Recipes for Weapons Proficiency, an event sponsored by the Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands, July 13 2002
An Italian Feast from De Honesta Voluptate by Bartolomeo de Platina
Recipes redacted by Margaret Makafee
Translations from PLATINA (i.e. Bartolomeo de Sacchi di Piadena) De Honesta Voluptate, The first dated cookery book, Volume V from the Mallinckrodt Collection of Food Classics, Elizabeth Buerman Andrews, translator
Potage of Meat (poached meatballs with cheese)
Potage ala Romanie (noodles with cheese and herbs)
Pistachio, Almonds, and Walnuts
If you want good lucanian sausage, cut up the lean meat and fat of a sow together after removing all fibers and nerves. And if you have ten pounds of meat, use one pound of salt and two ounces of fennel well cleaned and as much half-ground pepper all mixed together. After you blend it, let it sit for a day on a little table. The next day stuf it into an intestine that has been well cleaned and thus hang it in the smoke.
1 lb salt (if preserving sausages) or 1/3 lb if serving fresh
Mix salt, fennel seeds, and pepper. Knead salt mixture into ground pork. Cover and refrigerate overnight. At this point, you should stuff and smoke them at this point, or make patties and fry them in a pan. We've chosen to do the latter.
Grind up mustard, raisins, white corn meal and toasted bread crumbs and a little cinnamon, either separately or all together, when they are ground up, dissolve them in verjuice or vinegar and a little must. And pass this
into dishes through a strainer. This is less warming than the above and stimulates the thirst and is agreeably nourishing
Red wine vinegar to desired consistency (about 3-5 Tbsp)
Grind mustard seeds. Grind in flour, raisins, and bread crumbs. Add sprinkle of cinnamon.Add wine vinegar in small amounts and blend until mustard is desired consistency. If you want a smooth mustard, strain. If youlike course grain, it tastes just fine without straining.
Cut up and grind as much rich cheese as I said for the White Torta. Add add bleta, parsley, marjoram rinsed and cut up, four eggs well beaten, ground pepper, a little saffron, a quantity of liquamen or better, and mix withyour hands, so that it nearly forms one mass. In the same way, put it into a pan with a bottom crust, and place it on the hearth. When it is half cooked, to make it seem more colorful, pour over it an egg beaten withsaffron. It should be done when the upper crust rises.
1/4 - 1/2 cup chopped broad leaf parsley
2-4 leaves Romaine lettuce, or 1 leaf white chard, chopped (green only if chard is used)
Wash and chop greens and herbs. Mix the cheese in a food processor or with electric beaters. Mix all ingredients together until has the consistency of thick, lumpy cake dough.
Bake pie shell in 450F oven for 10 minutes. Remove and reduce oven temperature to 400F. Pour mixture into shell and bake until the top puffs up (30-40 minutes). If you like, beat a couple threads of saffron into an egg and pour it over the top of the pie about 20 minutes into the process. Serve hot or cold.
The leek is boiled or cooked under the ashes, put in a dish with a little salt and a little more honey and eaten as a first course to settle a chronic cough. They are also prepared in the ways I have mentioned before and in other ways which will be told when the order of courses will require it.
Cut green tops off leeks, split and clean thoroughly. Roast 20-30 minutes wrapped in foil. Lay on a dish, sprinkle with salt to taste, and drizzle on a small amount of honey.
Carrot...is considered more pleasant when cooked under warm ashes and coals. When it has been taken out and cooled a little, it should be peeled thoroughly, cleaned of ashes, cut up in little pieces, and put in a dish;salt should be added, and oil and vinegar, and a little defrutum or must, and then a few mild herbs sprinkled over.
2 Tbsp concentrated 100% grape juice or unfermented wine grape juice
A little each chopped parsley, mint, tarragon (or whatever you like)
Peel carrots and roast them for 30 minutes wrapped in tin foil. Let cool. Chop to desired size. Toss in dish with oil so that all pieces are coated. Toss with all other ingredients. Serve.
