[Sca-cooks] Citron

[johnna holloway]

Millham notes that with regard to the ancient sources that the fruit was 
the citron. With regard to what Platina is calling for, she notes on 
page 145 that he means probably the contemporary Italian fruit and that 
was the lemon.

On pages 284-286 of Millham, the pork recipe (book vi, 28) calls for 
"citri vel" and she says orange or lemon juice. The thrush recipe (book 
vi 29) calls for citra vel and again she says squeeze lemons or oranges. 
The recipe for partridges (book vi, 33) calls for "Succus citri aut 
malarantii" and she notes that in this case on page 287 that Platina 
apparently left out Martino's instructions that one might use also 
verjuice as an alternative to the orange and lemon that were suggested 
in the recipe.

Millham's notes actually make sense when one looks at Martino and in 
checking versions of Martino, (I am using Benporat here because the 
indexing makes it easy) the Rub #23[the pork]says "sugo de naranze o de 
limoni" p. 173. On that same page one finds that the Rub #24 [the 
thrush] calls for "sugo de pome ranze o limoni." The partridges which 
was book vi, recipe 33 in Platina are found here as Rub 28 on page 174 
where the phrase reads: "e uno pocho de pome ranze o limoni o de agresto".

The Vat # 28 version [the pork] on page 96 says "di aceto sugo daranci 
ho limoni" on page 96. The Vat # 29 version [the thrush] on page 97 says 
"di aceto sugo di arancio ho di limoni." The partridges which was book 
vi, recipe 33 in Platina in the Vat mss are recipe 33 on page 97. What 
is called for here is: "e un pocho di sucho di pome aranci ho di limoni 
ho di agresto..."

So yes Martino does call for orange or lemon or even verjuice as Millham 
says.


Benporat, Claudio. Cucina Italiana del Quattrocento (1996) contains 
among other things the "Ricettatario di Maestro Martino Ms. Urbinate 
Latino 1203" here cited as the Vat. version and also the "Ricetario di 
Maestro Martino, Riva del Garda, Archivio Storico here given as Rub.

Hope this helps.

Johnnae llyn Lewis

>>Bear replied to me with:
>>
>>>Stefan, you can't infer that citron is actually being called for from
>>>the
>>>recipes in Platina.  He was translating recipes from Italian into
>>>Latin and
>>>there are no Latin words for the various citrus fruits other than
>>>citron
>>>(which arrived in the Mediterranean basin in the 4th Century BCE).  The
>>>recipes need to be compared to the original Italian recipes by Martino
>>>Rossi.  I believe you will find the chicken recipe actually calls for
>>>(Seville) oranges in the original.
>>
>>Yes, there is commentary in my file that covers this. But I'm not sure
>>the info given there is definative. At least not such that I wanted to
>>keep this possible citron recipe from Anahita. That is one reason that
>>I quoted both the Platina recipe and Millham's translation. In fact she
>>says lemon or verjuice. So that gives three possible interpretatons,
>>orange, lemon or citron.
>>
>>Stefan
> 
> 
> I'm a little busy getting ready for my last day of work, so I can't dig out
> Milham, but as I recall, there is a footnote discussing the differences
> between Martino's recipe and Platina's translation.  As Platina is copying
> Martino's recipes, I would hold that Martino is the definitive source.
> 
> Bear