SC - Cold Dishes

[Sue Wensel]

Uduido at aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 97-04-29 04:48:44 EDT, you write:
> 
> << 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