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

The boundaries between the 3rd through 5th courses are necessarily somewhat fuzzier, given that 3 of the menus only have 3 courses and only one has the full 5 numbered courses. But if we take the contents of the menus with more numbered courses as defining the cut-offs, then the template for the Third Course is what remains.

But even this approach leaves some very sloppy edges. The 1548 menu (as mentioned previously) includes in the Second Course two oyster dishes that the majority rule would properly place in the Third and Fifth Courses. And then the 1524 and 1540 menus seem to have a reprise of the non-fowl parts of the Second Course as part of the Third Course. (The 1524 menu, which had the extra fish dishes in the Second Course also reprises these in the Third Course.) The 1524 menu also has placed several fruit dishes in the Fourth Course that the other menus all place in the Third.  So this chapter will analyze what appears to be the common template for the Third Course even when specific dishes in specific menus are listed elsewhere. The “reprise of the Second Course” dishes are going to be treated separately as a sort of “Course 2b” as the majority rule identifies them as excluded from the standard Third Course template.

The 1548 menu gives us a clue to the basic theme of the Third Course when it explicitly labels it “Fruits and Others”.  Overall, the dishes here are somewhat lighter and have almost no focus on meat (with the sole exception of the oyster dishes). In contrast to the Second Course, we again see a clear set of common dishes across all or most of the menus.

Second Course Reprise

Roast Suckling Quadruped (2 menus)

The 1524 menu, which had stuffed lamb and kid breast in the Second Course, reprises it with whole stuffed roast kid. The 1540 menu, which had whole stuffed roast kid in the Second Course, reprises it with roast suckling pig.

Roast (Veal) Loin (2 menus)

These might better be considered “displaced” dishes, as the 1524 and 1540 menus were the only two that had no roast loin dish in the Second Course.

Sauce (2 menus)

Mustard is listed separately in the 1540 menu while Peacock Sauce has its own line item in the 1524 menu but follows the listing for roast peacock (see below).

Other Dishes (1 menu)

The 1524 menu, which has been noted previously as the most extensive and elaborate,  also includes roast peacock (with the aforementioned peacock sauce), hare in black broth, and three fish dishes: small fishes, stuffed lobsters, and fish gelatin. These “reprise” dishes constitute all but one of the items listed for the Third Course in the 1524 menu, so in terms of conceptual structure it really is more of a duplicate Second Course. That is, this menu has five numbered courses, not because it adds an extra at the end, but because it duplicates one in the middle.

The True Third Course

Fruits

Olives (6 of 6 menus)

Fresh grapes (5 of 6 menus)

Note that the 6th menu is the one where grapes were put on the table in the First Course and explicitly noted to be left on the table for the rest of the meal. So we can count grapes as being present for this course in 6 of 6 menus.

Guaste pears (5 of 6 menus)

Two types of pears are listed: Guaste and Caroele. I don’t know the difference.  In 3 menus, these are cooked into pies or pastries.

Caroelle pears (2 of 6 menus)

These are listed simply, in one case accompanied by “paradise apples”. All of the menus have at least one pear dish.

Apples (1 of 6 menus)

Little apple tarts

Oyster Dishes

5 of 6 menus have some sort of oyster dish. Interestingly, the exception is the 1524 menu which is the only one with non-oyster seafood dishes. I’m sure there’s some sort of story behind this.

Oyster Pies/Pastries (4 of 6 menus)

Fried Oysters (2 of 6 menus)

In both cases, a sauces is also mentioned.

Other

A Decorative Dish (3 of 6 menus)

These are grouped, not by material, but because the dish is  clearly intended as a visual decoration. One is custard-filled pastry in the shape of a fleur-de-lys. One is described as “various arms, German-style, fried with sugar”. And one is an Italian jelly with a mantle and laurel leaves.

Jellies (1 of 6 menus)

In addition to the above decorative jelly, there is a “French jelly”.

Pastry (2 of 6 menus)

Pastries of wafer dough and “guanti” which are hand-shaped fried pastries.

Marzipan (2 of 6 menus)

In one case listed only as “marzipan pastries”, in the other a detailed description “tegole of beans of faux royal pastry, fried, filled with marzipan” which would be baffling except that it is included in the detailed recipes and is apparently little marzipan “beans” enclosed in a fried pastry “pod”.

Misc. (1 of 6 menus)

Three of the remaining dishes occur in the same menu: pistachios and pine nuts, butter pats stamped with armorial designs, and “tall farate(?) without skin on them” whatever that might be. Another menu has "Fennel and other fruits in vinegar"

Summary

So if I were going to design a basic Third Course template, it would be something like this:

• Olives


• Grapes


• Pears in pastry


• An oyster pastry or fried oysters


• A visually decorative dish, either of pastry or jelly

The full listings are complicated here by my attempt to show not only the dishes listed in the Third Course, but also to indicate dishes listed elsewhere that fall under this template, and to indicate which items listed as Third Course seem to belong under other templates. Because of this, there are a couple places where I’ve moved one of the dishes from the original order given, in order indicate these groupings.

