Tag: Feasting

Joana de Bairros enters a delicious chicken dish in the category Do you think because you are virtuous, that there shall be no more cakes and ale?

“There is one Portuguese cookbook from period called Um tratado da cozinha portuguesa do século XV or Livro de cozinha da Infanta D. Maria de Portugal which can be found, with an English translation at http://www.medievalcookery.com/notes/tratado.html. This collection of recipes was written in the late 15th century and then taken to Italy with Maria, the grand daughter of Manuel I of Portugal, when she married Alessandro Farnese. It ended up in Naples. (See reference to this in At the First Table:Food and Social Identity in Early Modern Spain by Jodi Campbell).

I was having a friend of over for dinner so decided to cook the Moorish Chicken recipe from this book as I have tried it before and it is delicious.

Outra receita de galinha mourisca
Façam em pedaçosuma galinha bem gorda, e levem-na ao fogo brando, com duas colheres de sopa degordura, algumas fatias de toucinho, bastante coentro, um punhadinho de salsa,umas folhinhas de hortelã, sal e uma cebola bem grande. Abafem-na e deixem-na dourar, mexendo-a devez em quando. Em seguida cubram essagalinha com água, e assim que levante fervura acabem de temperá-la com sal,vinagre, cravo-da-índia, açafrão, pimenta-do-reino e gengibre. Logo que agalinha esteja cozida, derramem dentro 4 gemas batidas. Tomem uma travessa funda, forrada com fatiasde pão e derramem por cima a galinha.

Another recipe for moorish chicken – literal translation
Cut a very fat chicken into pieces, and cook it over low heat, with two soup spoons of fat, a few slices of bacon, lots of cilantro, a bit of parsley, a few mint leaves, salt and a very large onion. Cover it (abafar means smother) and let it brown, stirring once in a while. Next cover that chicken in water, and as soon as it reaches a boil finish seasoning it with salt, vinegar, cloves, saffron, black pepper and ginger. When the chicken is cooked, add 4 beaten egg yolks. Take a deep serving tray, lined with bread slices and put the chicken over top.

My redaction to feed 4   

500gm chicken breast
1T olive oil
100gm bacon
¼ cup of coriander
2T parsley
1T mint
Pinch of salt
2 cups of chicken stock
1T white wine vinegar
1 t salt
1t each of cloves, pepper and ginger
A pinch of saffron
4 egg yolks
1 loaf of bread.

1. Cut chicken and bacon in to chunks (I used chicken breasts as I wanted it to cook quickly) ‘
2. Roughly cut the herbs and dice the onion. (I didn’t add coriander the first time as my guest did not like it so included more parsley. I did up it in in a later attempt at this recipe and it added a nice flavor)
3. Heat up the oil in a thick based casserole dish on the stove top
4. Brown chicken and bacon
5. Add in herbs, salt and onion
6. Put the lid on the casserole dish and cook at medium heat for about 10 minutes. Stir occasionally to stop the chicken from sticking.
7. Add in the stock (I used stock rather than just water as I was using breast meat which doesn’t have the flavor of chicken drums)
8. When the stock boils add in the vinegar, salt and spices. Leave to cook for 5 minutes
9. Separate the egg yolks and whisk together
10. Pour the egg yolks into the casserole and mix up the sauce thoroughly. If you do not the egg will cook in lumps rather than being spread through sauce.
11. Slice a loaf of good bread up. Either serve the chicken in a deep dish with bread underneath or serve the chicken to the table in a pot with a loaf of bread so guests can assemble their own. The bread is very delicious when soaked in the sauce!”

The Honorable Lady Elisabetta Foscari details her recent intimate Italian dinner for friends in her entry in the category Do you think because you are virtuous, that there shall be no more cakes and ale?  In her words:

“I chose to cook a dinner party for some friends using recipes from Scappi.  Below are the pdfs of my write up of the meal.
Introduction and Course one: cena1
Course 2: cena2
Course 3 and Reference list: cena3“

PGC2019: Meisterin Christian’s Festa de Natale, Late 16th C Italian feast

Not just an item of food or drink your persona may have grown, prepared, consumed, or known of, Meistern Christian has entered a whole feast in the category “Do you think because you are virtuous, that there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

Persona period inspiration and use:

A friend wanted to host a Christmas event with a meal (Southron Gaard, Festa de Natale, December 2018).  He wanted a menu suitable for his Lady’s persona, i.e. late 1570’s Italian noblewoman.  I chose to follow Scappi, a chef to various cardinals and pope’s, whose Opera dell’arte del cucinare was published in 1570.

I used Scappi’s recipes and menus to construct a feasibly accurate light summer celebration meal for Italy in the 1570’s.

Design, Materials and Construction:

I reviewed all the translated menus from Scappi I could find, and established the appropriate number of courses and dishes for a light feast.  I reviewed the dishes on those menus, and arranged them as to the appropriate course in which they should appear (certain dishes appear only in certain courses).  From those lists I selected a long list of the dishes I preferred.  Christmas in Italy is obviously not in summer, so some flexibility was necessary in selecting recipes from both the summer and December menus.

