[Sca-cooks] Re: Indian Maise in Italy in period?????

[Johnna Holloway]

In Capatti and Montanari's volume Italian Cuisine A Cultural History,
they write on page 50:
"A soup of "coarse wheat," meaning maize, appears in Scappi's Opera.
footnote 76 which reads Scappi Opera ,chaps. 70v  359
So they at least believe that this coarse wheat is maize. They also say 
that Stefani and Latini
mention it as suitable for animal fodder. This is the sort of thing the 
English
cooks write about when they discuss oats.

Johnnae

Louise Smithson wrote:

>OK to confound the issue further. When you look at Florio you get a totally different interpretation of the word Formentone: 
>Forment*ro – a meale or wheate man
>Forment*to – a frumentie pottage or tarte, also household, wheaten or cheat bread
>Form*nto – any kind of corne but properly wheate. Used also for leaven
>Forment*ne – the biggest kind of wheate. Also Formentie
>
>So are we talking here about true maize/corn or are we talking about a very regional form of wheat which has a larger grain than standard? 
>
>I'll transcribe and translate the formentone recipes tonight when I get back from work. But there is in my mind some question about whether these are truly maize recipes or not. 
>
>Helewyse
>
>