[Sca-cooks] Re: pasta question (long)

[Louise Smithson]

Lady Alexandra (Alexa) wrote: 

  I have found research material holding up that pasta is period, however in more than likely a simple shape not the complex ones we have now. I also have found things showing simple mixed greens as a salad with an oil/vinegar dressing.  Is there anything that documents something like a pasta salad where the oil/vinegar dressing is applied to pasta? 


16th century Italian is where you need to go.  The menus from Scappi for the month of October (offered in translation here http://www.geocities.com/helewyse/octobermenus.html) give several instances of pasta served as a salad.  Things to note, salads were only served with dinner, never with lunch.  See dinner on the 8th, 15th, 21st, where a cappellini salad is served (little stuffed pastas) as part of the first course from the sideboard.  I have also seen menus which ask for "maccaroni salad" too.  Now Scappi does not give any references for his salads or how he makes them.  There is some more information available in Giacomo Castelvetro's slightly OOP treatsie on vegetables.  A translation of that particular highly entertaining piece is available here (http://www.geocities.com/helewyse/TOCfeast.html#salad).

I have also recently come into possesion of the Archidipino overo dell'insalata.  A book about salads written in Italian in 1627 by Salvatore Massonio.  It is rather typical of the period in that much of it is plagarised from earlier writers (i.e. and this is what this Galen had to say about the nature of vinegar).  However one can glean some useful snippets from it.  (Disclaimer, I have not made a serious attempt to translate this work, I am merely skimming it for information it is over 330 folios in length ).  He says that sour items like chicory, endive should be dressed sweetly, and insipid items like lettuce should be dressed more aggressively to give them flavor. "With vinegar, oil and salt one makes the insipid tasty."  He also, in the early chapter on condimenting salads, talks about the common ingredients of vinegar oil and salt, and the less common ingredients such as: pepper, sour orange juice, lemon juice, mosto cotto (cooked grape must), raisins, garlic, basil and
 similar herbs.  Then there are separate chapters on each condiment and just about any vegetable you could serve as a salad, but nothing on pasta (sorry).  However, I conjecturally made a sour orange and oil dressing for asparagus salad (seen in a menu no recipe) then later found that the salad book actually recommends this for asparagus.  

If you want some stuffed pasta recipes you may check here http://www.geocities.com/helewyse/stuffedpasta.html

For maccaroni recipes see here: http://www.geocities.com/helewyse/pesto.html
They also call for maccaroni to be served with a green herb sauce, made of bread, fresh herbs and vinegar.  So herbs in a oil/vinegar dressing may not be too out of line.  

Sadly we don't have a recipe for pasta salad from period.  But I do have considerable evidence that pasta was served as part of the salad course from the sideboard.  How it was dressed is conjecture, but if you rest with the standard Italian conceit of Oil, vinegar (or other acid) and salt you can't go too wrong.  One of the recipes calls for the salad to be served with raisins (these may be boiled in wine first, a common treatment) and sugar.  

Actually I plan on working up a redaction for a pasta salad at some point for a feast I intend to bid for.  I was planning on cheese stuffed pasta, dressed with a simple oil & vinegar dressing with a few fresh herbs and some raisins sprinkled on top.  Conjecture yes, but based on an understanding of how pasta was treated and salads were dressed in Scappi's time period of late 16th century Italy.   

Helewyse


		
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