non-member submission - Re: SC - Period pesto recipe- Roman Moretaria- LONG

[Michael F. Gunter]

> To get back to the original topic of discussion, there's a lot of
> evidence to suggest pesto is very old indeed.

Speaking of Pesto...
We tried to make a green sauce from _The Medieval Kitchen_ which is
cited
as beign from Tractatus de modo preparandi et condiendi omnia cibaria:
"Here is how to make green sauce: take ginger, cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg,

cloves, parslety, and sage. First, grind the spices, then the herbs and
add a third of the sage and parsley and if you wish, two or three cloves

of garlic. Moisten with vinegar or verjuice. Note that to ever sauce and

condiment salt is added, and crumb of bread to thicken it."

What we got was a sort of thick pesto. The more vinegar we added, the
less
we could taste the other ingredients. Redon, when redacting it, included

water, which we ended up trying, and we also tried adding olive oil. (I
know, I know, olive oil is farther from the intention than the water...)

But it was VERY thick, and adding more vinegar seemed not to be an
option.
Suggestions?