Messisbugo Over-Analyzed - Part 3: The table setting

(I’m going to do this is individual segments in part so that I don’t get too sucked in and neglect other work, in part to do it in manageable bites for the reader to avoid that TL;DR effect.)

I’m going to organize the data according to date (putting the uncertain date first) somewhat arbitrarily, even though that doesn’t appear to be the order in the manuscript. As noted previously, the translations are by vittoriosa.

15?0: The table was prepared with two cloths, one over the other, and on top of them were placed the materials described below, that is, napkins, folded in various fashions, and on each one was a big bouquet of perfumed flowers made of silk and gold. Six little milk breads [boffettini] per person, and one succarino da monache.

1524: The table was prepared with two clothes; the napkins, salt cellars, knives, and four little milk breads [boffettini], and a gilded pine-nut candy [pignoccato] of pistachios at every place.

1536: The table was prepared with two cloths; placed on it were napkins, knives, salt cellars, candelabras, and then a wreathed bread for each person, and a bread roll [brazzatella], and a large gilded pine nut candy [pignoccato], and a little animal or bird or fruit made of sugar, at each place.

1537: The table was prepared with two cloths, and napkins, and salt cellars, and knives, and trenchers [tondi]; then above them were placed the goods described below, which were: One wreathed bread and one manchet bread [boffetto] per person, and one piece of twice-baked marzipan, and a little bouquet of flowers at each place.

1540: The table was prepared with two cloths; the napkins, salt cellars, knives, and a sliced bread roll [brazzatella] and a wreathed bread were set at each place.

1548: First two cloths, one on top of the other, were place on the table, which was illuminated by four silver lanterns belonging to His Excellency, attached to the ceiling so as not to block anyone’s view, and on the table there were four silver salt cellars. One napkin, a knife, a wreathed bread, and a little crescent [bread] made with butter, sugar and egg yolks for each person.

Non-food items

All menus specify that the table is laid with 2 cloths (and at the end of the numbered courses, they specify that one of the cloths is removed). Napkins are also mentioned in all cases, and one menu specifies that they are “folded in various fashions.” Five of the six mention knives and salt cellars and I suspect it is reasonable to think that these were included for the sixth dinner even though they aren’t mentioned explicitly. Lighting is only described in two of the menus (“candelabras” and “lanterns suspended from the ceiling”). Logic dictates that all the dinners were lit in some fashion, so it’s unclear whether these two types of light sources were unusual (and therefore worth mentioning) or whether it was simply random whether this was thought worth including in the description.

Bread

All the menus mention at least one type of bread being laid out, with most indicating two types.

15?0: 6 boffettini per person
1524: 4 boffettini per person
1536: 1 brazzatella, 1 wreathed bread
1537: 1 boffetto, 1 wreathed bread
1540: 1 sliced brazzatella, 1 wreathed bread
1548: 1 “little crescent”, 1 wreathed bread

Four different types of bread are mentioned (assuming that “boffettini” are simply a smaller version of “boffetto”). Since three of them occur in combination with “wreathed bread” but not in combination with each other, we can tentatively conclude that we have two conceptual “bread slots”: wreathed bread and other types of bread. (Note that this is a tentative conclusion based only on the carnival menus. It’s contradicted by the non-carnival menus, but I want to develop this analysis step by step.) Wreathed bread never occurs here in isolation. Boffettini do, but only in the multiple diminutive.

Messisbugo’s recipes include one for brazzatelle (a sweet bread including rosewater, milk, sugar, eggs, and butter) and a description of “Milanese-style wreathed bread” (less sugar and no milk than brazzatelle) where the dough is rolled out into sheets then rolled into a tube around a filling of spices pine nuts, and raisins (or other thigs), which is then formed into a wheel to bake. This gives us reinforcement to the hypothesis that “wreathed bread” is a different conceptual category than ordinary bread.

He also gives a recipe that is translated simply as “bread” (presumably not a specialized word like boffetto). The description is roughly equivalent to that specified as brazzatelle (although with a suspiciously larger proportion of rosewater) and specifies that the bread is better if made “round rather than wreathed or in buns”. This may indicate that the distinctions in bread names may be fairly subtle and supports the notion that “wreathed” is something you do with the dough rather than an entirely different recipe.

