[Sca-cooks] breadcrumbs & grain disheswas:gingerbread

[Terry Decker]

> >Oh, and it also reminded me of this Italian hot grain + fat dish:
>>XXIV Maize dish (Frumenty) good and very useful.
>>If you want to make frumenty, take the wheat berries, and grind/beat it 
>>well until the husk lifts, then wash it well.  Put it to boil in water, 
>>but don't boil it too much, then pour away the water.  Then add inside the 
>>fat of whichever animal you wish, and you want to make sure that you don't 
>>add too much.  Add sweet and strong spices, and saffron, and if you don't 
>>have wheat then you can take rice, and it will be good.
>>
>>With rice being offered as an alternate, I've made this before for gluten 
>>intolerant folks.
>>
>>From Helewye's translation of Libro Cuchina:
>>http://www.geocities.com/helewyse/libro.html#III
>
> Now I'm curious. Why is it called a Maize dish? Did the word have an 
> earlier meaning?
>
> Checking the Italian text, the answer is that it isn't called a maize 
> dish. So the question is why Helewyse called it that. Was the Italian word 
> in the original ("Formentra") something that modern dictionaries gives as 
> a maize dish?
>
> In case she doesn't notice, I'm copying this to her.
> -- 
> David/Cariadoc

The word "maize" first appears in Europe in the writings of Oviedo (1526). 
The Libro di cucina/Libro per cuoco AKA Anonimo Veneziano is dated to the 
late 13th or early 14th Century, at least 200 years before Oviedo's adoption 
of a Cuban word for the New World grain.

I would translate "formentra" as "grain" from the Latin "frumentum."  As a 
guess, the use of the word "maize" is a mix up between the translation of 
"corn" meaning "grain" and "corn" meaning "maize."

Bear