[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


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