Ancient Cookery
Octopus is a vile fish of little worth – Martino di Como
People have been eating octopus for at least the better part of 4000 years. At some point the popularity of the dish waned outside of the Mediterranean and Africa (or, as in the U.S., never caught on), leaving it as bit of a curiosity in Northern Europe and the Americas. It’s an important member of [...]
Salsa Mahonesa and the Seven Years War
In 1756, the Duc de Richelieu (great-great nephew of the Cardinal), supported by 12 ships of the line under Roland-Michel Barrin de La Galissonière, the governor of New France, succeeded in wresting the recipe for what we now know as “mayonnaise” from 2,800 British troops dug in at the Port of Mahon, Minorca. It’s probable [...]
Emulsifying with Pliny – Allioli, Aïoli
Book 19 of Pliny’s Natural History (Naturalis Historia, ca. 77), an immense 37 volume encyclopedia of everything that everyone had every known, contains the first mention of the garlic/oil emulsion now called allioli in Catalan (aïoli in Provençal). When garlic is “beaten up in oil and vinegar it swells up in foam to a surprising [...]
Asparagis in Mortario
aliter patina de asparagis: adicies in mortario asparagorum præcisuras quae proiciuntur; teres, suffundes uinum, colas. teres piper ligusticum coriandrum uiridem satureiam cepas uinum liquamen et oleum; sucum transferes in patellam perunctam et si uolueris oua dissolues ad ignem ut obliget. piper minutum asparges. What was initially attractive about this recipe was that it uses the [...]
Apicius, Liquamen and the Follies of Forcemeat
Apicius, (online edition of De re coquinaria, in latin; contemporary edition, dual language, Apicius, a Critical Edition) is a collection of Roman recipes written down around the beginning of the 5th century A.D. but often representing recipes from hundreds of years earlier. It is the earliest known collection of recipes. Hoping for a balanced meal [...]
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