SC - Non-member submission - RE: Special needs

[Rovena]

Nanna,

according to Wiswe (Kulturgeschichte der Kochkunst, 138) the goose
recipe you quoted is extant earlier in the works of Giambattista Porta
and Alessio Piemontese (both 16th c.; there are 17th c. editions, too).
It seems that this recipe was wandering, it is also reprinted in
Balthasar Schnurr's 'Hausbuch' (German, 17th c.). And I guess one could
find still more places. On the one hand, this indicates that the recipe
was a 'literary' phenomenon, handed down and copied for its
'strangeness' in the collections of curiosities. E.g., Schnurr did not
place this text in the cookery section of his book but in the section
called "Wunder-Büchlein"!

On the other hand: Porta reports (that he heard from old men) that this
recipe was done several times at the court of the kings of Arragon and
that _he_ prepared it too in company:
   "A little before our times, a goose was wont to be brought to
    the table of the King of Arragon, that was roasted alive, as 
    I have heard by old men of credit. And when I went to try it, 
    ... The rule to do it is thus ..." (follows the preparation;
    Porta, book 14, online-ed. by Scott L. Davis).

Th.
(see also Thorndike, A history of magic and experimental science, VI
421, Fn. 76, quoted by Wiswe.)