The recipe on this page was my Christmas card from 2018. Christine Charlotte Riedl The illustration above is from the Lindauer Kochbuch that contains the recipe for anchovy toast. This is a German cookery book that has been in print from the middle of the nineteenth century to 1925. The full title is the Lindauer…
ORIGIN
Kale with chestnuts and groats
Straight to the recipe A recipe from the cook of Stadtholder Willem IV The recipe on this page is fromĀ Le cuisinier moderne, written by the French cook Vincent La Chapelle (1690 or 1703-1745). He wrote his book first in English, while he was in the service of the fourth Earl of Chesterfield,Ā Ā Philip Dormer Stanhope. The…
Roman chestnuts
Straight to the recipe High in carbohydrates, low-fat, gluten free EdibleĀ chestnutsĀ were probably introduced in the Netherlands by theĀ Romans. Dutch summers do not always yield ripe chestnuts, but usually enough chestnuts can be gathered under a tame chestnut tree for a nice meal. The picture on the right shows two ancient tame chestnut trees in the…
Jacobin Sops
Straight to the recipe Take 200 capons … This is a recipe from the delightful cookbookĀ Du fait de cuysineĀ by MaĆ®tre Chiquart. He was a cook in the service of Amadeus VIII (1383-1451, also known as the lastĀ Antipope Felix VĀ from 1439 to 1449), count and first duke of Savoy. Amadeus was a regular guest at the…
Plum Pie and Pieter Cornelisz Hooft
Straight to the recipe A delicious Dutch pie from the seventeenth century Straight to the recipe Summer is plum season. In Dutch the expressionĀ tot in de pruimentijdĀ (litterally ‘see you in the plum season’) has a special meaning: ‘Until we meet again, whenever that may be’. This expression is commonly ascribed toĀ Pieter Cornelisz.Ā HooftĀ (1581-1647), butĀ there are…
Parsnip salad
Straight to the recipe A sixteenth-century Dutch recipe This winter salad for parsnips is taken from a Dutch cookbook from the middle of the sixteenth century. It is a translation from a recipe by the Italian humanist Platina (Bartolomeo Sacchi) inĀ De honeste voluptateĀ (published in 1474,Ā edition Milham, see bibliography). The Dutch cookbook bears the titleĀ Eenen nyeuwen…
Mille-feuille the Dutch way
Straight to the recipe Tompouce is the Dutch version of mille-feuille. It is popular throughout the year, but on some days, it is almost traditional to eat this pastry. And on those days, the tompouce is not decorated with the customary pink glaze, but with orange glaze to emphasize the connection to our royal family…
Excellent almond cookies
Straight to the recipe In the Middle Ages, cookies were served during the banquet or the final course of a festive meal, along with fresh or preserved fruit and spiced wine. During the sixteenth century the Italians even started their meals with sweet cookies, according to the menus provided by Bartolomeo Scappi (Opera, 1570, see…
Veal Mortadella
Straight to the recipe A fifteenth-century antipasto Modern Mortadella is anĀ ItalianĀ sausage originating from Bologna, with pink meat, speckled with little chunks of porkfat, peppercorns and pistacchios and/or olives. The sausage is cooked and lightly smoked. The pinkish hue is caused by saltpetre. Mortadella is imitated a lot throughout the world. The American imitation is called…
Chicken breast with blackberry sauce
A fifteenth-century recipe from Italy Straight to the recipe The colour of food is important to the way in which we experience it. Food wich is green, golden, white or red is thought of as tasty food. Food wich looks blue is less attractive. Ingredients wich are blue-coloured by nature are very few. All that…
Zabaglione
Straight to the recipe Unchanged through the centuries There was no country called Italy in the Middle Ages. There was a peninsula, divided into small counties and duchies, and the Vatican of course. But the Italian (regional) kitchen had already those characteristics it still has today. Elsewhere on this site you’ll find recipes for sixteenth-century…
Medieval onion stew
Straight to the recipe The recipe for this nourishing dish has survived in several medieval English manuscripts. Although it is not stated explicitly, the dish is typically meant for Lent. It contains olive oil and almond milk, and lacks any meat or dairy products. The main ingredient are onions. In the picture a man and…
A brief history of pasta – Part 2
To part 1 of the history of pasta When I published two macaroni recipes from World War I, I also added a page on the recent history of the production of macaronipasta. This page can be considered as the ‘prequel’ of that history section: pasta and macaroni from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century….
Lucanian sausages
Straight to the recipe An ancient Roman delicacy In June 2012 I gave a talk aboutĀ RomanĀ Food at theĀ Roman FestivalĀ in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. This inspired me to try my hand at preparing Lucanicae, one of the recipes forĀ sausagesĀ in the Roman cookery bookĀ De re coquinaria. I have written more on this book in my notes on other…
Medieval stuffed chicken
Straight to the recipe Pullis iuvenis in tempore estivali This summer I was experimenting with roasting whole chickens on the barbecue, so of course I searched for a medieval recipe too. That was easy, in medieval cuisine roast fowl is standard fare for nobles, and I chose a recipe from theĀ Tractatus de modo preparandi et…