Historical Italian Cooking

New video coming tomorrow with a delicious and easy ancient Greek recipe. Check out our Patreon page for pictures, historical information, and the original recipe.
www.patreon.com/historicalitaliancooking

4 hours ago | [YT] | 21

Historical Italian Cooking

Game meat was often served at ancient Roman banquets, as we can read not only in De Re Coquinaria but also in naturalistic, agricultural, and literary sources, such as Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, Varro’s De Re Rustica, Columella’s De Re Rustica, and Martial’s Epigrams. Diocletian’s Edict of Maximum Prices provides information not only about game prices but also about its availability, which confirms what other sources say.
The appreciation for boar is evident in the culinary sources as well: we find ten recipes for this meat in the 8th book of De Re Coquinaria, titled Tetrapus, which means quadrupeds. There are some references in the text about pork prepared quasi aprum or in modum apri: like a wild boar. Another reference is to ofellae aprugineo more, ofellae prepared like those of wild boar.
The full article is available on our Patreon page with translations from Martial's Epigrams and De Re Coquinaria.
www.patreon.com/c/historicalitaliancooking

Image: the hunt to the Calydonian boar depicted on a Greek vase (570 BCE)

2 days ago | [YT] | 60

Historical Italian Cooking

Mostaccioli, spelled in different ways depending on the region, are typical Christmas sweets in the southern regions of our country. Their origin dates back to ancient Rome, although they were very different back then. Ancient Roman mustei or mustacei, in fact, were bread rolls made with grape must, mustum in Latin, used as a leavening agent. Depending on the preparation, they could be more savory or sweeter.
Cato, in De Agri Cultura (3rd century BCE), recommends preparing them with flour, anise and cumin seeds, lard, and cheese, then baking them over bay laurel leaves. Chrysippus of Tyana mentions variations of this preparation, including the use of sesame seeds and a sweeter version with honey and wine.
Over time, must disappears in historical recipes, though we find it again in modern versions. In Renaissance recipes, mostaccioli are usually unleavened (but it is not the case in a recipe by Bartolomeo Scappi in the 16th century), and we find a different ingredient: instead of mosto (must), mostaccioli are made with muschio (musk).
One of the most famous modern versions is mostaccioli (or mustaccioli) napoletani. They are typically made with almonds (sometimes adding other nuts), sugar or honey, spices, and cocoa. The spice blend used for Neapolitan sweets is called pisto and includes cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, sometimes with the addition of other spices, such as star anise, coriander seeds, and pepper.
The full article about the history of mostaccioli is available on Patreon with translation from Cristoforo Messisbugo's Banchetti, Bartolomeo Scappi's Opera, Antonio Latini's Lo Scalco alla Moderna, a 18th-century anonymous Sicilian cookbook, and Ippolito Cavalcanti's Cucina Teorico-Pratica.
www.patreon.com/c/historicalitaliancooking

Image: still life with candy, biscuits, and roasted chestnuts by Osias Beert (16th century)

5 days ago | [YT] | 94

Historical Italian Cooking

A pastello is a traditional medieval pie with a thick crust and a filling of meat, fish, or other ingredients. To celebrate our medieval Christmas, we made a delicious Venetian version called pastero with chicken, raisins, and spices from Anonimo Veneziano's Libro di Cucina, one of the most fascinating 14th-century cookbooks, which we recently translated.

Here you find information about this recipe, with the original text and our translation, the method we followed, and the ingredients.

Link to the video https://youtu.be/RoFU-yfHG_4
Articolo in italiano historicalitaliancooking.home.blog/italiano/ricett…

Pastero, a Venetian spelling variation for the same dish called pastello or pasticcio in other medieval and Renaissance sources, is a typical pie with thick crusts filled with plenty of different ingredients, from chopped meat and a combination of vegetables, herbs, and spices to whole birds (such as quails or pheasants), fruits, or fish. Pastelli can be small or large, depending on the preparation. In medieval cookbooks, we even find the so-called pastello volativo, a huge pie filled with live birds that fly away after the pastello is presented on the table for the amusement of the diners.
Despite the popularity of this dish, medieval sources offer no detailed information on preparing the crust. Maestro Martino, in his Libro de Arte Coquinaria, describes a crust for pastello as thicker than that for torta, another medieval pie made with crusts essentially identical to lasagna. Sometimes, the crust is pre-cooked and stuffed with flour or bran to maintain its shape during cooking, as mentioned in Maestro Martino’s work and the Liber de Coquina. Johannes Bockenheim’s Registrum Coquine contains a recipe for a pastillum made with leavened dough, and similar instruction can be found in the Tractatus de Modo Preparandi et Condiendi Omnia Cibaria et Potus.
The first detailed instructions for the crust of this pie appear in the Renaissance sources, such as Bartolomeo Scappi’s Opera and Cristoforo Messisbugo’s Banchetti, where we learn that the crust is made by mixing flour with some fats, such as lard, butter, or olive oil, depending on whether the recipe is for the lean or the fat days, usually adding eggs and sometimes spices and other ingredients, such as rose water.
In our preparation, we made four small pasteri instead of a large one. We used lard and eggs to make the dough, but you could also use olive oil, which is more common than butter in Anonimo Veneziano’s Libro di Cucina, the source of this recipe. Instead of cured pork fatback, we used pork jowl, but also pork belly is an excellent choice. As for the spices, we chose a blend of fine spices (specie fine) found in this cookbook, but feel free to use only a few of them or others, for example the blend of sweet and fine spices (specie dolze fine) from the Libro di Cucina as well.
Verjuice, which is the preserved juice of unripe grapes, can be replaced with another acidic liquid: vinegar or the juice of orange or lemon were commonly used in the Middle Ages as substitutes for verjuice, according to Mainus de’ Maineris in the Opusculum de Saporibus.

