Feb. 16th, 2014

hrj: (doll)
(For previous posts in this series, see items tagged with 'messisbugo'.)

As discussed in the overview, this course consists of multiple fowl dishes, a liver dish, a quadruped dish, frequently a fruit dish (often fresh), and other dishes with no general pattern. I’ve numbered the identifiable “template slots” or thematic groups for clarity.

Fowl Dishes

1) Partridges and/or pigeons, rarely chicken, sometimes with tomaselle (a sort of liver meatball wrapped in caul fat) served in various manners (6 menus)

This isn’t so much a clear “template slot” as a fuzzy grouping with overlap of a selection of primary ingredients.  Furthermore as two of the partridge dishes are served with oranges, this group also overlaps fuzzily with a second fowl dish:

2) Roast pheasant, usually with oranges (4 of 6 menus, with the other 2 menus being those that have roast partridge with oranges)

This complex fuzzy grouping may be clearer if one identifies the two category slots as “A” an “B” as shown in the following table of characteristics. (I hope the formatting works for all browsers.)


15?0 1524 1536 1537 1540 1548
Other Characteristics (A) (A) Roasted with sugar and cinnamon on top (A) Roasted (A) Roasted, with French sauce (A) In fried pastry
Pigeon/Chicken Dish A (pigeon) Dish A (pigeon) Dish A (chicken)
Tomaselle Dish A Dish A Dish A
Partridge Dish A Dish A Dish A Dish A Dish B
Oranges Dish A Dish A Dish B Dish B Dish B
Pheasant Dish B Dish B Dish B Dish B
Other Characteristics (B) (B) Roasted (B) Roasted (B) Roasted, with pieces of yellow sausage

It’s this sort of complex “theme with differences” that really piqued my interest when I first started looking at these menus.

3) Capon, generally served with some sort of salami, typically served on bread (5 of 6 menus)

This is another example of how varied the specific dishes can be while still having a thematic unity. The capons may be described as boiled, boiled in pastry, in pastry, boneless, or boneless and stuffed.  All five include some sort of salumi (2 with salami, 2 with mortadelle, 1 with persutto). Three mention being served “with slices of bread underneath” (either the capon or the salumi or both). In one case the capon in pastry is accompanied by veal breast in wine as well as the preserved meat.

Other Fowl

Each of the six menus has at least one other fowl dish in the First Course and one has as many as four additional fowl dishes. (The 15?0 menu has one of each of the following except the peacock.) There are three conceptual groups and two singleton dishes.

·      4) Pigeons, in pastry or in a pie (3 of 6)
·      5) Small birds & meatballs (3 of 6) - I’m cheating a bit because one of the three is rabbit with tomaselle and polpette, but this connects it with the other two dishes (thrushes and turtledoves with polpette, and quails with tomaselle and polpette).
·      6) Ducks in pastry with torteletti (2 of 6) but see also one menu with a dish of torteletti with no duck
·      7) Jelly with capon meat (1 of 6)
·      8) A roast peacock in pieces, covered with white sauce and mustard,  [with] the device of His Excellency (1 of 6)

9) Liver/Organ Dish(es) (5 of 6 menus)

This was a bit of a startling group to me, given modern attitudes towards liver and organ meats. (That is, not that I was startled to find liver as a standard menu item, simply that it stood out as different from modern tastes.) All 5 menus with this item have a liver dish, one that also includes sweetbreads, and one menu that has a separate sweetbread dish. The meat may be fried (2) or served in a torte (2) and may be accompanied by sausage or salami (2). A sauce may be mentioned (1) but a majority describe being served with sugar (3). Now there’s a daring taste sensation: “little tortes of liver with sugar and cinnamon inside and on the top”.

10) Quadruped Dish (5 of 6 menus)

I almost feel guilty for grouping these into a single template-slot, given the variety of animals and recipes that are represented. But when you look at the menus as a whole, “red meat” is quite rare. So when the pattern seems to be that a course includes one (and typically only one) dish focusing on “red meat”, it seems reasonable to think that there is intent and purpose. With regard to this category, note also the rabbit dish (with tomaselle and polpette) that I grouped with the “small birds with tomaselle and polpette” above. This was part of the 1537 menu which you may recall is the most elaborate, and which is the only one with multiple quadruped dishes in this course. (In addition to the rabbit, there are dishes of veal and boar.) Due to the variety of dishes in this group, I’ll simply list them.

