[Sca-cooks] Cacciocavallo with pasta?

[nickiandme at att.net]

Yes, I was experimenting with cheeses. But, I did do a little research into the northern cheeses and what would have been available at the end of the 16th century near Venice.  Thus, the grana padano, the parmasan, and the pecorino tuscano.  

I like my recipe results to be tasty - not bland, so I tend to experiment with my redactions until I get a result that make my taste buds say - Good stuff,  eat more please! -   

I also played with the types of sugar and flours. I never use refined white sugar in my medieval cooking anymore.  It's always raw sugar, or more recently muscovado - which really adds dimensions of flavor to a receipe, unless the recipe calls for sugar of the finest white.  I do use muscovado if the sugar called for is black sugar.  

Once I have the ingredients that might have been used in the country and time I am trying to recreate recipes for, I experiment with those ingredients and find what the right flavor balance is for the dish.

I will be doing this a lot over the next two months, as I am going to be cooking a feast based solely on recipes from the Libro Novo for CooksCon 3.  I will also be typing up my complete research notes and my resulting recipes for an article to be included with the CooksCon 3 Proceedings CD.  

You guys get the rough drafts - so I can get some good feedback on my interpretations and help working through some of the problems I am having.  And have my obvious and not so obvious errors pointed out so I can work on correcting those also.

I'm really enjoying planning for this feast - because I'm getting to cook it all from a single source, I have a huge budget, and each and every dish served will be based on a period recipe.  I usually don't get to have all my wishes come true like this - so its a dream feast for me, and I working like a fiend on it.  This feast is going to be as close to a medieval meal as I can make it - given my resources and knowledge (admittedly scanty on a lot of things). And that makes me really really happy inside.

Kateryn de Develyn
Writing this day from the Barony of Coeur d'Ennui
in the Kingdom of Calontir

<<The lady who made the ravioli recipe was experimenting with cheeses. That got me 
to thinking about the regional nature of cheeses in Italy, and if I were to make 
pasta in the Sicilian style the Gonzaga courtier was slavering over, I'd have to 
use cacciocavallo, which is very specific to Sicily. So that got me wondering 
what it's like to cook with. No, I will not be making that chard ravioli recipe 
with cacciocavallo! 

Gianotta
>>