Ingredients
500 g flour
400 g deboned chicken
50 g cured pork jowl
100 g lard
2 eggs
spices (black pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, saffron)
100 g raisins
verjuice
salt

Method
Knead the flour with the lard, one egg, and about 100 milliliters of water until you get a smooth dough. Let it rest for at least half an hour, then divide it into four pieces.
To prepare the filling, cut the chicken into small pieces, slice the pork jowl, and grind the spices in the mortar. Combine the chicken, spices, and raisins. Roll each piece of dough into a round form, add the stuffing and a few slices of pork jowl, and close the dough around the filling. Be careful not to overstuff it and leave an opening to pour in liquid during cooking.
Bake in the oven for about half an hour. Beat one egg with a cup of verjuice, then pour a few tablespoons in each pastero. Bake again for about 10 to 15 minutes, until fully cooked.

Original text
Pastero de polastri: toy li polastri e smenbrali, e fay le croste del pastero e meti entro li menbri de li polastri e mitige specie et uva passa e fete de lardo e poy che cocto si abii agresta et ovi desbatuti insema e miti dentro lo pastero e lasalo bolire un pocho.

Translation
Cut the chickens into parts. Then make the crust for the pastero and arrange the parts of the chickens, adding raisins and slices of pork fatback. When it is cooked, add verjuice with beaten eggs and pour it in the pastero and leave it to boil for a while.

1 week ago | [YT] | 89

Historical Italian Cooking

Today we prepare pastero de polastri, a medieval chicken pie recipe written in Venetian vernacular in the 14th-century manuscript Libro di Cucina by Anonimo Veneziano.
https://youtu.be/RoFU-yfHG_4

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 65

Historical Italian Cooking

New video coming tomorrow with a delicious and easy recipe for your medieval Christmas. Pictures, historical information, and the original recipe on our Patreon page.
www.patreon.com/historicalitaliancooking

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 61

Historical Italian Cooking

The Saturnalia, characterized by gift exchanges and banquets, were among the most important festivals in ancient Roman culture.
This year we want to celebrate with a luxurious and delicious recipe from the 4th book of De Re Coquinaria: minutal marinum, composed of ancient pasta (tracta) and seafood, which was a costly delicacy in the ancient Mediterranean world.

Here you find information about this recipe, with the original text and our translation, the method we followed, and the ingredients.

Link to the video https://youtu.be/LPVlYInDKKI
Articolo in italiano historicalitaliancooking.home.blog/italiano/ricett…

In ancient Greek and Roman cultures, fish and seafood were among the most expensive foods and considered a luxury fit for extravagant banquets. For this reason, we chose a seafood recipe for this year’s Saturnalia. Depending on the historical period, this Roman festivity had a variable length, between December 17th and 23rd, and was one of the most important of the year, with banquets and exchanges of gifts.
This year’s recipe is a delicious minutal marinum from the 4th book of De Re Coquinaria, featuring ancient pasta (tracta), fish, mollusks, and fish cakes (isicia). Tracta is an ancient pasta described in Cato’s De Agri Cultura, Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, and Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists. The simplest preparation calls for only flour and water, exactly like today’s pasta without eggs, but other recipes include coarsely ground farro as well as ingredients such as wine, milk, fats (olive oil or lard), and pepper. In the recipes of De Re Coquinaria, tracta is shaped in a circular form, dried, and broken before cooking. The simplest version seemed most suitable for this flavorful seafood minutal.
This recipe uses a cooking method that differs from how pasta is commonly cooked in Italy today: the tracta is cooked directly in the sauce, which requires a sufficient amount of liquid that will be entirely absorbed. Depending on the thickness of the tracta, the cooking process will require around 10 minutes.
One of the original recipe's ingredients is urtica marina, or snakelock anemone, which is still used in Spain and some Italian regions. However, it is impossible to find where we live, so we substituted it with clams. You can use other types of mollusks in this recipe, such as mussels, oysters, scallops, calamari, or octopus, according to your preference, and still get a perfect ancient recipe.
For the isicia, we used shrimp and followed a recipe from the 2nd book of De Re Coquinaria, although the text mentions isiciola de pisce minuta, small fish isicia, which may also refer to cakes made with fish. As in the previous case, you can prepare them however you like using crustaceans, such as mantis shrimp, crab, or lobster, as well as mollusks or fish.
As for the fish, we used sea bass, but you can choose any Mediterranean fish. The original recipe calls for pre-cooking the fish and removing the flesh afterwards. However, we preferred to fillet the fish and cook all the ingredients together. Also, clams do not require a long cooking time, but if you use a mollusk such as cuttlefish or octopus, you should adjust the cooking times.
In our preparation, we used regular leeks instead of porri capitati, which refer to leeks cultivated to grow a head through a technique used in the Antiquity according to Pliny’s description. Since fresh cilantro is unavailable in this season, we used the seeds, which seem to be considered interchangeable in other parts of De Re Coquinaria despite the difference in flavor.
For a good balance between the liquid ingredients, we recommend adding two or three tablespoons of olive oil and garum, a cup of wine, and three cups of water. Use pepper in moderation, because it makes a very spicy combination when mixed with lovage, and it is added three times in the recipe (in the sauce, in the isicia mixture, and over the minutal at the end).
Lovage can be replaced with cumin, fennel, or anise seeds, according to Dioscorides and Pliny. Instead of garum, as always, you can use a South-East Asian fish sauce, muria, colatura di alici, salt, or a quick substitute for garum.

