[Sca-cooks] Pastelli and baked flour

[Rebecca Friedman]

The term I'm asking about is Italian Pastello/pastelli, from Martino; I
believe Platina spells it slightly differently. Pastello in the earliest
Italian definition I can find is "a little piece of pasta" (which means
"dough or paste", cognate to the later), and in post-period definitions is,
translating roughly, "small piece of various materials contained in <dough
or paste>" that may be baked" - another definition is given as "for
pasticcio" which in early definitions is very clearly a form of pie.

This would completely solve the problem (except for not knowing what
distinguishes it from torta) except that while pasticcio = pie is from my
dictionary's 1612 edition, pastello = pasticcio is from the 1729-1738
edition. It *does *expand over time, so they may just have added an earlier
usage, but the definition is still almost three centuries after Martino's
use of the word, and food does change in that amount of time, which is why
I'm worried about just going on with that.

(In theory, Martino *would *be the source, except he keeps saying to shape
the dough in the form of a pastello instead of (so far) telling me what
that is - I'm guessing it was very obvious to his readers. It's pretty
clearly a form you can put into a pan and then put a filling into, and can
stir while the filling is in, but beyond that, unclear.)

So - two questions. 1) Does anyone know the English distinction between pie
and torte? Or, for that matter, the Italian between pastelle and torta? In
modern Italian, torta = pie/cake, but there's clearly a distinction being
drawn here between two things both of which we would call pies, and it
might be linked to the English one. 2) Does anyone have a source for what
pastelli are that's closer to Martino than mine? Ideally a lot closer? If
so, what are they?

Thank you very much,
Rebecca

On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 9:22 AM, Terry Decker <t.d.decker at att.net> wrote:

> I think, though I am not certain, that the English term may be "pastille"
> which derives from Latin through French.  The origin of the word is the
> Latin "pastellum" meaning "dough or paste."  The oldest definition of which
> I an aware is a small roll of fragrant dough for perfuming the air (the
> same definition is also provided to the Spanish "pastilla").   Later
> meanings are "a soft candy" and "a lozenge" (as in throat lozenge).
>
> Bear
>
>
> Also, there is a word in Martino, "pastello/pastillo," of whose meaning
> Rebecca is not sure. The translator of Platina translates it as "roll,"
> which is itself somewhat ambiguous. Does anyone here know what it  means?
>
>
> --
> David Friedman
> www.daviddfriedman.com
> http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
>
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