15?0: none
1524: 80 little heads of kid and lamb split open and gilded.
1536 Boar in black broth with candied pine nuts on top, 10 plates.
1537: 14 pieces of veal breast, stuffed Lombard-style, with 14 salami in 14 plates.
* Boar Hungarian-style, in pieces in 14 plates.
* (note also the rabbit dish with tomaselle and polpette that I’ve grouped with the “small birds” above)
1540: Hare in pepper sauce, 12 little plates.
1548: 7 whole stuffed roasted little kids in 7 plates.

11) Sauce (2?, 3?, 5? of 6 menus)

It’s hard to know how to count this group in terms of how many menus include it as there are dish descriptions that include a sauce for that specific dish. Only 2 menus have a listing  or a sauce as a separate item, not attached to another dish. (Mustard, and “sweet certosina sauce” about which nothing further is known.)  But 5 other items mention a sauce accompanying a specific dish (carp with white and red sauce, livers with yellow sauce, partridges with French sauce, hare in pepper sauce, peacock with white sauce and mustard).  So overall 5 of 6 menus mention sauces in some fashion. I’d be disinclined to consider this a true “separate dish” in the course template, though. In Messisbugo’s recipe collection, the word “sauce” seems frequently to be used in a sense familiar to modern cuisine, i.e., a thickened semi-liquid accompaniment poured over a dish. But there are also some dishes called “soups” where the soup is also referred to as a sauce. In fact there is a recipe for “royal soup” that is described in this fashion, so perhaps the “gilded royal soup” mentioned in the “misc.” category below could be included here instead.

Fruit ( 3 of 6 menus)

There is a later course where fresh fruit is much more clearly a standard template-slot. These may not be intended to be a unified conceptual category, given the variety of types. We have apple pie, fresh grapes (that are explicitly mentioned as being left on the table for the rest of the meal), and a dish of oranges and lemons.

Miscellaneous

I’ll leave off numbering the dish groupings as we’ve come down to the “one-off” items. 4 of the 6 menus include dishes that can’t be shoehorned into any sort of general pattern.

The 1524 menu has 3 fish dishes (fried pike tails, turbot in pottage, boiled carp served decorated with the device of one of the guests of honor).  The 1524 menu, in fact, has several fish dishes in every numbered course and -- with the exception of oysters (which clearly have their own template-slots) -- is the only menu that has any fish dishes at all. Given that these are carnival banquets, and therefore a prelude to Lent when fish would dominate the menu, the general absence of fish is, perhaps, not surprising. That makes the 1524 menu stand out all the more for featuring them so heavily.

The 1536 menu includes two pastry-type dishes: fried pastries filled with genestrata (a sort of thickened pudding with spices, nuts, and dried fruits) and a flaky “pizze”. (I’d need to check with the translator to know if this name is in any way related to the source of “pizza”.)

The 1540 menu includes a dish of Turkish style rice (which appears to be a sort of sweet rice pudding with rosewater) and mantegate (pine-nut pastries).

The 1548 menu has a “gilded royal soup” (for which he gives a recipe elsewhere: an egg-thickened soup of ground almonds with spices and raisins) and a dish of tortelletti served with sugar and cinnamon. (Tortelletti are described as thin sheets of pasta filled with various fillings and then cooked in broth or fried, so you may mentally translate it as “tortellini” if you please, though the specific shape isn’t indicated.) Note that this dish connects with the set of “duck served with tortelletti” mentioned among the fowl dishes. And among Messisbugo’s recipes there are several places where it is mentioned that “these tortelli can be served either alone or for covering capons, ducks, pigeons, and others, if you like” (and similarly) so perhaps the template-slot should be thought of as “tortelletti, sometimes with duck” rather than the other way around.

The Lists of Dishes

Here I give the full lists of dishes in the original order for each menu.

15?0 - Note that this menu might be considered the "basic bare-bones" template

  • 60 tomaselle, 60 polpette, 40 quails, together in 10 plates.

