Grape vines do not just yield grapes. During the summer the leaves can be picked and pickled or used straight away. The best-known use of vine leaves is the Greek dolma, where they are used to wrap around rice. However, in this eighteenth-century recipe the vine leaves themselves are the main ingredient. Just in case…
ORIGIN
Jacobin sops for Good Friday
In the introduction to the recipe for Pomegranate Salad I mentioned the only day that the (catholic) French alle ate vegetarian. That is really something special, because ordering a vegetarian dish in an average French restaurant usually results in raised eyebrows and a rather plain meatless dish. The recipe on this page and the recipe…
Mallard with onion sauce
Straight to the recipe An English recipe from the fifteenth century A recipe from an English manuscript from the middle of the fifteenth century, Harleian 4016 from the library of the British Museum. The cookbook opens with the menu of a banquet that was served to king Richard II and the Duke of Lancaster on September 23 1387 in…
Surprise Eggs
Straight to the recipe A Dutch recipe from the eighteenth century This decorative dish consists of whole, emptied eggs shells that are stuffed with raw eggs with crayfish and mushrooms and heated until the stuffing has congealed. When the eggs have been peeled and placed on a dish, they will be a very attractive side…
Medieval Arab Candy
Straight to the recipe A thirteenth-century recipe Nearly everyone agrees that sugar is poison. However, it is only considereda poison because it is used in excess. We all love sweet dishes, and the food industry uses it as a flavour enhancer as well. But a long time ago sugar was actually welcomed by physicians and…
Pasties with sweetbread
Straight to the recipe What Johann Sebastian Bach might have eaten in Leipzig The connection between the pasties and the famous German baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is tenuous; a few years after Susanna Eger had published her cookbook (in 1706), J.S. Bach accepted the situation of cantor in the Lutheran Thomaskirche in Leipzig. He would work there from 1723 until his…
Vol-au-vent with fish
A pescetarian alternative for ragoût with meat Recently I have published the recipe for vol-au-vent with ragoût of chicken meat. That once was a classic Dutch first course for Christmas dinner. Here is an alternative for people who do not eat meat, but do eat fish. This ragoût can also be used as stuffing for…
White tourte, a favourite of Pope Julius III
Straight to the recipe Sweet Italian pastry from the sixteenth century In the Netherlands we are used to abdications. This year, 2013, our queen Beatrix will hand over the throne to her son Willem Alexander, as her mother Juliana did thirty three years ago, and her grandmother Wilhelmina in 1948. But an abdicating pope has not…
Escoffier’s Salsify Fritters
Straight to the recipe The picture shows the garden terrace of the Ritz Hotel in Paris, which openend its doors in 1898. This is one of the legendary hotels that were run by César Ritz (1850-1918) and Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935). I have spend many hours searching for a nineteenth-century painting with black salsify, but alas,…
A brief pasta history – Part 1
To part two of the history of pasta It has happened to me before. I start working on a historical recipe that does not seem to be too complicated. But then the questions arise, one after the other … Long macaroni When I was working on two recipes with macaroni from the First World War…
Indonesian chicken stock
Indonesian cuisine does not have soups as a first course, although sometimes they appear on the menu through Chinese and Western influences. One of the dishes in which Indonesian broth is used is soto. That is a ‘full-bodied’ main-course soup, with the meat used for the stock, vegetables, and for example cooked eggs, peanuts, rice or…
Mulahwaja
Straight to the recipe A recipe from 1001 nights There are few Europeans who can read and understand Arabic, let alone medieval Arabic, and I am not one of them. That is why the translation in English of the tenth century Kitāb al-Ţabīkh of al-Warrāq from Nawal Nasrallah is so valuable (also literally, the book is quite…
Scappi’s Macaroni
Straight to the recipe A lot of work, but also a lot of fun The previous historical recipe on Coquinaria consisted of three parts: two recipes for macaroni from World War One, and a page on the production of industrial pressed macaroni. There is also a page with part two of the history of making macaroni and other…
Roman fish sauce
Garum or liquamen Garum is one of the basic ingredients in the cuisine of Roman antiquity. It is a fish sauce that was used to salt dishes. One can’t simply use kitchen salt in recipes, because instead of extracting moisture (which is what salt does), garum adds moisture to a dish. When preparing an authentic Roman dish, this sauce is…
Gooseberry Omelette
Straight to the recipe A sixteenth-century Dutch recipe The recipe for omelette (tasey) balances on te edge of what we could name the culinary Middle Ages. It is taken from the Seer excellenten gheexperimenteerden nieuwen Coc-boeck (The very excellent and tried new cookbook) that the physician Karel Baten (Carolus Battus) published as appendix to the second edition of…