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,…
PERIOD
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…
Roman health food
A nourishing recipe from the first century AD Straight to the recipe Hadrian’s Wall is the iconic heritage monument of Roman presence in Britain. It still determines the border between England and Scotland. The remains of Romanpresence in the Netherlands are less obvious, but the Dutch are becoming more and more aware of this part of their…
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…
Chicken Salad
What to do with soup chicken What to do with all the tasty chicken meat from the boiling hen when you have made chicken stock? This recipe for chicken salad is better with meat from a boiling hen than with a pale chicken breast. It tastes great on toast or on bread, or it can be…
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…
Sauces for broiled fish
Fish played a prominent role in the daily diet throughout the Catholic Middle Ages, because during set periods and days the eating of meat was forbidden. Lent is the most extended and strict period of dietary restrictions, because not only meat, but all animal produce (butter, cheese, eggs) were prohibited foodstuff. On the weekly fast days the…
Barley soup for a ball
Straight to the recipe Double take The Netherlands celebrated the bicentennial of their existence as a kingdom in 2013. But at the time that was actually 198 years ago, not 200. From 1813 to 1815 the Netherlands were the Souverijne Vorstendom der Verëenigde Nederlanden (the sovereign principality of the united Netherlands). We didn’t have a king, but a prince….
Spinach Pie
This the third recipe for Good Friday. The other recipes are Pomegranate Salad and Jacobin Sops. If one grows spinach in the kitchen garden, or is from an older generation, one might remember the sharp-edged seeds of some varieties of spinach. Spinach had to be washed very thoroughly to remove all those unpleasant seeds. Nowadays…
Roman patina with herbs
Straight to the recipe In the introduction to the recipe for Roman patina with asparagus and quail I wrote about this dish. On this page is another recipe for patina with asparagus, without meat but with green herbs. I also used green asparagus this time. The cilantro and lovage leaves add a very distinct flavour to this…
Lamb-chops Pie
Straight to the recipe A Dutch recipe from the eighteenth century To serve lamb on Easter Sunday is an ancient custom. Although this recipe is not specifically intended for an Easter meal, this pie will be a great succes when served on the occasion. With a salad or mixed spring vegetables this is an excellent…
Dutch barley soup
Straight to the recipe This barley soup is not French haute cuisine as Carême’s recipe is. It is Dutch and was published in Aaltje, de volmaakte en zuinige keukenmeid (‘Aaltje, the perfect and thrifty cook’), a popular cookery book from the early nineteenth century (1803). In fact it was so popular that in 1887 a teacher of house economics, Odilia Corver, thought to…