  • 40 roasted partridges with oranges and sugar and cinnamon on top in 10 plates.

  • 10 domestic ducks in pastry, covered with tortelletti, in 10 plates.

  • 10 pies of guaste apples in 10 plates.

  • 10 broiled tortes of large veal livers and sweetbreads, in 10 plates.

  • 40 domestic pigeons in fried pastry in 10 plates.

  • Thick jelly with capon meat at the bottom in 10 plates.

1524

  • 80 roasted partridges with 200 tomaselle and oranges on top, together in 20 little plates.

  • 80 little heads of kid and lamb split open and gilded.

  • 80 large fried kid livers with yellow sauce, 10 pounds in 20 little plates.

  • 80 thrushes, 120 polpette, 80 turtledoves, together on 20 little plates.

  • 30 boiled capons in pastry with 10 salami in quarters, with slices of bread underneath, in 20 little plates.

  • 20 fried pike tails in 20 little plates.

  • Large turbot in pieces in pottage, 20 little plates.

  • Boiled carp covered with white and red sauce, the device of our Most Reverend, 20 little plates.

  • Fresh grapes that always stood on the table [i.e. were there for the rest of the meal], 20 little plates.

1536

  • 20 roast pheasants with 40 split oranges, in 10 plates.

  • 40 roast partridges with French sauce on top, in 10 plates.

  • 10 stuffed boneless capons, with 10 liver mortadelle, in 10 plates.

  • 60 little fried pasties of royal pastry filled with genestrata [a sort of thickened pudding with spices, nuts, and dried fruits], in 10 plates.

  • 40 tomaselle, 40 capon livers and 30 slices of fried salami with sugar, in 10 plates.

  • Boar in black broth with candied pine nuts on top, 10 plates.

  • 10 ducks in pastry covered with tortelletti, 10 plates.

  • 10 flaky pizze in 10 plates.

  • Mustard in 10 plates.

1537

  • 18 domestic pigeons and 28 partridges in fried pastry, in 14 plates.

  • 56 roast pheasants with 28 split oranges in 14 plates.

  • 14 rabbits, 56 tomaselle and 56 polpette together in 14 plates.

  • 14 pieces of veal breast, stuffed Lombard-style, with 14 salami in 14 plates.

  • 56 little French-style pigeon pasties in pieces, in 14 plates.

  • Boar Hungarian-style, in pieces in 14 plates.

  • Fat boiled capons with slices of bread underneath and 14 yellow mortadelle, in 14 plates.

  • Sweet certosina sauce [nature uncertain] in 14 plates.

1540

  • 24 pheasants and 48 partridges with 36 oranges in 12 little plates.

  • 48 domestic pigeons and 100 tomaselle together [30r] in 12 little plates.

  • 80 fried capon livers and yellow sausages in pieces, 46.

  • 40 veal sweetbreads fried, with sugar, in 12 little plates.

  • 12 capons in pastry and 12 big pieces of veal breast in Vernaccia wine and minced persutto, in 12 little plates.

  • 12 pies of large French pigeons in 12 little plates.

  • Turkish-style rice in 12 little plates.

  • 12 mantegate [pine nut pastries] in 12 little plates.

  • Hare in pepper sauce, 12 little plates.

  • Oranges and lemons, 12 little plates.

1548

  • 28 young chickens and 30 tomaselle together on 7 plates.

  • 7 boneless capons with meat salami split in slices, with slices of bread underneath, 7 plates.

  • 7 roast pheasants and 28 little pieces of yellow sausage together in 7 plates.

  • Gilded royal soup, 7 plates.

  • Broiled little tortes of liver, and other kinds, with sugar and cinnamon inside and on top, 7 plates.

  • 7 whole stuffed roasted little kids in 7 plates.

  • A roast peacock in pieces, covered with white sauce, sauce and mustard, the device of His Excellency, 7 plates.

  • Tortelletti in plates with sugar and cinnamon on top in 7 plates.

hrj: (doll)
(For previous posts in this series, see items tagged with 'messisbugo'.)

