[Sca-cooks] Macaroni and verse

[James Prescott]

A verse style for poetry and song, apparently originally named after the 
pasta macaroni:


In Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, by J. A. Cuddon, M. 
A. R. Habib we have (page 415):

<begin quote>

macaronic

The term derives indirectly from the Italian word 'maccaroni', an 
earlier form of 'maccheroni' (denoting a wheaten paste in tubular form). 
  Properly speaking, macaronic verse is made when a writer mixes words 
of his own language with those of another and twists in his native words 
to fit the grammar of the foreign tongue (e.g., 'standez', 'womenorum'). 
Broadly speaking, the term applies to any verse which mixes two or more 
languages together. Latin is the language most often used, and the 
intention in macaronics is nearly always comic and/or nonsensical.

They are first recorded in "Carmen macaronicum de Patavinus" (1490) by 
Tisi degli Odassi. The form was popularized by Teofilo Folengo in "Liber 
Macaronices" (1517). Folengo described his verses as a literary analogue 
(q.v.) of 'macaroni' ('a gross, rude, and rustic mixture of flour, 
cheese, and butter'). There is a good deal of macaronic verse in French 
and German literature (the Germans call it 'Nudelvers') and some 
interesting examples in English literature: for instance, several poems 
by John Skelton, and William Drummond of Hawthornden's 'epic' 
"Polemo-Middinia". Many writers of light verse and nonsense verse 
(qq.v.) have diverted themselves by composing macaronics.

<end quote>


Note Folengo's jab at macaroni.  Also note Folengo's 1517 recipe 
ingredients for macaroni -- flour, cheese, butter.


Thorvald