SC - "Rocket" in medieval Spanish cooking

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

Lord Antoine,

Your forwarded post to SCA-Cooks makes me blush to remember 
that I am long overdue in sending you comments on your 
translation.  I beg forgiveness.  Mundane considerations, including 
illness in the family, have distracted me much of late.  I promise to 
take out your manuscript this very weekend.

In partial atonement for my tardiness, let me give you an answer to 
your current question.  The "Arte Cisoria", a Spanish carving 
manual written in 1423, contains a long list of foods commonly 
eaten in Spain which require carving or cutting in some fashion.  
Under the list of herbs, I find "oruga", which my modern Spanish 
dictionary identifies as Rocket (Brasica eruca).  The secondary 
definition is for a caterpillar, but I would agree with you that this 
seems an unlikely ingredient.

There are two recipes for "oruga" in the 1529 "Libro de Guisados" 
and two very similar ones in the 1599 "Libro del Arte de Cozina".  
The footnotes for the former make it clear that the ingredient in 
question is a plant.

I hope that this is of some help to you.  Please feel free to email 
me privately if you need any further clarification.

In Service,
Brighid

Antoine de Bayonne wrote:
>    "Anyway, I am wondering if anyone knows of any references to 
> Arugula, aka Rocket in period recipes.  There is a word in the
> 1607 "Arte de Cozina" manuscript that I am trying to track down. 
> The Spanish word is "eruga" which means "caterpillar".......in the
> original context, this "eruga" is ground to make a bitter-sweet
> sauce.  Gulp.  One friend suggested that it might be "aruga",
> which is "feverfew".  I am thinking that it might be "aruga", which
> can mean either "caterpillar" or "arugula".  Of the three, I think
> that bitter-sweet sauce made with arugula might be the most
> palatable & the safest.  Any thoughts or references to period
> cookbooks would be most welcome.  


Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)
mka Robin Carroll-Mann
harper at idt.net
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================