiar with. If you are attempting to use these books as guidelines for what a person from that region ate it can be tricky and misleading at times to pick your way through what was local cuisine and what was printed in that location to teach local chefs dishes from elsewhere. One example of this phenomenon is the Venetian manuscript mentioned earlier. Venice, being a land at one with the sea (or at least the lagoon) is fairly well known for it’s seafood – but in the Anonimo Veneziano, Libro di Cuchina, there are a surprising few fish dishes, I counted 7 fish dishes, and that is including the multiple dishes which are just listed as sauces for seafood. On the other hand there are even more dishes that specifically mention that they are from elsewhere, e.g. Roman tart, Hungarian tart, tart from Lavagna for 12 people(ref 9). That’s not even counting dishes that are familiar from culinary references from elsewhere in Europe- two variations of a Carmaline sauce, and blancmange to name just two. Some of those seafood dishes noticeably missing from the Venetian cookbook, can perhaps be found in the Anonimo Toscano, Libro della Cocina (ref 10) including one that is considered by many to be one of Venice’s signature dishes- squid cooked in it’s own ink. Perhaps it is because the local cook would have known how to cook it, and his assistants would have been taught by him?

 

Reference 1: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Tomato
Reference 2: p.119. Economic Botany: Plants in our World by Beryl Brintnall Simpson and Molly Conner-Ogorzaly. Copyright 1986, McGraw-Hill Book Company.
Reference 3: http://www.inmamaskitchen.com/FOOD_IS_ART/pasta/historypasta.html
Reference 4: p.140 Italian Cuisine: An Essential Reference with More than 300 Recipes by Tony May ISBN-10: 0312302800
Reference 5: (book IV, chapter 2) in English:  http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Apicius/home.html
Reference 6: Decameron, VIII, 3, Calandrino, a fool's tale
Reference 7: Anonimo Veneziano, Libro di Cuchina
LXII Fried ravioli, etc.
If you want to make fried ravioli for 12 people.  Take three pounds of pork loin, two fresh strained cheese, eight eggs and twelve (20 eggs), three ounces of dried currants, enough leaves of parsley, two pounds of fresh sumac and four ounces of sugar.  Take the pork loin, boil it well and chop (batter) finely with the cheese that you have, well washed and mashed, the well washed currants, the named spices and all these things (including the eggs).  Make a paste to make ravioli, make them small and subtle and put them to fry in the grease.  When they are fried powder them with sugar and serve them before other dishes from the kitchen service.
Reference 8: Anonimo Veneziano, Libro di Cuchina
XXXVIII Lasagne
If you want to make lasagne in lent, take the lasagne (wide pasta noodles) and put them to cook (in water and salt).  Take peeled walnuts and beat and grind them well.  Put them between the lasagna (in layers), and guard from smoke (while reheating).  And when they go to the table dress them with a dusting of spices and with sugar.
Reference 9: Lavagna is a town on the Levant river, however the tart was named to celebrate the ascent of Sinibaldo Fieschi, count of Lavagna to the papal throne. This information was obtained from "Italian cuisine a cultural history.  Alberto capatti & Massimo Montanari. 2003 Columbia University Press."
http://www.geocities.com/helewyse/libro.html?200925#LXII
Reference 10: Anonimo Toscano, Libro Della Cocina
Tuscan, in Italian: http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~gloning/an-tosc.htm
Tuscan, in English: http://www.geocities.com/anahita_whitehorse/LibroDellaCocina.html
Squid [seppia].
[131] Take the squid, open it, and take out the ink, and keep it: then take the squid cut in slices and fry it in oil with spices. And when it is fried, put in a bit of water, and boil it: then color this with the reserved ink, which is called squid salt, with good wine, and put it in a broth with savory herbs and spices, and serve it.

 

Roman cooking & redactions from MARCUS GAVIUS APICIUS: DE RE COQUINARIA http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/ethnic/historical/ant-rom-coll.html 
I've still got not even half way there, but I feel like I've got at least a decent start even if I do wind up rewriting most of it. :) 

Comments

[ldyanna.livejournal.com]

Helywyse also has multiple pizza recipes translated on her site, and the last two have fruit and nuts.

http://www.geocities.com/helewyse/pizza.html

[ayeshadream.livejournal.com]

Awesome! I'll add that in. That reminds me, I need to email her. I also need to find an email for the others I've quoted, if possible. I just really like asking if I can use their stuff for classes, etc. and usually people are ecstatic to know it's being used. :)