Other items

For two of the menus, this is the extent of the table setting, but a majority of menus include some additional sweet or decorative item or both. The sweet may be a gilded pine-nut candy (pignoccato) although one is described as “pignoccato of pistachios”. This increases the temptation to group these with the “twice-baked marzipan” and hypothesize a menu-slot for “nut-based candy”, in which case three of the six menus fill this slot -- four if one considers the “marzipan biscuits” in the 15?0 menu’s “pre-course” as being a displaced member of this item.

Although the gilded candies can be considered to have visual appeal, three of the six menus have an item that appears primarily intended to be a visual and/or aromatic delight: “a little bird or fruit made of sugar”, “a little bouquet of flowers”, or “a big bouquet of flowers made of silk and gold”.

In addition, the 15?0 menu indicates a “succarino da monache”, a name that vittoriosa footnotes as literally meaning “little sugar (or type of drinking glass?) of nuns”. If the 15?0 marzipan biscuit is not displaced, then there’s a temptation to see the succarino da monache as filling an equivalent slot to the nut candies, whatever it might be, given that this menu also has a separate listing for flowers.

One of the menus (1537) also mentions tondi which are translated as “trenchers” but no context is given for how these are used and the mention is unique among the menus.

Conceptual outline and the Coronet menu

Taken all together, most of the items in the table-setting section seem to be standard rather than optional. The following is my conclusion of the structure (and how I filled it for the Coronet dinner):

* 2 table cloths (I only used 1 for logistical reasons)
* napkins (done in a simple fold into which I tucked the flowers, see below)
* knives (skipped this because I designed the dinner not to need carving, though I did provide spoons and forks, which are not mentioned)
* salt cellars (check)
* optional lighting (I had some large candles on the table primarily to keep the cloth from being blown off, though we lit them by the end of the dinner)
* regular bread (1 for each place), optionally a wreathed bread (I provided an individual rosewater/sweet bread for each diner but didn’t include the wreathed bread option)
* optional but typical: a nut-based candy (I had planned to provide small marzipan fruits to fulfill both this and the “visual” category but couldn’t locate any commercial ones and didn’t have time to make my own)
* optional but typical: a primarily visual decoration that may be edible (I tucked a small spray of lilac into each folded napkin)

The Medieval IKEA Hacker: A 15th c. dresser for my camp kitchen

It is part of the constant SCA balancing act that Authentic Stuff often tends to be large, heavy, and bulky, or requires multiple servants to transport and set up. (Not always, but often.) As someone who loves serious cooking at events -- whether modern cooking of medieval foods or full all-out medieval cooking in little footed pipkins -- I’ve spent the last quarter century penduluming back and forth between practicality and authenticity (whether only in appearance or in underlying structure).

Through long trial and error, my compromise point has settled on the following conveniences necessary for my sanity:

* camp kitchen furniture must be able to be packed in a reasonably-sized vehicle
* camp kitchen furniture must be able to be set up and taken down in a reasonable amount of time
* ideally, camp kitchen supplies must be able to be packed and stored in the same structures in which they are used at events
* camp kitchen supplies and equipment must be stored and transported modularly so that different needs can be accommodated without totally repacking everything and without taking All The Things to every event
* my kitchen at events must be organized in a way that makes cooking easy and safe

To this we add the following goals on the historic side:

* modern elements in the kitchen should be relatively hidden from view from outside my camp
* the larger physical structures used to organize my kitchen should at least be not obviously modern (e.g., wood surfaces if possible where visible) and should bear some conceptual similarity to historic equipment whenever practical

I confess that I’ve more often settled for “not obviously modern” and “natural surfaces” than the further goals. I settled for purchasing a round firebox rather than making or commissioning the reproduction of the Roman cooking brazier I long for. I’ve been a only gradually inching closer to having reasonably authentic trestle tables for prep and dining. But I’ve long had my dreams. And one of my dreams is for my camp kitchen to include something like this:



This is the project diary of that quest. ( Read more... )