[Sca-cooks] Torta reform

[Louise Smithson]

Henry here is my translation of this recipe from my translation of the anonimo veneziano I did a long time ago. The whole thing is available online at: http://www.medievalcookery.com/helewyse/libro.html


C Latticed tart for twelve people. 
Take the most white flour that you have, in the amount of three pounds,
and take two ounces of sugar, a pound of almonds and thirty six hazel nuts,
half a pound of raisins, twenty five dates, half of a quarter of an ounce
of cloves.  Take a good quantity of almond milk, and take the flour
that you have, well mixed with water so that it is thick.  Take a
frying pan which is well greased with oil and with this flour make a crust,
and powder it with the sugar and the said spices, add the crushed hazel
nuts, finely chopped dates, well washed raisins and ground cloves and save
a portion of the crust and put it above each part of these things and it
is a tart. 
* - another case of missing ingredients.  The recipe calls for
a pound of almonds, which is rendered to almond milk, which is mentioned
in the context of the flour, but the flour was mixed with water to a dough
and the almonds are never mentioned again.  There is no thickening
agent, but it may be possible that the almond milk is added to the dried
fruit inside the crust.  The final instructions regarding the top
crust is confusing.  It is not clear whether the pie is completely
covered or just covered with scraps of pastry, like a lattice.  The
Italian name of the pie is "balconata" means either balcony, window of
heaven, or window in some senses.  So either the pie is heavenly giving
us a window on heaven, or there may be openings on the crust giving us
a window into the pie. 


from the transcription on Thomas glonings website http://www.uni-giessen.de/gloning/tx/frati.htm
the original is same as yours. 

Some corrections I would make to my translation - noce are walnuts not hazelnuts as I initially indicated. 


Here are some answers to your questions: 

Destruto - means destroy I have always taken it to mean mix, beat, it is used quite often in that context in the libro di cucina see recipe CXIIII toli la farina e destruta con aqua - take flower and destroy with water. 

Possa is from Potere - to be able to (can or may), 

l' uva passa ben lavata - dried grapes well washed (lavata from lavare to wash)
the garofali rossi I just translated as ground cloves. The amount 1/2 of 1/4 of an ounce (1/8th ounce). 

For weights and measures in Italy you need to use Italian weights and measures from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century by Ronald Edward Zupko. Available free on google books. 

Looking at it now it seems to have a strong similarity with recipes that are the precurser of baklava in middle eastern cookbooks. Pancakes layered with nuts and fruit and then sliced and served as is. 

My take - make a pancake batter with almond milk and flour, make thin pancakes
Layer the pancakes with nuts, sugar, dried fruit and spices
Finish with another pancake. 

Helewyse

Over the weekend I went back to an Italian recipe I started working on
a while ago, and made a good bit of progress. Now I have some loose
ends to try to tie up, and would like to know what thoughts you all
might have.

The recipe is "Torta in balconata per dodeze persone" from the Libro
di cucina/ Libro per cuoco/ Anonimo Veneziano

As transcribed in The Medieval Kitchen by Redon, Sabban, and Serventi, it reads:

Toy farina pi? biancha che tu poy avere in quantit? de tre libre e toy
do onze de zucharo e toy una libra de mandole e XXXVI noce bone e meza
libra de uva passa e XXV datali e mezo quarto de garofali e toy bona
quantit? de late de mandole, toy la farina che tu ay destruta con aqua
s? che sia ben spesso e toy ta padella e onzella ben de olio e de
questa farina fassi crosta ad una polverizata de zucaro e delle dite
specie, e toy la noce possa li datali minuzati e l'uva passa ben
lavata e garofali russi e tute queste croste su chaschauna la suva
parte e poni crosta sopra tute queste cose e s? che sia torta.

In case you can't read the accented letters, the words are "piu",
"quantita", and "si", all with grave accents.

ISTM that "rozzi" is the most likely standardization of "russi" for
this context. I doubt that either "russi"=Russian or "rossi"=red could
work here. And "rossi"=red seems especially bad, because I expect that
any writer who thought in Italian would immediately have recognized it
as a phrase that mean "red carnations". Unless they were used to
getting fresh cloves (which I doubt), in which case this description
ought to have been in the ingredients list; when you're preparing
ingredients it's too late to turn your dry cloves into fresh ones.

Next, here is my translation. I used periods for the commas in the
original, and left two words untranslated because I couldn't identify
them. It seems from context that "destruta" has to refer to some means
of mixing, and my best guess is that "possa" has to do with
crushing--it might be a cognate of "pesto", but that's only an
unconfirmed guess. I have done little to incorporate English idiom as
such; this is mostly a literal word-for-word translation.

Take flour, the whitest that you may have, in the amount of three
pounds, and take two ounces of sugar, and take a pound of almonds and
36 good walnuts, and half a pound of raisins, and 25 dates, and half a
quarter of cloves, and take a good quantity of almond milk. Take the
flour, which you have /destruta/ with water that it is good and thick,
and take the frying pan, and oil it well with oil, and of this flour
make a crust, [putting thereto] a ground mixture of sugar and of the
said spice. And take the nuts /possa/, the dates in small pieces, and
the raisins well [rinsed or plumped], and cloves [coarse or whole],
and all these crusts upon each its part, and put crust over all these
things, and it is a tart.



And the big one: How is this thing really made? I've seen modern
adaptations that add various ingredients to the pastry, including the
one in The Medieval Kitchen, which adds butter to make the pastry
flaky even though much of it is baked in the middle where it can't
cook to flakes. But I've just figured out that the original never says
that the torta is either assembled in the pan or baked in the oven.
What if it isn't?


So what are your thoughts? Oh, and by the way, is there any sense of
"balconata" that would explain what the name of this dish refers to?
Anything, for instance, that refers specifically to Lent?

-- 
Henry of Maldon/Alex Clark