Now that I have done two background posts on what I am doing, why, and how, I suppose I should write at least one post about the actual recipe redaction and cooking. I have actually created good versions of several of the recipes, and fed them to others with positive results.
Perhaps I should start at the beginning, and talk about one of the first recipes in the Libro Novo. Though I will not be cooking straight through the book in order, I feel that starting here with this one appropriate.
There are very few bread recipes from the Middle Ages and Renaissance available today. There are several reasons for this: It is assumed that everyone who cooked knew how to make "the staff of life", so recipes were not recorded for bread. There is also the baker's guilds who were tightly governed, and held their knowledge very close. The fact that every peasant made bread, but every peasant didn't read was another factor. Cookbooks were created for Noble households, not for common folk.
The fact that the recipe section of the Libro Novo begins with four bread recipes is significant. The original publisher even used a different type face when he set the book. Bread was important.
Brazzatelle de Latte, e Zuccaro ("Bagels" of Milk and Sugar) is a truly wonderful recipe. Whether they are actually bagels or not is a question which may never be answered. They certainly do not taste or have the dense texture we associate with today's bagels. The cooking technique, though, is the same. Make a dough, form it into rings, allow them to rise, boil them, then bake them. These rolls turn out large and soft and sweet and rich. They are made with milk and sugar and seasoned with rose water, sometimes with the addition of anise.
I have learned that allowing them to rise too long before boiling has a negative effect on the finished product; they get soggy, and do not bake well. This is not too likely to happen when making a batch for home, but when making multiple batches to feed 200 it is a pitfall. I'm sure it would have worked better if I had had the staff that Messisbugo had at his disposal at the Ducal estates.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Christoforo Messisbugo
I have found that information on the Christoforo Messisbugo and his book(s)is very scarce. There are several sites on the Internet that list recipes by M. Messisbugo or supposed biographical information on him, but none with any concrete source material. There are some references to his book, Banchetti, Compositioni di Vivande et Apparecchio Generale, published in 1549. Some general sources I have seen indicate that Messisbugo died in 1548, so the Banchetti would have been published posthumously. Then, eight years after the Banchetti first appeared, the Libro Novo was published, with much the same format as the Banchetti. I have just recently obtained a facsimile of the Banchetti, but have not had time to do a comparative study of the two texts.
Messisbugo was not a chef. He was a steward at the court of the Duke of Este. Yet he is revered even today for his contribution to the culinary arts. In Ferrara, Italy, where he lived and worked, there is now a culinary school dedicated to preserving and spreading the knowledge that he imparted in these two books. There are restaurants throughout Italy that use versions of recipes that are found in his books.
What information I do have on the Libro Novo or its author, M. Christofaro Messisbugo, (apart from the manuscript itself, which is rich with recipes and kitchen management information, but says nothing about the author) was obtained from some class notes I obtained, along with copies of the cookbook manuscript and dictionary, from Master Basilius Phocas (Charles Potter). Master Basilius has translated the Libro Novo and has found a small amount of background information on M. Messisbugo. While Master Basilius does not remember where he obtained this information (most likely a related document in Italian) I would still like to quote from his brief biographical sketch of M. Messisbugo:
“Christofaro di Messisbugo worked as a maitre d’hotel at the court of the Duke of Este in Ferrara during the first decades of the sixteenth century. He was a gentleman in his own right, related to illustrious families, and, through his skill as a chief steward of the pleasures of the table, he earned such esteem that Charles V conferred on him in 1533 the title of Count Palatine.
“His functions ranged from seeing to the smallest details of the cooking to the organization of the court’s most splendid celebrations. Such was his authority that he brought together the fruits of his experience in a textbook (Banchetti, Compositioni di Vivande et Apparecchio Generale, 1549), written in three parts and destined for others in his profession.
“The first part deals with the domestic apparatus necessary for holding princely banquets: There is an inventory of indispensable kitchen utensils and household gadgets and a list of jobs to be performed by the staff and of the foodstuffs to be preserved. The second part describes fourteen real feasts, chosen to illustrate different types of celebration. The third part contains 315 recipes. The precise nature of the information gives the book an especial value.”
I have spent some time with the original Italian in the Libro Novo, and have translated a hand full of the recipes. Fortunately, Master Basilius completed the translation of all of the recipes, and spared me that laborious task (I am NOT a linguist). I plan to do some comparative study on the Banchetti and the Libro Novo together. In the meantime, I am going to cook. Bringing these recipes to life so today's cooks can enjoy them is a dream that I intend to have come true.
Watch here for my notes on successes and failures as I travel to Ferrera and sample cuisine created over four hundred years ago. It is going to be a wondrous journey.
Messisbugo was not a chef. He was a steward at the court of the Duke of Este. Yet he is revered even today for his contribution to the culinary arts. In Ferrara, Italy, where he lived and worked, there is now a culinary school dedicated to preserving and spreading the knowledge that he imparted in these two books. There are restaurants throughout Italy that use versions of recipes that are found in his books.
