I didn't finish writing it today, but I'll change it tomorrow morning, sorry.

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In January 1492, Anna Sforza and Alfonzod? Este), people ate 45,000 pounds of meat in a week. How can you afford this huge amount of meat? Afaro's father, Duke Ercole d'Este, took extraordinary measures to increase his income in order to ensure that this grand and luxurious wedding was a success. These include the imposition of additional taxes and the mandatory repatriation of art and ornaments from remote areas.

Fortunately, these hierarchies did not hinder the development of cooking and recipes, and in fact, both Martino and Platina's writings delved into most of the ingredients available at the time, without being constrained by the hierarchy of high or low that corresponded to the ingredients. Most of Martino's meat recipes are about veal, but he doesn't ignore the lower-grade meats:

About the making of sausages

If you want to make delicious sausages with pork or other meats, the meat you choose must be both fat and lean, detendoned and chopped into small pieces. For 10 pounds of meat, add 1 pound of salt, 2 ounces of washed high-quality fennel seeds, and 2 ounces of coarsely ground black pepper, stir them well, and let them sit for a day. Take an appropriate amount of cleaned casing, pour the meat in, hang it and smoke it to dry.

It is worth noting here that despite the low status of pork, it is considered suitable for sausages. Wealthy people eat all kinds of meats except pork, even those that doctors believe are harmful to the human body, just to show off and satisfy their own sense of superiority. Other foods that are considered "harmful" include fruits, venison, river fresh, lamprey and porpoise, but they are cooked and seasoned in a variety of ways to reduce their harmfulness and make them fit for consumption. For those who live within sixty miles of the coastline, the lowest-grade animals they eat on a daily basis are aquatic shellfish, and the highest-grade food they can eat is peacock meat that has been cooked and decorated with colorful wings, sometimes with a fire-breathing device, as detailed in Martino's recipe in Chapter 6.

In addition to poultry and veal, some spring-specific dishes made with suckling pig (the most exclusive pork), baby goat meat and lamb are also popular. Lamb is most often eaten in the summer. As for the consumption of game meat during the Renaissance, it seems that researchers have different opinions. One researcher believes that game meat was uncommon at the time, while another claims that it was widely eaten in the countryside and was rarely found in the imperial court. In my study of Martino and Platina's recipes, I found that the two masters often mentioned wild boar, bears and roe deer, but if songpoultry and hare meat were not included, there were very few recipes based on game.

But how do you cook these meats? Here are Martino's suggestions:

Both steer beef and female beef need to be cooked. Calf is suitable for cooking, but the tenderloin is best grilled, and the loin is suitable for meatballs. Lamb is suitable for cooking, but its shoulder and leg are suitable for roasting. Steer pork, no matter how it is cooked, is not good for health. Goat meat served with garlic sauce is especially delicious in January. All types of rabbit meat are suitable for grilling, and bear meat is best served as a pie.

During Lent and on Wednesdays and Fridays, fish is the best choice because meat is not eaten. The most commonly consumed freshwater fish (both fresh and salted) are bream, herring, carp, salmon, barracuda, eel and sturgeon, while the most common marine fish on the table are sole, mackerel, tuna, cod and redmullet. At that time, the supply of fresh fish was not very stable, and it was difficult to maintain the freshness of the fish due to long-distance land transportation, so almost all the fish eaten by people living inland was salted.

From cabbage to grapes

Scholars have studied the food expenditures of the royal families and monasteries of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and the types of food purchased, mainly on the basis of the accounts of the time, in which no records of vegetables appeared, since the consumption of vegetables was not part of the market economy at that time. Just like eggs, honey, and vegetables, they are all produced and sold in-house, and rarely appear in the market as commodities along with fish and meat. The following vegetables were commonly cultivated in the gardens of low-status farmers and in the delicate royal gardens: cabbage, leeks, spinach, broad beans, lettuce and turnips. Other vegetables are closely associated with Arab culture, such as asparagus, artichokes, pumpkin, melons and eggplants. Of course, there are other vegetables, such as corn, potatoes, tomatoes and peppers, which were introduced to Italy after 1500, but it took a long time for the Italians to use them in cooking. This process is described in detail in Chapter VII.

Fresh vegetables are often eaten in summer and autumn, and in winter, cabbage is the king of vegetables because it is easy to preserve and has an abundant supply in winter. Boiled cabbage with salted pork is a typical rural home cooking. Dried vegetables such as dried peas, dried pods, dried chickpeas, and dried lentils are also used for cooking in winter, which are usually stewed with the original beef juice to form a thick soup. Other winter foods include dried bamboo shoots (dehydrated and reduced during cooking) and dried fruits (such as raisins, figs, prunes, and various nuts).

About peas

Peas are the most noble of the vegetables, especially the ones that are quite delicious even to the pods. Peas are suitable for cooking with herbs to create a variety of dishes with a variety of flavors. To cook a full-flavoured pea dish, we need to simmer the peas in a good broth until they are half-cooked, and then season with hard bacon grease, which is chopped with a knife or tampered until it is as thick as butter.

—Giacomo Castelvetro, ABriefAccountoftheFruit, HerbsandVegetables of Italy, 1614

Since Roman times, there has been a proverb that warns people not to eat salads – "even the best salad leads to a bad meal" because salads are "cold". Still, lettuce or spinach is often mixed with fresh herbs and served with salt and olive oil to "heat" these cool dishes. Interestingly, there are very few salad recipes in Renaissance recipes. Some gastronomic historians believe that Martino's reticence about salads stems from the fact that salads are a matter of course for a chef of his calibre.

