Cook the capon in water and salt until more than half done, and divide into four quarters, and let it stay for eight hours in a combination of white wine, vinegar, cooked must, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, pounded coriander and crushed cloves of garlic. Remove from the mixture, flour, and fry in melted lard, and when it’s fried serve hot with a sauce over it made of the same marinade.
The commentary for this recipe would explain that cooked must is the sapa or boiled-down grape juice, but otherwise, despite the unusual proce- dure, it is perfectly simple to follow. A capon is a castrated rooster, but a chicken will also work. How to boil until half done is entirely a matter of guesswork. Gently boiling the chicken whole for about a half an hour will work—but the recipe would not be ruined if you boil it more or less. The marinade should obviously cover the chicken completely in a separate bowl or casserole, and a sprinkle of each spice should be enough, but again, more or less will not matter in the least. Flouring means just a light dusting of flour, and then frying in lard in a pan until browned is also simple enough. What Scappi does not explain is how to make a sauce from the marinade, and here the commentary would suggest thorough boiling and reduction of the marinade in a saucepan and then straining out the spices. The recipe is just precise enough, requires no measurement or cooking time, and in fact liberates the reader to cook as she pleases. The fact that other variations follow suggests that Scappi was truly trying to teach the reader how to be creative, rather than depend on following a recipe to the letter.
Finally a word of advice: trust your instinct, feel free to experiment and have fun. The recipes that follow are fascinating, bizarre, and if nothing else will show that despite all the changes in ingredients and procedures, what tasted good hundreds of years ago still tastes good today. And there is only one way to find that out—by cooking and tasting them. Bon chance!
THE MIDDLE
AGES, 1300–1450
The period covered in this section, when cookbooks began to proliferate, is technically only the Late Middle Ages. There were a few manuscript cook- books before 1300, most notably the Libellus de arte coquinaria (Little Book on the Art of Cooking), which may go back to the twelfth century, but it sur- vives only in several Germanic versions copied and translated around 1300 or thereafter. The real efflorescence of medieval cuisine begins with the cookbook entitled Viandier, attributed to Guillaume Tirel, called Taillevent, chef to King Charles V of France. In fact, many of the recipes are found in manuscripts predating Taillevent, and confusingly, many more were added after him, especially in the later printed versions. Nonetheless, the recipes give a good idea of the very opulent cuisine that would be enjoyed by kings and nobility throughout Europe. Down the social scale, a wealthy urban professional known as the Ménagier de Paris composed a household guide- book for his young bride, and he also includes recipes. Elsewhere cookbooks such as the Forme of Cury written at the court of Richard II of England; the
Du fait de cuisine by Chiquart written in Savoy; and the Libre de Sent Sovi written in Catalunya in the east of what is today Spain show that the same basic cooking procedures and flavor combinations were enjoyed everywhere with major differences only in the ingredients used. There were also a num- ber of minor cookbooks written in Latin and other vernacular languages. Rupert of Nola’s cookbook, Libre de doctrina per a ben server, de taller y del
art de coch . . . , (Book of rules to serve well, and the art of cooking) written in Catalan for the Aragonese court in Naples, was especially influential. The
focus in the recipes that follow is on the lesser-known cookbooks because these are harder to find in translation, but examples from others, particu- larly the Viandier, are also included.
Cold Foods
1. COLD SAGE (CHICKEN SALAD)
France, 14th c. (Viandier, 136)
Take your poultry and put it to cook in water; then let it cool. And then pound ginger, cinnamon buds, grains of paradise and cloves, without straining them, then pound bread, parsley and sage and a bit of saffron with the greens, if you like, to make it bright green and pass it through a sieve; and some sieve hard boiled egg yolks moistened with vinegar. Cut up your poultry in half, quarters or in parts, and place it in a plate with the sauce on top, and on that have hard boiled eggs, cut into morsels with a knife and not crumbled by hand.
This is listed among Taillevent’s (nickname of Guillaume Tirel, chef to Charles V of France) entremets, and was thus a cold dish that came between main courses, apparently giving the kitchen staff a little time to prepare another round of hot dishes. This recipe is a kind of proto-chicken salad, although, as with many poultry dishes, the bones are not removed.
2. BLAUNCHE BRAWEN (WHITE PORK PATÉ)
England, 15th c. (Harleian, 34)
Take Freysshe Braun, & mynce hem small, & take gode thikke mylke of Almaundys y-blaunchyde, & putte all in-to a potte, & Sugre, & lat boyle alle-to- gederys tyl it be rygt styffe; then caste it uppe, & caste it in a fayre cold basyn, & lette it stonde ther-in tyl it be cold; & then leche ii or iii in a dysshe, & serve forth.