No, you haven’t missed parts 11-13. Those are scheduled to cover the other numbered courses and I’d already set up the file templates with those labels. But I decided to add one more overview discussion concerning how the various dishes were served to the diners. You may have noticed that each dish provides serving amounts indicating the number or quantity of food and the number of plates it’s served in. For example: “80 thrushes, 120 polpette, 80 turtledoves, together on 20 little plates” from which we may calculate that each of the 20 plates contained 4 thrushes, 6 polpette, and 4 turtledoves. Or “80 large fried kid livers with yellow sauce, 10 pounds in 20 little plates” from which we calculated each plate to have contained 4 kids livers comprising half a pound total. But how does this relate to the number of diners? Did each diner get their own thrush and turtledove? Perhaps. The per-plate count of items ranges from one each for larger items (e.g., capons, ducks), 2-4 for smaller items (pheasants, turtledoves, tomaselle) and 6-10 of small items such as pastries. And in general the total number of smaller items will be a multiple of the total number of diners (or at least of ordinary diners).

The number of diners (including the host(s) and guest(s) of honor) is enumerated for each menu. And each menu will tend to have a default number of plates of each dish served. A typical example is: “A dinner that was given by the magnificent Messer Girolamo Giliolo for the Most Illustrious and Most Excellent Lord Duke of Ferrara and other Gentlemen and Ladies, who numbered 38 at the first Table.” That is, counting the host and guest of honor, there were 40 diners. (The reference to the “first table” suggests that there may have been other tables, but the menus only seem to be describing what happens at the “first” table.) The default number of plates per dish in this case is 10.

In general, the default intent seems to have been to have one plate per 4 diners. The complication in this arithmetic is that sometimes this only works if you don’t include the host(s) and guest(s) of honor in the count of diners. In most cases, they do seem to have been included. It isn’t clear to me whether this represents two different styles of serving (one where the hosts/GoH’s may have been served something different that isn’t specified -- though this would seem a bit odd for the type of document we’re examining) or whether they hosts/GoH’s quantities simply weren’t included in the totals listed (though this would seem odd if the intent were to document quantities of food served).

After going through each menu in detail, I’ll synthesize the results into a generic serving template.

15?0

44 diners (1 host, 3 guests of honor, 40 “ordinary” guests); not counting the confection and collation courses, 30 dishes in 4 courses

10 plates for each dish (i.e., 4 diners per plate counting only “ordinary” guests) except:

  • 40 marzipan biscuits

  • both salads specified as “one per person”

  • 20 plates of partridges

  • 20 plates each of clotted cream and “clouds and wafers”

Items per plate range from 1-6 but there isn’t a clear focus around a “typical count” that matches the number of diners, though the plurality revolves around 40 -- the number of “ordinary guests”.

1524

78 diners (2 hosts, 2 guests of honor, 74 “ordinary” guests); not counting the confection and collation courses, 44 dishes in 6 courses

20 plates (i.e., 4 diners per plate) for each dish except:

  • 37 plates of each salad

  • 12 plates of crab (this is a “presentation” dish with a motto gilded on the back of each crab)

This time the diners per plate comes out neatly to 4 including the hosts and GoH’s with a couple servings to spare. The exception is the salads where the count matches one for every two ordinary guest. Items per plate range from 1-4 in most cases with 80 total items being typical. Odd exceptions are 25 pheasants in 20 plates, 30 capons in 20 plates.

1536

40 diners (1 host, 1 guest of honor, 38 “ordinary” guests); not counting the confection and collation courses, 36 dishes in 5 courses

10 plates  (i.e., 4 diners per plate) for each dish except:

  • 32 each of salads

  • 20 plates of turtledoves

  • 30 cups hippocras

At 10 plates and 4 diners per plate, the hosts and GoH’s are covered in the serving count as well as the ordinary guests. The salads, on the other hand are insufficient for each ordinary guest to have their own and too many for them to be shared in pairs of diners. Foot items per plate range from 1-4 generally with a plurality having a total of 40 items, matching the total diner count. In addition to the odd number of salads, the 30 cups of hippocras don’t match any obvious diner grouping.

