Straight to the recipe Mushroom pie from Lancelot de Casteau This mushroom pie from 1604 is much more modern than the Ménagier’s from the fourteenth century. No spices and sugar, but herbs to bring the stuffing to taste. The recipe comes from the Ouverture de cuisine, published in 1604 by Lancelot de Casteau. He was, according…
mint
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…
Mint soufflé
Straight to the recipe The introduction to the recipe is on this page, about Antonin Carême and the history of soufflés, together with the recipe for strawberry soufflé. This recipe for mint soufflé is very long in its original version, so it got its own page. It is a soufflé à la française, which means it is…
Stuffed eggs with mint
Straight to the recipe A medieval first course from Germany I am lucky with my neighbours. At the moment, I live next door to the core of the musical group EnsembLeChatNoir, who give beautiful – and sometimes multimedia – concerts. At my previous house there was also an artistic neighbour, a cermist. She is from Germany, and…
Purée from broad beans
Straight to the recipe This recipe for broad beans is taken from the sixteenth-century cookbook Opera by Italian Bartolomeo Scappi (see bibliography). more on Scappi and his book: Tortelli in brodo and Broccoli in de Opera). In the Libro Terzo (Book III, with recipes for Lent and fish days) of this cookbook is the following recipe for minestre (a first course, thick soup or pottage)…
Aubergines for cardinals
Straight to the recipe One year ago I published a Dutch recipe for stuffed aubergines from the 1970s. This historical recipe is also for stuffed aubergines, but older; it was published 450 years ago. The cardinals were the intended public that Bartolomeo Scappi, author of the cookbook that the recipe originates from, cooked for. More…