Take fresh pork and chop it finely, and take good thick milk of blanched almonds, and put it all in a pot with sugar, and let it boil together until it is very firm. Then take it out and put into a cold basin and let it stand until it is cold, then slice two or three per dish and serve.
Leche meats were a whole category of medieval cold dishes that were served in slices, some like pâté, others based on fruits or dairy. Most are sweet, though. This variation will only stay together if the meat is very finely chopped and contains some fat. To get even slices it is best if the mix- ture is pressed firmly into a rectangular bread pan lined with greased parch- ment paper, chilled for several hours (and of course a refrigerator is easier to use that a basin set in cold water), and then turned out and sliced.
3. COLD FLOUNDER
Spain—Aragonese-ruled Naples, 15th c. (Rupert of Nola, li)
. . . To prepare cold flounder. First take the flounder and scale it well, and then open it along the side, then when you want to fry it place on a bit of salt and heat the oil and when it is hot place in the flounder. And as it firms up you quickly turn it to the other side and press your hand on it so that it doesn’t curl up while becoming firm. When it’s well fried you want to eat it with pepper and lemon slices. And after take some of its oil and enough vinegar and place it on the flounder and place on the other things. And you know something, the flounder is a royal fish and is very good to eat cold as hot.
Cold fish dishes were another item that might appear as an appetizer in the past, just as they are served as tapas in Spain today. By opening it, the author means filleting the fish off the bone. The palaya in the original recipe in Catalan is the Atlantic spotted flounder (Citharus linguatula) that is also common in the western Mediterranean. Any small flat fish, including sole, will work well. Rupert’s describing flounder as royal, that is fit for royalty, is corroborated by the evidence of physicians who frequently complained about the courtly fashion for eating cold fish, which they believed could cause colds and other disorders.
4. GELATIN OF EVERY MEAT
Italy, 14th c. (Anonimo Veneziano, 16)
If you want to make a good gelatin of all meats: of wild pig’s flesh, take ears and feet and every thing, and capons, partridges, thrushes, hares, roebuck and pheasants. Take these things and place them on the fire in part water and part vinegar. When it boils and is well skimmed, add spices — pepper, cinnamon, ginger and saffron, not pounded together, enough according to the quantity of meat. And whichever meat is cooked remove, but leave behind the ears and feet because they are of little substance. When everything has been removed, dust all the meat with spices and let your gelatin stay on the fire and take saffron and soak it in the gelatin and arrange the meat in a vessel that you want and line it with bay leaves and place over this gelatin strained with the saffron through a sieve. When it is strained over the meat, take sweet spices and moisten with the same gelatin, and cast it over, and you want it to be colored and deep red. And add salt while boiling, as much as is convenient, and it will be good and beautiful gelatin.
The idea of a savory meat gelatin may strike American readers as odd as we are used to seeing gelatin flavored with fruit, but it is very typical of medieval and even modern European cooking and today is called an aspic. This is one of the cold dishes—the gelatin sets after being cooled—that was
considered an elegant presentation piece. It would take the shape of what- ever vessel it was poured into. Gelatins could be clear, too, and came in vari- ous colors, though this one contains the cooked meat. The directions specify, though not entirely clearly, that the parts that give the gelatin its body, such as cartilaginous ears and feet, should not be included in the final dish. For those unwilling to deal with ears and feet, the dish can also be made with powdered unflavored gelatin, rich beef broth and chunks of meat with spices. This will give a decent and easy approximation of the original dish.
Soups
5. BROUET ROUSSET (RUSSET BROTH)
France, 14th c. (Viandier, 59)
Take whatever meat you like, and onions sliced in rounds and parsley leaves and place them to fry in lard; and then sieve bread and livers with beef bouillon and wine and boil it with your meat and then finish off with ginger, cinnamon, cloves, grains of paradise, cassia buds, and temper with verjuice; and it will be reddish.
Although there is an option to use any meat here, it was probably chicken that was used most often as the recipes that accompany this one suggest. Slices of chicken breast work nicely. When these and the onions are lightly browned, the bread, which has been soaked in bouillon and wine, is passed through a sieve with cooked livers and added to the pot with chicken. The spices should all be finely pounded. The only one that is difficult to find today is the cassia buds, which are the dried unripe fruit of a close relative of cinnamon. The proportions of ingredients are entirely a matter of personal taste, but for a few servings, one chicken breast, 12 ounces of broth, and a glass of red wine with a slice of bread soaked in them suffice, as does just a pinch of each spice and a drizzle of verjuice. Liver would have been considered essential to the flavor and texture of the dish, and every chicken comes with one, but today this soup can be made without it. It will still be remarkably delicious.