[Sca-cooks] Martino Corno's pasta recipe?

[Johnna Holloway]

I suppose you mean such places as
http://www.mamatheresa.com/history-pasta.htm
where it mentions
Around the year 1000, we have the first documented recipe for pasta in 
the book "De arte Coquinaria per vermicelli e macaroni siciliani", (The 
Art of Cooking Sicilian macaroni and Vermicelli) written by Martino 
Corno, chef to the powerful Patriarch of Aquileia. Pasta was certainly 
well known in Arab countries, where still today they speak of 
"makkaroni". From these countries it spread to Greece and Sicily (then 
an Arab colony). In fact, Palermo was the first historical capital of 
pasta, because it is here that we have the first historical sources 
referring to the production of dried pasta in what seems like a 
small-scale industrial enterprise. In 1150, Arab geographer Al-Idrisi 
reports that at Trabia, about 30 km. from Palermo, "they produce an 
abundance of pasta in the shape of strings ("tria" in Arabic) which are 
exported everywhere, in Calabria and in many Muslim and Christian 
countries, even by ship."

I don't know where they get the year 1000 dating for Martino, but you are
right in that it seems to have been published somewhere and numerous sites
have adopted it as the truth.

Anyway the recipes that Kiri provided seem to be the ones you want.
There's more on the topic of vermicelli in Pasta. The Story of a 
Universal Food
by Serventi and Sabban. See pages 233 to 235. That's a really good source
for pasta history.

Hope this helps.

Johnnae

Christiane wrote:

>Does anyone here know of a translation of Martino Corno's cookbook that contains a recipe titled "De arte Coquinaria per vermicelli e macaroni siciliani (The art of cooking Sicilian vermicelli and macaroni)"?
>
>I find many references to this recipe, circa 1000 A.D., but not the recipe itself! Argh!
>
>Gianotta
>  
>