Ingredients
300 g flour
500 g sea bass
500 g shrimp
400 g clams
spices (white pepper, coriander seeds, lovage)
¼ leek
oregano
olive oil
white wine
garum

Method
Knead the flour with a little water added gradually until you obtain a hard and smooth dough. Divide it into eight pieces and roll them into round sheets that are not too thin. Let them dry for one day.
To prepare the isicia, remove the shrimp flesh, mince it finely, and pound it in the mortar, flavoring it with a pinch of pepper and a tablespoon of garum. Form small balls and place them on an oiled plate.
Mince the leek and grind two pinches each of pepper, lovage, coriander seeds, and dried oregano in the mortar. Filet the sea bass. In a pan, combine wine, garum, olive oil, and water. Add the leek and the mixture of spices and oregano.
Cook the isicia, clams, and sea bass filets for a couple of minutes, then add the tracta broken into small pieces. Cook for about 10 minutes until the tracta has absorbed all the water. Sprinkle the minutal with pepper and serve.

Original text
Pones pisces in caccabum, adicies liquamen, oleum, vinum, cocturam. Porros capitatos, coriandrum minutatim concides, isiciola de pisce minuta facies et pulpas piscis cocti concerpis, urticas marinas bene lotas mittes. Haec omnia cum cocta fuerint, teres piper, ligusticum, origanum, fricabis, liquamen suffundes, ius de suo sibi, exinanies in caccabum. Cum ferbuerit, tractam confringes, obligas, coagitas. Piper asparges et inferes.
Isicia de scillis vel de cammaris amplis: cammari vel scillae de testa sua eximuntur, et in mortario teruntur cum pipere et liquamine optimo. Pulpa isicia plassantur.

Translation
Place the fish in a pot, adding garum, oil, wine, and water. Mince leeks with a big head and cilantro minutely, then form small fish isicia, remove the flesh from the cooked fish, and add well-cleaned snakelock anemones. When they are cooked, grind pepper, lovage, and oregano. Mix. Add garum and the cooking liquid. Pour the sauce into the pot. When it boils, break the tractae, thicken, and stir. Sprinkle with pepper and serve.
Scyllarus arctus or large shrimp isicia. Remove the heads from the shrimp or scyllarus arctus and pound them in the mortar with pepper and excellent garum. Form the isicia with the meat.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 85

Historical Italian Cooking

Today we prepare ancient Roman minutal marinum, an incredible pasta and seafood dish from the 4th book of De Re Coquinaria in celebration of this year's Saturnalia.
https://youtu.be/LPVlYInDKKI

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 82

Historical Italian Cooking

New video coming tomorrow with an ancient Roman recipe for this year's Saturnalia. For historical information, pictures, the original recipe, and more, visit our Patreon page.
www.patreon.com/historicalitaliancooking

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 75

Historical Italian Cooking

Our new book is finally available for purchase in English and Italian. For a preview, check out the links below.
The Libro di Cucina, also known as Libro per Cuoco, is an anonymous compilation of 135 recipes in the Venetian vernacular that represents one of the most significant examples of the extraordinary development of the culinary arts during the 14th century.
A testimony to Venice’s cultural relevance, Anonimo Veneziano’s cookbook is essentially an encyclopedia of medieval courtly cuisine, with recipes organized in a loose alphabetical order ranging from elaborate dishes rich in ingredients and spices to simple preparations, including pies, pasta, fish, meat, fritters, and fruit preserves.
Our edition offers a theoretical and practical perspective on medieval cooking not only for food historians but also for enthusiasts and cooks willing to try historical cuisine. The translation of the text comes with a glossary of the Venetian vernacular, along with an analysis of the cultural context through comparison with primary sources and information on ingredients and possible substitutions, to bring the incredible flavors of medieval Venice back to life.
English www.amazon.com/dp/B0G4VP2YFB
Italiano www.amazon.it/dp/B0G4NDY1P7

3 weeks ago (edited) | [YT] | 71