...Boiled asparagus is laid out on a platter and salt oil and vinegar are added.
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar or to taste
Boil asparagus in salted water for about 5 minutes or until it is al dente but tastes cooked. Place on platter. Add olive oil, toss asparagus until it is well coated. Add balsamic vinegar and salt and toss. Serve immediately.
.It is good cooked in white wine or vinegar. There are those who say that one ought to add as much water, indeed especially Publius, who does not drink wine; but doubtless they are in error. it is more flavorful cooked either in wine or vinegar and lasts longer. Ham should not be eaten, nor should its juice be drawn out, unless it has cooled.
Place ham in pot, and cover with wine (or mix wine and water 50/50 and cover). Bring to boil, simmer for 45 minutes. Let cool. Slice and serve.
For ten guest, boil a pound of belly of pork or veal, when it is cooked, cut it up and add half a pound of slightly aged rich cheese and add far, and blend with well-chopped aromatic herbs, pepper, ginger and clove. There are those who add a ground breat of capon, an agreeable touch. In well ground meal that has been spread in a very thin sheet, roll all this into balls the size of a chestnu and cook them down in rich juice colored with saffron. They need only a little cooking. Spread them on dishes with grated cheese and sprinkle them with mild spices. This dish may also be prepared from breast of pheasant or partridge or other fowl.
1 handful grated Italian cheese
3 oz large curd cottage cheese
1/4 - 1/2 tsp sprinkle of savoury
1/2 tsp chopped majoram or oregano
24 oz (2 12 oz cans) chicken broth
Mix pork, chick, grated cheese, cottage cheese, dill and savory until well blended. Roll into balls. Roll balls in flour. Bring chicken broth to a boil. Poach balls in broth about 10 minutes, or until cooked through. Remove balls from broth, pour a little broth on top (the flour on the balls will make the broth thicken a bit), sprinkle with parmesan cheese and serve it forth.
Work best flour that has been sifted from the chaff with some water and spread the dough on a little board. And roll it with a certain rounded and oblong piece of weed, as bakers are accustomed to use in such employment. Then, having spread it to the thickness of one little finger, cut it. It should be in strips like a ribbon. It ought to be cooked in rich juice, simmering all the while. And if it has to be cooked in water in time of fasting, add butter and salt. When this has been cooked, it should be served in dishes with cheese, butter, sugar, and mild spices.
A fresh rolled pasta, not too thin would be good for this recipe, but I believe that linguini matches the description given by Platina fairly well.
1 box linguini or other wide noodle
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
Heat salted water or broth. Add linguini, cook until tender. Drain, put it in a dish. Add butter, salt, herbs and toss. Add cheese and toss. Serve.
Wash a pound or more of chick-peas in hot water. After being washed, they should be put in a pot to simmer without water, with your hands mix half an ounce of meal, a little oil and salt and twenty grains of coarsely ground pepper and ground cinnamon and then put this near the hearth with three measures of water and add sage, rosemary, and finely chopped parsley roots. Let this boil so that it is reduced to eight saucers-full. When it is nearly cooked, drop in a little oil, but if it is a juice for sick persons, only add a little oil or spices.
1lb red chickpeas, dried (these are available at Indian and Middle Eastern grocery stores)
20 grains pepper, coarsely ground
Cover chickpeas with cold water, bring water to a boil, turn off heat and cover. Let sit for one hour (alternatively, soak in cold water overnight). Mix together chickpeas, meal, old, salt, pepper, cinnarmon. Add water to cover and bring to a boil. Add sage, rosemary and parsley root. Bring to boil, then reduce to simmer, cover and cook until chickpeas are tender (30 -60 minutes). Drizzle in a little more olive oil and serve.