15?0 (order altered slightly for thematic groupings)

• Olives, 10 plates.


• Fresh grapes, 10 plates.


• Caroele pears and paradise apples, 10 plates.


• 10 large oyster pies in 10 plates.


• 200 fried oysters, covered in cameline sauce, in 10 plates.

Listed here, but belonging thematically to the Course 4 template

• Cheese, 10 plates.


• Butter vermicelli with rose water and sugar, with fine sugar on top in 10 plates.


• Clotted cream [lattemele], 20 plates.


• Clouds and wafers, 20 plates.

1524
Course 2b

• 20 suckling kids stuffed and roasted, in 20 little plates.


• 20 loins in cavezzi in 20 little plates.


• 20 spit-roasted peacocks in 20 little plates.


• Hare in black broth in 20 little plates.


• Small fishes, 20 little plates.


• Stuffed lobsters, 20 little plates.


• Fish gelatin, 20 little plates.


• Peacock sauce, 20 little plates.

Course 3

• Olives, 20 little plates.

Listed in Course 4 but thematically included here

• 20 little apple tarts in 20 little plates.


• Marzipan pastries, 20 little plates.


• Guaste pears and apples in large pies, 20 little plates.


• 100 caroelle pears in 20 little plates.

1536

• 10 tall farate [?] without skin on them, with fine sugar, in 10 plates.


• 40 oyster pasties in 10 plates.


• 90 pasties of wafer dough in 10 plates.


• Fresh grapes, 10 plates.


• Olives, 10 plates.


• Peeled pistachios and pine nuts, 10 plates.


• Guaste pears in 10 plates.


• Washed butter stamped with various arms, with candied cinnamon on top, 10 plates.

1537

• 350 fried oysters, covered in strong sauce on 14 plates.


• French jelly in 14 plates.


• 14 large fleur-de-lys in 14 plates. (That is, a fleur-de-lys shaped pastry filled with custard)


• 14 large pastries filled with guaste pears in 14 plates.


• 140 tegole [lit. “tiles”] of beans of faux royal pastry, fried, filled with marzipan in 14 plates.


• Guanti in 14 plates. (a fried pastry shaped like a hand or glove)


• Fresh grapes, 14 plates.


• Olives, 14 plates.

1540 (order altered slightly for thematic groupings)
Course 2b

• 12 suckling pigs, roasted, in 12 little plates.


• 12 veal loins cavezzi in 12 little plates.


• Mustard in 12 little plates.

Course 3

• Large pies of currants and guaste pears in 12 little plates.


• Various arms, German-style, fried with sugar, in 12 little plates.


• 12 large oyster pastries in 12 little plates.


• Olives in 12 little plates.


• Fresh grapes in little plates.

1548
Listed in the Second Course, but belonging thematically here

• 7 large oyster pies in 7 plates.

Course 3

• Italian jelly with a mantle and laurel leaves, 7 plates.


• Olives, 7 plates.


• Fresh grapes, 7 plates.


• Guaste pears with candied aniseseed on 7 plates.


• Fennel and other fruits in vinegar, 7 plates.

Listed here, but belonging thematically to the Course 4 template

• Faux junket with sugar, almonds, and rosewater in place of clotted cream, 7 plates.


• Small and large wafers, 140 in 7 plates.

(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+

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

We now enter the home stretch by circling back to the “numbered courses”. To review: after the diners finish with the course that was on the table when they were seated (if I’m interpreting correctly), we enter a sequence of courses that in most of the menus are numbered “first, second, third, etc.” although there are exceptions to this labeling system. (For the 1537 menu where the courses start numbering from the “pre-course” I’m treating them as renumbered from 1 after the pre-course.)

Of the six Carnival menus, three have three numbered courses, two have four courses, and one has five courses. When the specific dishes are matched up across the various menus, it makes sense to discuss five groupings, though specific dish groups may be combined into a single course in some cases, and more rarely may be shifted in position in the meal from what appears to be the majority case. The general distribution of dish types and their appearance in the six menus looks something like this:

Course 1: Multiple fowl dishes, a liver dish, a quadruped dish, frequently a fresh fruit dish, and other dishes with no general pattern -- This appears as the First Course in all six menus.

Course 2: Multiple fowl dishes (in most cases), a roast of a young quadruped (veal, kid, lamb or suckling pig), a sauce, a flan or torte (in most cases), in a few menus there are other dishes with no general pattern -- This appears as the Second Course in all six menus. However one menu includes dishes in this course that more commonly appear in the Third and Fifth (that is, they’re displaced from the majority position).

