SC - medieval Italian salads/travel tales

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Lenny Zimmermann wrote:

> Castelvetro proclaims, "The secret to a good salad is plenty of salt,
> generous oil and little vinegar". He also states that his experiences
> in other countries show that Germans take poorly washed leaves and
> without draining or drying will put on just a little salt, too much
> oil and far too much vinegar, generally producing a more decorative
> effect to the detriment of the flavor of the salad.
> 
> He also proclaims that the English are "worse" and that after a very
> poor washing of the salad (he almost questions if the salads are
> washed at all) that a good deal of vinegar is then put on the salad
> and is not stirred in with either oil or salt, both of which are added
> at the table. (Which implies that vials of oil and salt shakers were
> evident as condiments already on the table in England by the early
> 17th Century. At least in the places Castelvetro went to. Kinda cool,
> eh?)
> 
> Remember the accounts above are by an Italian traveling into areas of
> these other countries, so while we might deduce that the English MAY
> prefer more Vinegar than Germans or Italians, in general, we cannot
> truly take into account what the real preferences were. After all,
> Castelvetro may have just eaten at the "wrong" places.

Forgive a sort of thread cross-posting, but this reminds me of the
thread about how in the East, they do such-and-such. My favorite example
of this has to be in Le Menagier, which contains instrcutions for
cooking carp, with the caveat that if there are any Germans among the
guests, they will want to have their fish taken back to the kitchen for
further cooking, since they like their fish overcooked. I once cooked a
feast in Ostgardr with pork loins cooked to a perfect, and utterly safe,
pinkish-ivory color. I expected those who are afraid of trichinosis
(unreasonably under the circumstances) to complain of undercooking, so I
left a pancake griddle running, and asked a herald to announce that in
case there are any Germans out in the hall who like their meat
overcooked, I was prepared to recook individual servings. It turned out
I had one taker. Just thought it was kind of interesting, if a bit
off-topic.
> 
> So if you mean that a Renaissance salad was drier than an American
> salad, where we usually pour on a big glob of dressing, then you are
> probably quite right. But such salads were not completely "dry", since
> Castelvetro expected the leaves to be lightly coated with (usually
> olive) oil. Just remember that this is for a specific time and place
> and that a hundred years earlier it's possible that people in Padua
> despised salads, while those in Milano could have eaten vast
> quantities with lots of vinegar, no oil and parmesan cheese (wild
> examples only with no bearing on historical fact).

Funny how things go round and round. You've just described, as contrast
to the typical American salad with glob of dressing, the typical
four-star restaurant salad, costing fifteen bucks or so.

Adamantius