[Sca-cooks] a Well-Dressed Peacock and a Golden Calf (was on topic: Healthy Feasts)

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

Maggie MacDonald wrote:

>I'm still trying to decide if the birds stuffed inside were dead or alive.
>Either way has potential for amusement.  The live ones would be trickier 
>though.
>
Dead. And cooked.

What the heck, here's the post again:

I was delighted yesterday to discover that the Cervantes Virtual Library has added a transcription of an early 15th c. Spanish carving manual.  I have a photocopy of the book, and the facsimile has been on line for a while, but having it in a searchable form is much nicer.  Browsing through, I found some things I hadn't noticed before, including instructions for serving animals stuffed with cooked birds.

"...suele fazer en reales combites, que dan las terneras asadas enteras e los vientres llenos de capones e otras aves preciadas, asadas o cochas, por magnificencia; e cosido encima el logar por donde las pusieron. Estonces abrese por la costura e sacan las aves. E si quisieren, pueden fazer piecas d'ella e cortarla, como dicho es, antes o después de las aves, segúnt fuere plazible a los comedores. E si las dan doradas, non se comen sinon los tajos de la cabeza, de ojo, de lengua, de paladares e lo al dexanlo por magnificencia e aun porque non es tan bueno de comer, por la clara del huevo en que se á de asentar el oro e porque ha de venir frio..."

Enrique de Villena, Arte Cisoria, 1423 (first published 1766)

The above text is taken from the transcription at:
http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/FichaObra.html?portal=0&Ref=708
An online facsimile is at:
http://www.bib.ub.es/grewe/showbook.pl?gw60

"...what they are in the habit of doing for royal feasts, for magnificance; is to serve the calves roasted whole, and their bellies full of capons and other esteemed birds, roasted or boiled, and stiched above the place where they were put in.  Then it is opened through the stitching and the birds are taken out.  And if they wish, they can make pieces of it and cut it, as is said, before or after the birds, according to whatever is pleasing to the diners.  And if they are served gilded, they are not eaten except for the cuts of the head, the eye, the tongue, and the cheeks, and they leave it for magnificence, and even because it it not very good to eat, because of the egg white with which they afix the gold, and because it has to arrive cold."
(Translation by Mistress Brighid ni Chiarain)

Talk about conspicuous consumption!

Villena mentions that sheep and goats are sometimes roasted whole, and served with small birds in their bellies.  He doesn't mention gilding these.

There are many other interesting tidbits, such as the right kind of scarf for a peacock to wear to a feast, and why servers shouldn't hang out in stables and smithies.


Brighid ni Chiarain
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom