[Sca-cooks] Gold and food in period (was OT: Olive oil with 24-karat gold?)

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

On Sat, Feb 9, 2013 at 6:52 PM, Galefridus Peregrinus <
galefridus at optimum.net> wrote:
> I did a bit of web surfing on the topic of edible gold and came to the
conclusion that people do it in whatever form (and there are several) as a
type of conspicuous consumption.
>

At the risk of being repetitive, here are a couple of texts I posted to the
list some years ago, using real gold in food.  Both are translations from
the Spanish, by me.

*"...what they are in the habit of doing for royal feasts, for
magnificance; is**to serve the calves roasted whole, and their bellies
full of capons and other**esteemed birds, roasted or boiled, and
stiched above the place where they were**put in.  Then it is opened
through the stitching and the birds are taken out.**And if they wish,
they can make pieces of it and cut it, as is said, before or**after
the birds, according to whatever is pleasing to the diners.  And if
they**are served gilded, they are not eaten except for the cuts of the
head, the**eye, the tongue, and the cheeks, and they leave it for
magnificence, and even**because it it not very good to eat, because of
the egg white with which they**afix the gold, and because it has to
arrive cold."

**Enrique de Villena, Arte Cisoria, 1423 (first published 17*66)


[from the* *end of a recipe of a concentrated chicken broth for invalids]

*"and this broth is a very singular thing, and of very great sustenance;
and if you wish to make it of a much greater sustenance that will revive
half-dead bodies and those who are at the end of life, cast into the embers or
live coals, fifty pieces of gold which are very fine; and when the said pieces
are glowing a great deal, remove them with very clean tongs and cast them in
the broth; and if you do this two or three times, the broth will be of greater
virtue; and however much more it is done, its virtue will multiply; and this
broth is of such excellence that it has no price nor can its value be
estimated.*"
*Ruperto de Nola, Libro de Guisados, 1529*

[nb. There is a similar French recipe that also includes gemstones]


Anyone know of other such period recipes?

Brighid ni Chiarain