[Sca-cooks] (no subject)

[nickiandme at att.net]

David Friedman wrote:

<<I don't see any salt in the recipe you quote above--do you have 
another recipe with information on making pasta?

Also (Elizabeth's question) it's odd that the original has butter and 
cheese and eggs, but then gives a Lenten alternative for cooking it. 
Do we know if Lenten customs in Italy at the time permitted eggs and 
dairy?
>>

I added salt because all the modern recipes I referred to in my research added salt.  Not a good reason.  I will eliminate the salt when trying it with the pecorino cheese (which is extremely salty.)

The lenten version of the recipe also cooks the ravoli in water with butter added.  I know very little about the Italian lenten customs.  The area these recipes are from are the northeastern part of Italy around Venice - almost into the Alps.  Perhaps they followed a more lenient form of fasting/lent?

There is another variation of the recipe given later in the book(given below). It also direct you to make the ravioli with cheese and eggs and to boil the ravoili (in lent) in water to which butter has been added.

Kateryn

\
57 D    TO MAKE RAVIOLI FOR A DAY OF MEAT OR LENT FOR TEN PLATTERS
Take silver beet (chard) well washed and cut, and put in a pot with six pounds of good grated cheese, and two pounds of fresh butter, and eggs numbering twenty, and a ounce of pepper, and a half-ounce of ginger, and a ounce of cinnamon, and two (loaves) of grated bread passed through the sieve, and a half-pound of raisins, and mix everything together.
And then get a half-pound of white flour spread over a table and with named mixture you shall make your ravioli, large or small according to what you shall want, and you shall put them to cook in water, and on a day of lent with butter and a small amount of saffron in named water, and you shall make them to cook slowly so that they do not burst.
Then you shall ready for the banquet with good cheese grated over them.  And for a day of meat you shall want to make them cook in good broth with saffron and raisins in the mixture.  And when they are cooked you shall take cheese, sugar, and cinnamon mixed together, and when you shall want to ready for the banquet, you shall cast in the platter, on top and bottom, the cheese.
And when you want to vary, you can make with out silver beet with a small amount of ricotta (cheese).