[Sca-cooks] Michalangelo's Lunch

[Volker Bach]

I might as well introduce myself, now that I
decided to jump right into the fray with nary a
second of listening in. I'm a new listmember,
soon-to-be SCA member and currently designated
cook of the Incipient Shire of Two Seas (Kingdom
of Drachenwald), Giano Balestiere (MKA Volker
Bach). And no, I do not normally lack humility in
this fashion. I just occasionally get carried away
when cooking or history are discussed.

Christine Seelye-King schrieb:
> My
> lord conjectures that as herring is a cold water fish, it might be a
> preserved item, bought in barrels,

That is an amazing find! And just to underpin that
theory, yes the herring was most likely an import
either from the Baltic (where, at the time, the
Hanse's mighty Schonen fleet still went about its
annual business of catching, gutting, and salting
away a significant part of Europe's fish dinners)
or from Holland (that was beginning to take away
the herring business from the Hanse as the herring
swarms went out of the Baltic).

> while the anchovies might be a fresh
> 'catch of the day' from the Mediterranean.

Possibly, though Italian spreads traditionally
included fish in oil rather than fresh when served
with bread (I have evidence for this,
unfortunately, only for the 2nd and 18th century
CE, not for the sixteenth, but personal experience
strongly suggests it's better that way).

Giano