[Sca-cooks] Preseindel

[Sharon Palmer]

>I've gone looking in my more modern but older Italian cookbooks and 
>the closest thing I can find to the recipe is Bistecca Nel Tergame, 
>Pan Broiled Steak, and it's not that close.  The recipe for 
>Preseindel is actually closer to the recipe for steak from Two 
>Fifteenth Century Cookbooks (IIRC).

Preseindel isn't always beef, there are recipes for veal, venison, 
geese, capons and several wild birds.


>That being said, there is a note in the Phillips translation of 
>Pellegrino Artusi's The Art of Eating Well, "In Artusi's day 
>pharmacists used "presine," which were one inch square wafers to 
>dispense liquid medicines." It is possible that the the word is 
>being used to refer to wafers of meat in an Italian recipe. 
>However, locating that precise usage may be a problem and is best 
>attacked by a student of the language.

Modern dictionaries say "presine" are potholders.  Must be pretty tough meat.
But it sounds like it is on the right track.  I'll add this note to 
my glossary.  Thanks a lot.

Ranvaig