I then narrowed down the long list of recipes balancing an authentic light Scappi summer menu with the modern constraints / considerations of the event: a menu of light dishes and salads appropriate for a warm summer evening, a balanced menu (for modern tastes), recipes I liked, available seasonal produce, preparation time and cooking facilities, recipes with a nod to Christmas (period or modern Christmas) and keeping a low ticket price in mind.

Here is the menu from the feast:

Primo servitio di credenza (First service from the sideboard):

• Uva fresca di piu sorte (Fresh grapes of various sorts)
• Formaggio (Cheese)
• Olive di piu sorte (Olives of various sorts)
• Insalata di citrioli et cipollette (Cucumber and onion salad)
• Insalate di cedro tagliate in fettoline, servite con zuccaro, sale & acqua rosa (Orange salad with sugar, salt, and rosewater)
• Prosciutto cotto in vino, tagliata, servitto freddo (Ham cooked in red wine, with a dressing of capers, currants, sugar, vinegar)
• Amaretti (Almond cookies)
• Pane con buttiro (Bread butter)

Primo et ultimo servito di cucina (First and last service from the kitchen)

• Polli arrostite (Roast chicken)
• Il lomboletto di porco domstico in piu modi (Roast pork tenderloin)
• Mostardo amabile (Sweet mustard)
• Sapore vino di melangranate (Pomegranate wine sauce)
• Minestra di tagliatelle (A thick soup of Tagliatelle)
• Bolognese tourte ((for vegetarians) Cheese and chard tart)
• Cuocere Broccoli asciutti et cauli (Broccoli and cauliflower with sour orange juice, oil and garlic)
• Insalata di misto (Mixed salad)

Secondo et ultimo servitio di credenza (Second and last service from the sideboard):

• Mele et pere crudo di piu sorte (Raw pears and apples)
• Formaggio (Cheese)
• Grani di melegranate et Fragole (Pomegranate seeds and strawberries)
• Mandole (Almonds)
• Neve di latte(A dish of Snow)
• Per fare pizza a un’altro modo (A dried fruit tart: pastry)
• Ciambelle (Italian cookies)
• Gelo di cotogne (Quince paste)

Here is a link to an article in FTT with some recipes from the event.

Reference:

The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570): L’arte et prudenza d’un maestro cuoco (The Art and Craft of a Master Cook), Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library, University of Toronto Press, 2011, Terence Scully.

This project, completed at Golden Flight, is entered under the category of “Do you think because you are virtuous, that there shall be no more cakes and ale?” (Food and drink your persona would have known.)  Baronessa Isabel Maria has this to say about it:

“It is nice to have food and drink appropriate to ones persona when attending an event.  To that end, I was looking for an easy to make (or perhaps even convenient to buy) drink that it suitable for daytime tourneys, evening feasts or multi-day camping events.  So the question became “what did they drink in sixteenth century Spain?”

According to Daily Life in Spain in the Golden Age (Marcelin Defourneaux) there was “a great demand for iced drinks – orange juice, [and] strawberry water…” even in the summer months.  In contrast he also quotes the Countess d’Aulnoy as saying “women never drink [wine].”  With that in mind, I went looking for a flavoured water or juice recipe in 16th century Spanish cooking manuals or recipe books.  While I did not find such a book from exactly my period, there was one from earlier that met all my requirements.

Recipe: Clarea de Aqua
To one azumbre of water, four ounces of honey; you must cast in the same spices as for the other clarea; you must give it a boil with the honey over the fire, and hen it is off the fire you must cast in the spices.

Spices for Clarea
3 parts cinnamon, 2 parts cloves, 1 part ginger Libre del Coch (1529, Roberto de Nola translated by Lady Brighid ni Chiarain)

I used the above translation of the original Catalan recipe and considered the advice of several others who have made this drink, but adjusted the spice proportions to suit my tastes.

My redaction: Take 2 litres of water and add 170g honey.  Boil for 3 or so minutes and take the scum off the water.  Throw in ¼ teaspoon of roughly broken cloves, ½ teaspoon of roughly bashed cinnamon stick, a tiny fraction of a pinch of ginger.  Let steep until lukewarm, strain through 2 layers of thick linen, bottle and refrigerate.

Due to the honey used, there was a slight chemical aftertaste.  However, the addition of a tablespoon of white sugar eliminated the “tang” without substantially affecting the sweetness of the clary.
Verdict: This proved to be a light and refreshing non-alcoholic beverage, that was very pleasant to drink when chilled while watching the tourney and room temperature during the feast. It is also fairly quick and easy to make, with ingredients regularly in my pantry, meaning it is the sort of thing that can be made the evening before (or indeed morning of) an event.”

Resources

• “Libre del Guisados” by Roberto de Nola (a Spanish edition of Libre del Coch), published in 1529 ,  translated by Lady Brighid ni Chiarain 
  http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-MANUSCRIPTS/Guisados1-art.html
• “Period drinks – Spiced Wines and Sweet Waters” by Vicente Coenca https://www.florilegium.org/files/BEVERAGES/Clarea-d-Agua-art.html
•  “A Dinner of 16^th Century Spain” by Senhora Rafaella d’Allemtejo, submitted to An Tir A&S Championship, 2002.