A preparation of several greens is made with lettuce, bugloss, mint, catmint, fennel, parsley, sisymbrium, origan, chervil, cicerbita which doctors call teraxicon, plantain, morella and several other fragrant greens, well washed and pressed and put in a large dish. Sprinkle them with a good deal of salt and blend with oil, then pour vinegar over it all when it has sat a little; it should be eaten and well chewed because wild greens are tough. This sort of salad needs a little more oil than vinegar...
other herbs as desired or available
Wash and dry greens. Use whatever proportion of each that you like. Tear lettuce into pieces and chop herbs. Mix greens together. Sprinkle on salt to taste and toss. Add a little oil and toss; repeat until leaves are lightly coated. Add a little vinegar and toss; taste and repeat until you like the balance. Serve.
...It may be cooked as pleases the greedy to say in some ways, with the third part which clings to the earth, in its juice, first in water with white bread, and then with pears or sprouts and twigs. Some put in garlic, which
is thought to counteract the poison. They are fried, after being boiled and salted, in oil or liquamen, when they are fried, they are suffused with green sauce which they call salsa, or in garlic sauce.
2 lbs whole mushrooms (white or crimini or combination)
3 cloves garlic, whole, peeled.
Bring salted water and garlic to a boil. Add mushrooms and boil until mushrooms change from white to a light beige. Drain. Fry in olive oil. Salt. Add salsa. Serve
A sauce made from vine tendrils, called salsa Take delicate vine tendrils and grind them up well, add, if you wish, the stalk of tender garlic and a small amount of bread crumbs. I say nothing of salt, for almost no dish is made without salt, then moisten all this in vinegar or verjuice and, when it is moistened, pass it through a strainer into a dish.
20 vine leaves (I'm using bottled vine leaves because I don't have a source for fresh or tendrils. Because the bottled leaves are in brine, I'm leaving out the salt.).
3/4 slice of bread worth of bread crumbs
Rinse vine leaves in water. Grind in mortar (or food processor). Add 1 clove garlic, well mashed, and bread crumbs and grind some more. Add vinegar until the consistency is as desired, Strain through a sieve or food mill.
Pitted plums, softened in dark wine, with a small quantity of unpeeled almonds and a few toasted bread slices which have been soaked in wine are ground together. Grind them up with verjuice, red wine, must or sugar; soak them and blend. A few spices should be added, indeed especially some cinnamon. It is of little nourishment, takes away the appetite and is harmful to the stomach. Nevertheless it checks the bile and cools a hot liver.
1/4 -1/2 tsp grains of paradise
Soak plums in wine until they are rehydrated. Put bread crumbs in a bowl, add wine and stir until the crumbs are moist. Grind plums and bread crumbs together with red wine vinegar and sugar. Mix in spices.
Prepare this in the same way as above (To almonds or walnuts that have been coarsely ground, add as much cleaned garlic as you want and likewise, as need be, grind them up well, sprinkling them all the while so that they do not make oil. When they are ground up, put in white bread crumbs softened in juice of meat or fish, and grind again. And if it seems too stiff, it can be softened easily in the same juice.), but do not moisten it in water or juice, but in must of dark grapes, squeezed by hand and cooked down for half an hour. The same can be done with juice of cherries.
1/3 cup + a bit more cherry or grape juice (I used concentrate mixed 1/1 with water, rather than 1/3)
Grind walnuts in food processor (not too fine). Sprinkle with a little water. Add garlic and grind. Stir liquid into the bread crumbs so that they are moistened all over. Add. Blend. Add as much more liquid as needed to get desired consistency (this should be a thick sauce, so not too much).
Note: If you want a "white" garlic sauce, you can substitute some raisins and water for the juice.
...also one should not reject the opinion of those who say that peaches should be eaten after the meal, finely cut up and softened in best honey, because peaches cool the stomach opening and the upper orifices. This should be done when one has had roast for supper beforehand.
Slice peaches thin. Put honey on a plate. Arrange peach slices on it. Drizzle more honey on the peaches.
An alternative interpretation is slice several peaches. Put peach slices in a bowl, add a little honey and stir. Repeat until peaches are lightly coated. Refrigerate and serve..