I couldn't finish it today, so I'm sorry for changing it tomorrow morning.

In the past two days, the community has been blocked, and the courier can't come to the door, but the things you need still have to be bought, and as the youngest member can only go out and run, so there is some lack of energy, and I apologize to all the readers here.

—————— Renaissance Man Who Loved Meat (Part I)

Renaissance Italians consumed a lot of meat every day, much more than modern Americans did, and this amount was enough to trigger protein shock for Italians, who now rely on pasta. For example, at a "family dinner" in Mantua in 1532, eight gentlemen were served, and in addition to salads, breads, fruits, and desserts, eighteen plates of pheasant salad, five steers, ninety sausages, meatballs, a delicious liver dish, five ducks, three tongues, five prosciutto and mortadella pies, fifteen quails, fifteen Milanese sausages, and a stag - And these are just the first courses.

- Berengario dellellequeterre of the Cinnago

According to Renaissance cookbooks, chefs at that time struggled to buy all kinds of spices that were commercially available. Two cookbooks of unknown titles in England, known as the Halley's Manuscripts, No. 279 (th, c. 1430) and No. 4016 (th, c. 1450), advise chefs to cook 90 percent of their fish dishes without hesitation in adding plenty of spices. The most frequently mentioned spices in these two books are ginger, black pepper, nutmeg bark, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger (galingal). "The medieval ruling class was fond of dishes with strong flavours," commented Wolfgang Schfeelbusch, "and the higher the social status, the greater the use of spices." Martino and Platina, members of the aristocratic class, also emphasized the use of a large number of spices in their recipes. This is definitely a form of conspicuous consumption by the upper class, as it is obvious from their recipes that the use of spices is closely related to wealth, status, and prestige. It's true that spices are used aggressively in the kitchen, but it's never accidental. The amount of spices used is carefully arranged under the hierarchy and is placed alongside the grade of the food.

Underneath the fact that spices were used in large quantities in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance was another reason – spices had medicinal properties. Each of the kitchen spices was first introduced as a medicine before being used in cooking. From the thirteenth century to the beginning of the seventeenth century, almost all physicians recommended adding a lot of spices to the cooking of meats so that people could digest them better. During this period, it was widely believed that digestion was also a form of cooking, which took place in the stomach and was done with the body's "animal heat". Because of this, spices, which are considered "hot", are just right to help with digestion. Pepper is judged to be "hot" and "dry" in the fourth grade, with cloves, galangal, cardamom in the third grade, cinnamon bark, cumin, long tomato and nutmeg in the second grade, and so on.

Interestingly, although spices aid digestion, people who are sick are forbidden to come into contact with them. Patients with fever should not use spices as hot and dry spices can worsen the condition. The patient's food is generally cooked with sugar added in place of spices, as sugar is the "mildest" condiment.

Of course, the basic reason for the use of spices in cooking in any era is that they can add flavor to dishes and make light food tasteful, but spices can also be sterilized – the above two theories are inseparable. In their book The Bactericidal Function of Spices: Why People Love Spicy Food, Jennifer Billing and Paul W. Sherman argue that the recipe is actually a never-ending competition between us and the parasites. Everything we do in cooking: washing, drying, cooking, salting, seasoning, is to avoid contamination of food by these parasites, after all, most of the spices used for seasoning have a bactericidal effect. The authors conclude: "We believe that the most fundamental reason for using spices in cooking is to destroy the bacteria and fungi produced by food. ”

In Leonardo da Vinci's time, spices were more popular than ever, but they didn't last long. One problem that has always constrained the Venetian spice trade is the tortuous route of transporting spices such as pepper – from India to Egypt and Syria, via the Isthmus of Suez to Alexandria, where they are loaded and transported to Venice, and then expensive to transport across the Alps to Central and Northern Europe. When the Venetians made exorbitant profits in this trade, merchants from other countries began to enter the spice trade. Clearly, the way to eliminate trade intermediaries was to open a direct sea route from India to Europe. So when the route to India was discovered, the Portuguese, and later the Dutch, took the spice business from the Venetians. And this fact has led to a significant drop in the price of spices, and more people can afford to buy them. In this way, spices are no longer as mysterious and exotic as they used to be, and they become commonplace. In addition, dietitians in the middle and late Renaissance advised more careful use of spices, and as a result, spices, which were all the rage, gradually declined in Europe.

There were many spices available to Renaissance cooks, but there were three types of pepper: pipernigrum, piperlongum, and pipercubeba. The chef's cupboard may also contain cinnamon bark, melegueta, cumin, nutmeg, mace, saffron and cloves. Chefs usually use powdered spices, add them to vegetable juices or sauces, filter them and re-pour them over dishes. This method ensures that the spices do not lose their original flavor during cooking with the food, so as to preserve the rich flavor of the spices to the greatest extent.

Other condiments and herbs used during the Renaissance were parsley, fennel, marjoram, mint, sage, rosemary, oregano, thyme, dill, basil, garlic, shallot, and onion. Although the last three were considered the least "noble" of vegetables, they were also found on the tables of the nobility.

The grade of animal meat

In Renaissance Italy, educated people believed that everything in the world was born of earth, water, air, and fire, and that its order was determined by the "great chain of being". From the time of Lucretius to Copernicus and the Renaissance, most cultured people accepted this concept of the structure of the universe. The "Great Chain of Being" is made up of many hierarchical links, ranging from the most basic lower elements (such as rocks) to the "ultimate perfection" (referring to God). According to this view, the hierarchy of plants and animals depends on their position in the chain. Tuber plants such as onions are at the bottom of the list, while mystical creatures like the phoenix, due to their pyrophytic nature and status second only to God, are at the top of the chain. Every animal or plant is inferior to its superiors and at the same time nobler to its inferior, so that no two animals or plants enjoy the same degree of dignity.

The lowest of the aquatic organisms are benthic feeding shellfish such as oysters and clams, which are inhabited by shrimp, crabs and lobsters, and fish are above them. The highest class of aquatic animals are whales and dolphins, and by that time humans had mastered the art of capturing them. Whales and dolphins swim on the surface of the ocean, so they are thought to be struggling to breathe air, and because of this, they are endowed with a certain degree of nobility.

In the chain of existence, between dolphins and birds are terrestrial animals, of which at the bottom are pigs, lamb is in the center, and beef, especially veal, is at the top of the series. In this way, the birds of the air are the most exclusive food, and the order is that duck and goose (waterfowl) are at the bottom, chicken is in the center, and songbirds are at the top. Allengrieco explains the use of this hierarchy at court banquets as follows:

At banquets, such as the one held in 1466 under the name of the South Nina Medici, Bernardo Lucellai, the host served veal to the guests of the estates of the two villages, and the most important guests were steered chicken, chicken, and other poultry. In terms of the hierarchy of meat, mutton (most likely the daily food of the merchant class at the time) was below veal, and pork had the lowest status. Pork, especially salted, was looked down upon at the time, most likely because it was the most frequently consumed meat of the lower classes.

In January 492, at the wedding feast of Annasforza and Alfoe in Ferrara, 45,000 pounds of meat were eaten in a week. How could he afford this huge amount of meat? The Duke of Ercole d'Este, the father of Afaro, took extraordinary measures to increase his income in order to ensure the success of this grand and luxurious wedding. 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.

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.