[Sca-cooks] almonds or wheat (was Re:14th c Italian cookbook)

[Louise Smithson]

Interestingly a similar dish in the anonymous Venetian cookbook calls for almonds (see below).  However, it is interesting to note that two recipes call for amido non mondo, the preceeding recipe in the Anonymous Tuscan calls for the addition of amido as does the following recipe for Gratomea.

Helewyse

CXIX A lemon flavored dish 
To make this dish for twelve people.  Take six fat chickens, six capons, three ounces each of fine spices, almonds and fine sugar, twenty five dates, twelve juicy oranges and half a pound of prunes.  Take the chickens that you have and put them to boil, when they are cooked take a pound of melted and strained lard and put the chickens to fry, dusting them with the said spices.  Mix these with the sugar and the almonds which have been washed and ground with the skimmed, strained chicken broth.  Put this to cook in a pot, and at the start of the boil add a quantity of the said spices and add the well washed prunes, each cut in half, and then add soaked saffron.  When this dish starts to boil add the capons and the oranges and make sure that it is strong with spices and sweet with sugar.  And serve the capons on a plate and the sauce in a bowl. 
*  I think that the sauce is made with the boiled then fried chickens, almonds and sugar, the capons which are more tender are simply boiled in the sauce and served separately. 

Helewyse adding to the confusion.  

As others have said, "amido" is the Italian word for wheat starch. My 
first thought, upon reading your question, is that "amido non mondato" 
sounds like a scribal error for unpeeled *almonds*. Almonds are a 
common thickener in medieval cuisine (especially in the Mediterranean 
area), but ninety percent of the time, they are blanched and peeled.

However, Italian is not my language. I checked "The Original 
Mediterranean Cuisine" by Barbara Santich. She has both of those 
recipes in her book, with the original recipe, a translation, and a 
redaction. She expresses the opinion that "amido" is an error, and that 
the word should be almonds.

Speaking as someone who has made her share of translation mistakes, 
never underestimate the power of scribal errors (and bad transcriptions).

-- 
Brighid ni Chiarain
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
Robin Carroll-Mann *** rcmann4 at earthlink.net



		
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