[Sca-cooks] LIBER DE COQUINA: Lasagna and ravioli
JIMCHEVAL at aol.com
JIMCHEVAL at aol.com
Sun Feb 3 11:17:42 PST 2013
Other medieval versions of these dishes have been posted to this list in
the past.
For lasagna from the Due Libri di Cucine
_http://lists.ansteorra.org/htdig.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org/2010-February/
030514.html_
(http://lists.ansteorra.org/htdig.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org/2010-February/030514.html)
For ravioli from the Anglo-Norman "Coment l'en deit fere viaunde e claree"
_http://lists.ansteorra.org/htdig.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org/2007-December/
013232.html_
(http://lists.ansteorra.org/htdig.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org/2007-December/013232.html)
It's interesting to compare these to the version given in the Liber, which
is generally thought to be largely Italian, if modified for a French
audience (per some French terms found in it).
First a cross-linguistic note. "Tortellum" seems to literally mean "small
tourtes" or tarts, but as used in the Liber is closer to the French word
"abaisse", almost untranslatable, though it essentially means a base of pastry
created for then adding or shaping a more complex product. I've gone with
"sheet" here.
"Species" clearly means spices in the first recipe; however the word long
had a larger connotation of small (typically valuable) items and that is a
(distant) possibility for the ravioli recipe.
Unlike the lasagna in the recipe above, this one actually resembles the
modern food of layered flat pasta:
"10. - OF LASANAS: For Lasanas, take leavened dough and make sheets
["small tarts"] as thin as you can. Then, divide them into four parts the size of
three fingers. After, take boiling salted water, and put in the said
lasanas to cook. And when they have been well-boiled, take grated cheese. And if
you want, you can at the same time put on various powdered spices, and
sprinkle this over the carving dish. After, make on this a bed of lasanas and
again sprinkle it, another bed, and sprinkle and do this until the carving
dish or bowl is full. After, eat using a pointed piece of wood."
10. -- De lasanis: ad lasanas, accipe pastam fermentatam et fac tortellum
ita tenuem
sicut poteris. Deinde, divide eum per partes quadratas ad quantitatem
trium digitorum.
Postea, habeas aquam bullientem salsatam, et pone ibi ad coquendum
predictas lasa-
nas. Et quando erunt fortiter decocte, accipe caseum grattatum. Et si
volueris, potes simul ponere bonas species pulverizatas, et pulveriza cum istis
super cissorium. Postea, fac desuper unum lectum de lasanis et iterum
pulveriza; et desuper, alium lectum, et pulveriza: et sic fac usque cissorium
vel scutella sit plena. Postea, comede cum uno punctorio ligneo accipiendo.
The last note about the sharpened stick is a wonderful find. Not only does
it give an idea of what people did before forks when a food wasn't
convenient to eat with a knife, spoon or hands, it sheds some light on an
otherwise eccentric reference in Anthimus' (6th century) dietetic.
In his recipe for afrutum (made with foamed egg whites), he says to "cum
cocleari vel novella tenera manducatur"; that is, "eat it with a spoon or a
tender new growth". ("Novella" typically is the adjective "new" but one very
exceptional use is to refer to a new growth (probably young grape
shoots)). Anthimus' reference is so unique that Mark Grant seems to have simply
ignored it and renders this as "with a spoon or a small ladle." But the Liber
phrase shows that sticks and probably twigs, etc. too were used where other
utensils were lacking.
Taken together, the two references imply a whole unknown world of pre-fork
utensils that barely made its way into the written record.
Otherwise, a French translator used an alternate (and simpler) version of
the same recipe and helpfully provides a photo:
_http://www.histoiredepates.net/html/lasagne_al_formaggio.html_
(http://www.histoiredepates.net/html/lasagne_al_formaggio.html)
The most interesting thing about the ravioli recipe is that it offers what
is essentially sausage as an alternate way of making them (stuffing a
membrane). This leads me to wonder if ravioli were originally a poor man's
sausage, using dough to wrap what usually was wrapped in something more organic:
" - For ravioli: take pork bellies finely ground or pounded with eggs,
cheese, milk and various spices [or: other assorted items]. And you can make
ravioli in different ways as follows: wrap fine sheets of hard dough around
the above in the amount of one egg and cook in a frying pan with a great
deal of fat. And instead of dough, you can wrap food or semolina or such
things in the membrane which surrounds the belly. Color it as you like."
54. -- De raviolis: recipe ventrescam porci minute trittam sive pistatam
cum ovis, caseo, lacte et speciebus aliis. Et potes facere raviolos
diversimode qui sic fiunt: In tortello gracili paste dure, involve de predictis ad
quantitatem unius ovi et coque in patella cum magna pinguedine. Et loco
paste, potes involvere in pellicula que volvitur in circumstancia ventris
eduli vel alico alio simili. Colora ut vis.
Jim Chevallier
www.chezjim.com
Newly translated from Pierre Jean-Baptiste Le Grand d'Aussy:
Eggs, Cheese and Butter in Old Regime France
More information about the Sca-cooks
mailing list