What information I do have on the Libro Novo or its author, M. Christofaro Messisbugo, (apart from the manuscript itself, which is rich with recipes and kitchen management information, but says nothing about the author) was obtained from some class notes I obtained, along with copies of the cookbook manuscript and dictionary, from Master Basilius Phocas (Charles Potter). Master Basilius has translated the Libro Novo and has found a small amount of background information on M. Messisbugo. While Master Basilius does not remember where he obtained this information (most likely a related document in Italian) I would still like to quote from his brief biographical sketch of M. Messisbugo:
“Christofaro di Messisbugo worked as a maitre d’hotel at the court of the Duke of Este in Ferrara during the first decades of the sixteenth century. He was a gentleman in his own right, related to illustrious families, and, through his skill as a chief steward of the pleasures of the table, he earned such esteem that Charles V conferred on him in 1533 the title of Count Palatine.
“His functions ranged from seeing to the smallest details of the cooking to the organization of the court’s most splendid celebrations. Such was his authority that he brought together the fruits of his experience in a textbook (Banchetti, Compositioni di Vivande et Apparecchio Generale, 1549), written in three parts and destined for others in his profession.
“The first part deals with the domestic apparatus necessary for holding princely banquets: There is an inventory of indispensable kitchen utensils and household gadgets and a list of jobs to be performed by the staff and of the foodstuffs to be preserved. The second part describes fourteen real feasts, chosen to illustrate different types of celebration. The third part contains 315 recipes. The precise nature of the information gives the book an especial value.”
I have spent some time with the original Italian in the Libro Novo, and have translated a hand full of the recipes. Fortunately, Master Basilius completed the translation of all of the recipes, and spared me that laborious task (I am NOT a linguist). I plan to do some comparative study on the Banchetti and the Libro Novo together. In the meantime, I am going to cook. Bringing these recipes to life so today's cooks can enjoy them is a dream that I intend to have come true.
Watch here for my notes on successes and failures as I travel to Ferrera and sample cuisine created over four hundred years ago. It is going to be a wondrous journey.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
In the beginning.....
If I post here that I am getting ready to start a new project, I will have to at least make a half hearted effort to make some progress. This is probably not the best time to start something as complicated as this; I'm embarking on two pretty big endeavors already. However, if I wait for the "best time" to start (as I have been for several years where this particular challenge is concerned) it will never get done. That is not an option. I WANT to succeed at this.
Perhaps I am spurred along at the moment by the current popularity of the Julie/Julia project. This is, after all, a cooking project. I will not, though, be cooking my way through a modern cookbook with ready-to-use recipes spelled out for me. I will be working from a rough translation of a 400+ year old Italian cookbook.
Originally published in 1549, the Libro Novo of Christofaro Messisbugo is probably the pivotal work that signaled the change from Medieval humoral theory cooking to lavish banqueting. Forget what the French believe about their place in the history of fine dining; the Italians were there first.
The Libro Novo was translated by a dear friend and mentor of mine: Charles Potter. It is mostly for him that I wish to turn this work into a functional cookbook accessible to the 21st C. It is also for the love of history and food that I want to be able to create recipes that will do honor to the past, educate the present and delight the taste buds of the future.
Does all of this sound ambitious and arrogant? I hope not. I just want to play with food, and help bring a bit of the past alive again. This work has never, as far as I know, been translated into English before now. I've never run into a source with all of the recipes worked out in modern notation. I want to change that.
So, keep me honest. Keep me cooking. Prod me if I slack off and don't post often enough. I'm going to start cooking this weekend. I'll keep you posted!
Perhaps I am spurred along at the moment by the current popularity of the Julie/Julia project. This is, after all, a cooking project. I will not, though, be cooking my way through a modern cookbook with ready-to-use recipes spelled out for me. I will be working from a rough translation of a 400+ year old Italian cookbook.
Originally published in 1549, the Libro Novo of Christofaro Messisbugo is probably the pivotal work that signaled the change from Medieval humoral theory cooking to lavish banqueting. Forget what the French believe about their place in the history of fine dining; the Italians were there first.
The Libro Novo was translated by a dear friend and mentor of mine: Charles Potter. It is mostly for him that I wish to turn this work into a functional cookbook accessible to the 21st C. It is also for the love of history and food that I want to be able to create recipes that will do honor to the past, educate the present and delight the taste buds of the future.
Does all of this sound ambitious and arrogant? I hope not. I just want to play with food, and help bring a bit of the past alive again. This work has never, as far as I know, been translated into English before now. I've never run into a source with all of the recipes worked out in modern notation. I want to change that.
So, keep me honest. Keep me cooking. Prod me if I slack off and don't post often enough. I'm going to start cooking this weekend. I'll keep you posted!
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