Although some consider fruits to be "harmful", they have a higher status than all other plants in the great chain of existence, and are therefore considered suitable for the upper classes. Most of the fruits grow on trees or shrubs, and they are taller than onions and other plants, and it is for this reason that fruits occupy the highest point in the hierarchy of plants. Grapes, figs, and stone fruits like peaches have been part of Mediterranean culture for nearly a millennium, but citrus fruits such as oranges and lemons were brought to southern Europe by the Arabs from India and became widespread in Italy from about the thirteenth century onwards. At that time, people ate oranges the same way we do today, and lemon juice was the best ingredient for fried or grilled fish dishes.

In addition to being used for winemaking, people also make verjuice from grapes that are unripe and slightly sour. Dried grapes can also be made into raisins. However, the vast majority of grapes are still used to make wine, and even Leonardo da Vinci was involved in the wine industry. In the late autumn of 1497, near the end of the Last Supper, da Vinci was working for the court of Ludvic Sfcha and received a piece of land from the latter. It was about three miles of land and included a vineyard that da Vinci called "my paradise beyond the walls of Milan." Not much is known about that vineyard, except that it was about 220 × 55 yards, and that da Vinci kept it until his death. The fact that da Vinci also rented out a house on this property suggests that he probably also leased out the vineyard to share in the profits from the sale of the wine. Until the twenties of the nineteenth century, da Vinci's vineyard remained in its original place, but it has now been transformed into a city garden.

Echoes of vegetarianism

Echoes of vegetarianism

As we already know, root crops like onions and garlic have always had a low status, but they can also be found on the tables of the court, down to the common people. However, when garlic is used in dishes with a popular type of meat, such as poultry, garlic becomes less expensive and more "noble". The focus of any lavish feast is meat, but in the sixteenth century Montaigne wrote in his Travel Journal of Italy: "The people of this country are not accustomed to eating too much meat." "Chefs in Italy elevate fruits, vegetables and pasta to the same level as meat, while in the UK, France and Germany, meat is absolutely dominant. Fish is eaten on Ramadan days, so certain types of fish are considered the best substitute for meat, such as sturgeon. In the Opera, Sgarpi recorded twenty-three recipes for cooking sturgeon, and the fasting feasts mentioned in the book were all based on this special fish. Eels are also highly valued, as they can survive for several days after being caught in straw baskets, making them easy to transport. "Fish is no less satisfying than the meats that best satisfy people's taste buds," writes Sgarpi, "and in fact it is the most delicious food that nature has given us." ”

Cheese is another food that can be used as a substitute for meat. From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, this once "peasant food" grew in stature, from the first days of fasting to later Lent, from Ash Day to 40 days before Easter. - Translator's note is getting more and more attention. The first work on dairy products was Summa Lacticiniorum (1469), in which the author Pantaleoneda Confienza wrote: "Kings, dukes, counts, marquises, barons, soldiers, nobles and merchants [all eat cheese]." Cheese is also often an integral part of royal feasts, with Messisbugo recommending "hard, fatty cheeses" such as pecorino (feta milk cheese), while Scappie favors "freshly sliced Parmesan cheese" and mozzarella (parmesan cheese). As early as the mid-15th century, their predecessor Platina mentioned that there were two cheeses that were "equally divided" in Italy: Marzolino from Tuscany and Parmesan from Parmesan. Interestingly, cow and goat's milk was not used as an everyday drink at the time, but as an ingredient in cooking or cheesemaking. According to Platina, "Goat's milk is the best...... Ewe milk is the next best thing, while cow's milk is in third place. "This may be because there were no refrigerators at the time, and milk was difficult to store for a long time.

Cheese from the ancient Roman period

Cheese from the ancient Roman period

Pecorino RomanoDOP (Roman hard feta cheese) is one of the oldest living cheeses, originating in the Roman era of Latim. It was one of the components of the daily ration of the Roman army. More than 67 million pounds of pecorino romaño cheese are now produced annually, mostly in Sardinia.

Italians prefer to use a variety of vegetables in their cooking than in other parts of Europe, and this tendency has long been criticized by Costanzo Felici in 1569 for writing a treatise on edible plants, "On Salads and Plants That Become Food for People"? Homo), he mentions in his book: "People who live on the other side of the Alps consider salads to be the exclusive food of greedy Italians. It was the Italians who robbed the food of the lower animals that fed on green leafy grass. Nevertheless, all the great cookbook authors since Martino have documented recipes based on vegetables and herbs, such as soups made with cabbage, fennel, pumpkin, lettuce, fava beans, peas, marjoram, mint or parsley, pies and fritters.

Giacomo Castelvetro was an Italian who went into exile in England as a Protestant. In 1614 he wrote a book on "root vegetables, leafy greens, and fruits eaten by the Italians," which was not published until after his death. In the book, he claims that "Italians eat more vegetables and fruits than meat", giving the following reasons:

The main reason is that our lovely Italy is far less obsessed with meat than France and the island (England). Because we Italians have to put a lot of effort into finding new food to feed the large population that lives in such a small area. There is another factor, as force majeure as the one mentioned earlier, and that is that Italy is in high temperatures for nine months of the year, making us tired of eating meat.