[Sca-cooks] Gnocchi

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Sharon wrote:
>  8) Gnocchi--though it's not period, I have had some excellent pumpkin
>  gnocchi.  No recipe, alas.

Well, gnocchi is period, just not the kind made with mashed potatoes 
or orange pumpkins (i figure i can track down a recipe for the 
pumpkin kind with a minute amount of googling).

The first time i made gnocchi (i'd never eaten them) was in the 
mid-1970s, from a recipe from one of those woman's magazines at the 
check out stand in the stupormarket - either Family Circle or Woman's 
Day - they actually had some decent recipes much of the time.

The gnocchi it produced was really delicious. Alas, the recipe 
disappeared during the course of my life. I eventually ate some 
potato gnocchi and was not impressed. Then i was quite pleasantly 
surprised to discover the gnocchi recipe in "The Medieval Kitchen" by 
Sabin, Redon, & Servetti when it was published in English. It was 
pretty much what had been in that woman's magazine over 30 years ago! 
Mmm-mmm-mmm!

It was rather amusing when a local Laurel brought some he'd made 
using The Medieval Kitchen recipe to the period pot-luck of a Shire 
we hang out with. He is of Italian extraction and was disappointed 
with them, since all he was used to was the potato kind. I, on the 
other hand, was delighted to eat them, since they tasted like those 
i'd made 30 or so years before.

So, yes, Virginia, there is SCA-period gnocchi. And it beats the heck 
out of potato gnocchi. In my opinion.

Anahita