[Sca-cooks] Introduction and a Request

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Apr 14, 2006, at 2:37 AM, David Friedman wrote:

>> So basically I'm looking for any suggestions any of you may have  
>> for recipes (or leads on where to find them) for Provencale foods,  
>> either period or modern.
>
> You might want to look at _Du Fait de Cuisine_--there is a  
> translation webbed on my site. It's a 15th century cookbook written  
> by the chief cook of the Duke of Savoy, which gets it pretty close  
> to Provence. I don't know of any period cookbooks that are actually  
> from Provence, but I'm not very familiar with the 16th century  
> sources.

It's been alleged that the Harpestrang manuscript, a version of which  
has been published as "An Old Icelandic Medical Miscellany", and in  
another form as "Libellus de arte coquinaria" are in fact recipes  
from the South of France.

I don't know if there's any more compelling reason than the  
comparatively frequent appearance of olive oil, almonds, and saffron  
in a manuscript in the library of a Dane believed to have gone to  
medical school in the South of France, but the theory that these  
recipes are more French Riviera than Scandinavian is definitely out  
there.

Adamantius



"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04