1537

55 diners 1 host, 3 guests of honor, 51 “ordinary” guests); not counting the confection and collation courses, 33 dishes in 5 courses

14 plates (i.e., 4 diners per plate) for each dish except:

  • 32 each of salads


  • 51 plates each of wafers and clotted cream

Food items per plate range from 1-4 generally, with 4 being the most common number for a total of 56 items. (This would appear to cover all diners, including host/GoH’s.) The most plentiful food items were fried oysters (25 per plate) and plain oysters (cooking method unspecified, 1000 total in 14 plates which comes to almost 20 per diner!) Note that once again the number of salads is too large to suggest they were intended as multi-diner servings, but too small for each diner to have their own. The very specific number of wafer and cream servings matches the “ordinary guests”.

1540

48 diners (1 host, 1 guest of honor, 46 “ordinary” guests); not counting the confection and collation courses, 31 dishes in 4 courses

12 plates (i.e., 4 diners per plate) for each dish except:

  • 24 plates of each salad (i.e., one for every 2 diners)

  • 46 [plates, presumably] of capon livers and sausages

The plate-count is sufficient to cover diners in all categories. Food items per plate range from 1-4 though in this menu the total count is not always given (e.g., “whole stuffed roasted kids in 12 plates” where we may presume one per plate but it’s not explicit).

1548

30 diners (1 host, 2 guests of honor, 27 “ordinary” guests); not counting the confection and collation courses, 34 dishes in 4 courses

We get a clue to a possibly uncounted category of diners from one of the non-food activities: “While they were eating the confections, my Consort sent two baskets with 27 packets of scented flowers, some real and some faux, one for the Most Illustrious Lord Duke, and one for the Most Illustrious Lord Prince, which their Lordships distributed among the dinner guests.” This reaffirms the notion of “ordinary guests” as being a key number and introduces for the first time the question of whether (in general) the host(s)’ wives should be included in the diner counts (even though never mentioned in the description).

7 plates (i.e., 4 diners per plate) for each dish except for:

  • 16 plates each of both salads (note that this would be sufficient for 2 diners per serving even including host/GoH)

  • 20 plates of (total of 400) oysters with oranges

Items per plate range from 1-4 with the majority involving a single larger item on each plate, though there are several items were 28 are specified. Exceptions to this pattern include 30 tomaselle (along with 28 chickens) on 7 plates, 35 small flaky flans in 7 plates.

Summary

The total number of guests ranges from 30 to 78. There is only a slight correlation between this number and the total number of dishes served or the number of courses, though there is a rule of thumb that the greater the number of courses, the greater the overall dish count. (Keep in mind that “number of courses” here includes the “pre-course” not just the numbered courses.)

  • 4 courses: 30, 31, 34 dishes

  • 5 courses: 33, 36 dishes

  • 6 courses 44 dishes


The 6-course dinner also has the largest guest count, but this would seem to be a feature of elaborateness of the banquet, not that a greater number of distinct dishes was needed to provide a greater amount of food. (That is, this dinner featured a greater amount of food per person, not just a greater amount overall.)

If we may generalize by a majority rule: dishes are normally served in plates that serve 4 diners each. One consistent exception is the salads, where each salad (remember there are normally two) may be intended to serve either one or two diners. (In two menus, the salad count falls between these two and I have no idea what’s going on.)

Without getting to too detailed a level, here are some typical quantities of food per (4-person) plate:

Fowl

  • Capon 1

  • Duck 1

  • Partridges 2-4

  • Pheasant 1-2

  • Peacock 1

  • Pigeon 4

  • Quail, thrush, turtledove 4

Quadruped

  • Hare or rabbit 1

  • Roast kid, lamb, or suckling pig 1

  • Veal or unspecified loin 1

  • Veal breast 1

Processed Meats

  • Sausages (various types, some sliced) 1

  • Small “meatball” types dishes such as tomaselle and polpette 4-6

Oysters

  • Oysters, fried 20-25

  • Oysters, unspecified 50+/-

Pies and Pastries

  • Small pastries 4-10

  • Large pies, tarts, tortes (various contents) 1

Confectionary and “Desserts”

  • Confections 1 lb

  • Marmalade boxes 2-4 (sometimes with different specified contents)

  • Fruit (oranges, pears) 3-5

  • Wafers 20+

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