[Sca-cooks] Free redactions of Roman recipes

[David Walddon]

Just a quick note. 
Platina seems to have not only referenced the ancients in his work but also he included some. 
Here is a paragraph (with footnotes) from my article from PPC titled The Hidden Recipes of Bartolemo Sacchi. 
Eduardo 
Also excluded from the overall count of recipes found in the first five books, are those that are clearly historical. Ancient references to pepper Platina’s text. In the entry titled “De Ficis”[1] Platina tells of figs that do not ripen called “grossuli”[2]. He then quotes Macrobius, the ancient Roman writer and philosopher, that Brutus “easts grossuli with honey, like a fool”. In BK III #17 “De Porro”[3] another historical recipe is found when Platina relates the story of the Emperor Nero who ate leeks with oil, everyday to preserve his singing voice. Several of the recipes found in De Honesta can be cross referenced to the ancient Roman cookery book “Apicius” and perhaps to other Ancient Roman or Greek agricultural or social commentaries, but such analysis is beyond the scope of this paper.[4]

[1] On Figs – Milham, page 130

[2] Milham, page 131

[3] On Leeks – Milham, page 186

[4] A cursory review of some of the recipes in the first five books to those in “Apicius De Re Coquinaria” suggests a relationship between the two books. Some of the recipes reviewed are either taken directly (the Latin matches almost word for word) or based on (the recipe is similar but not exact) from Apicius. 

__________________________________

David Walddon
david at vastrepast.com
www.vastrepast.net
360-402-6135 Cell

On Apr 4, 2014, at 6:36 PM, JIMCHEVAL at aol.com wrote:

> Perhaps it would be better then to refer to Dalby:
> 
> _http://books.google.com/books?id=KdR4jRJCxEsC&lpg=PA17&dq=inauthor%3Adalby%
> 20apicius&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q&f=false_ 
> (http://books.google.com/books?id=KdR4jRJCxEsC&lpg=PA17&dq=inauthor:dalby%20apicius&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q&f=false) 
> 
> The gist of his view is that the surviving collection might just contain a  
> bit of the historical Apicius. But the dating for the whole is generally 
> given  as the fourth to fifth century.
> 
> Here is what Laurioux says, in a study of the work's life in the Middle  
> Ages:
> 
> " "The history of De re coquinaria then indeed belongs to the Middle Ages,  
> and it does so fully...the text itself, such as it has come to us, was not 
> set  before the fifth century and probably continued to evolve during the 
> very early  Middle Ages". 
> 18
> 
> Cuisiner à l'Antique : Apicius au Moyen Age 
> Bruno  Laurioux    lien Médiévales  lien    Year   1994    lien Volume    
> 13    lien Issue   26    lien pp.  17-38
> 
> http://persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/medi_0751-2708_1994_num_1
> 3_26_1294
> 
> The one thing I think we can say with certainty is that this is not a work  
> by the historical Apicius, even if it possibly may contain traces of his  
> writing.
> 
> Vinidarius of course is generally recognized as using different material,  
> even if his effort is typically attached to the earlier work.
> 
> Otherwise, I hope it's clear that saying that Roman cooking remained  
> important into the Middle Ages does not in the least mean people were using  
> Pseudo-Apicius' recipes to make it. Probably transmission was primarily oral, as 
> it presumably was before the only extant Roman cookbook was written.
> 
> Jim  Chevallier
> _www.chezjim.com_ (http://www.chezjim.com/) 
> 
> Early  Medieval French wine
> http://leslefts.blogspot.com/2014/03/early-medieval-french-wine.html
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In a message dated 4/4/2014 5:45:43 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
> t.d.decker at att.net writes:
> 
> that  
> combined Apicius's works on cooking and sauces and that one of these was  
> incorporated in the compilation.  They also note that Vinidarius's  
> excerpts 
> from the 5th or 6th Centuries are from a different source than  the 
> compilation.
> 
> So the whole question is not as cut and dried as  Wikipedia makes it  seem.
> 
> 
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