Straight to the recipe An ancient Roman delicacy In June 2012 I gave a talk about Roman Food at the Roman Festival in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. This inspired me to try my hand at preparing Lucanicae, one of the recipes for sausages in the Roman cookery book De re coquinaria. I have written more on this book in my notes on other…
Archives for June 2012
Mashed potatoes and endives
A very Dutch summer fare This dish, boiled potatoes and uncooked endives mashed together, was the favourite dish of my mother. We still prepare it on her birthday and her date of death (twenty years ago). So, for my family and me this is an emotional dish. My mother preferred meatballs with it, but I…
Real Dutch ‘Slavink’
A very special meatball This meat dish is typically Dutch. I have not been able to find an exact translation of the name slavink, which derives from slagvink, a singing finch. Some Dutch/English dictionaries translate it with kromeski, but since that is dipped in batter and deep-fried, it is not the same dish. If you want to know how…
Puff Pastry according to Hannah Glasse and John Farley
Straight to the recipe The Apple Pie of Hannah Glasse (The Art of Cookery made Plain & Easy, 1747) is prepared with a puff paste-crust. John Farley (The London Art of Cookery, 1783) has the same recipe as Glasse, but with a difference: Glasse rolls up the dough, Farley folds it. Both writers prescribe rolling out the dough…
Jane Austen’s Apple Pie
Straight to the recipe Or: Plagiarism and Hackwork Who does not love apple pie? At least, good apple pie, because there are tearooms in museums or train stations where I have seen very sad, sometimes even partially defrosted prefab apple pie. Like apple sauce, apple pie is one of the basic, primeval dishes of European cuisine (here is a medieval…