Course 3: Oyster pies or fried oysters, olives, fresh grapes, pears and sometimes also apples in pies, a decorative dish in jelly or pastry, a dish focusing on nuts (in various forms) -- This appears as the Third Course in most of the menus, but the 1524 menu places most of this group of dishes in the Fourth Course and instead has a Third Course that recapitulates some of the Second Course with the addition of fish. (If I were relabeling the courses to match up conceptually, I’d call this recapitulation “Course 2B” and then identify the oyster pies through nuts as “Course 3”.)

Course 4: Wafers (often with “clouds”, whatever that might signify), in some cases cheese and a pasta dish, in some cases clotted cream, and in isolated cases other dishes with no general pattern -- These appear as the Fourth Course in three menus, in reduced form as part of the Third Course in two menus, and is entirely absent in the 1540 menu.

Course 5: Oysters, sliced oranges with pepper -- This is a separate Fifth Course in one menu, appears as part of the Fourth Course in two menus, and is entirely absent in two menus. In the 1548 menu, these dishes appear but as part of the Second Course.

So that’s the basic overall structure. But the specific dishes within those themes may differ, and there are some dish types that only occur in a single menu or perhaps two and so don’t seem to be part of an overall template. In looking at the courses in detail, my general format will be to match up dishes across the menus that seem to be variants of the same template slot, group them according to the general topics given above (with “miscellaneous” coming last), and then to discuss them in decreasing order of the number of menus that dish-group appears in. In some cases, if one or more menus seem to duplicate a template slot, I may discuss the duplicates along with the “main” grouping. In previous discussions, I’ve give the original text first, but in this group of discussions I’ll add it at the end.

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

As you may remember from the last post, we get a view into what else was going on at these banquets (besides eating) from the 1548 menu which describes a “flower game” that comes after the confectionary course and before the collation. The 1548 menu has a great deal more discussion of the non-food activities in general. I skipped over some text in this menu that appeared before the description of the initial table setting, so let’s back up a little and look at this one event, placing the text in what appears to be the chronological order of the events, rather than the order of the text.

“Now it should be known that in Banquets during Carnival some party was always given before, or a tournament, or a game of caleselle or whatever[1], or a combat with pikes/staffs, or a castle, or there might be the party of the Pig [?] or other similar things, which in order to expedite things I did not want to relate.”

[Note 1: per Florio: “apish, minike or iugling trickes.  Also a kind of paste meate.  Also a kind of sport or game used at Shrovetide in Italie.  Also certain round balles made of baked earth very brittle, which in that play they use to cast one at another, and breake very suddenly.”]

This is a general statement of what sorts of events were held, though no specific physical activity is describef for this banquet. But we are then told the following:

“First a Comedy was recited in the hall, where there was a very beautiful little stage set representing Venice.  The comedy was titled “The Night,” written by Maestro Girolamo Parabosco of Bologna, which was very pleasing, comical, and well performed with its musical pieces.  And there were the appropriate and necessary interludes [intermezzi]. [2] The comedy began at hour 24 [meaning midnight?] and finished at half-past three at night.  And when the Comedy was finished the table was prepared with the materials described below, that is:”

[Note 2: My note, not the translator’s. My impression is that “interludes” would normally be performed during the meal itself, though that isn’t clear in this description.]

And then we get the description of the table setting, the “pre-course”, the three numbered courses, an the confectionary course. Now we have the flower game:

“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.

While we were playing this flower game, the Hall was rinsed, emptied and swept, and then they went to dance, and danced until nine o’clock. At 9 there was a collation...”

(The collation course will be described in the next installment.)

“Then everyone went to his own house fully satisfied.”

You may notice that this is somewhat startling in the details of the timing: We begin at midnight (if correctly interpreted) with a dramatic presentation that lasts for three hours. And if there were a tournament or physical game before that, presumably it would have been during daylight hours, so we may imagine the activities beginning at the very lease in mid-afternoon if not before. Then at half past three in the morning, the table is prepared for an extensive meal. If the dancing lasts until 9:00, presumably in the morning, then we may imagine perhaps that the main banquet lasted for several hours, followed by a couple hours of dancing. At 9am the guests are served a very light refreshment (the collation) and then go home, presumably straight to their beds!

To provide a comparison, there are similarly detailed descriptions of the non-food entertainments for an even more elaborate non-Carnival menu by Messisbugo for a high state dinner in January of 1529. To summarize greatly, the order of the day consisted of:

• In the grand hall there was a performance of a comedy by Ludovico Ariosto


• Then the guests left the hall for other rooms where they were entertained with music and conversation while the tables were set up and spread (with three tablecloths) in the grand hall. In this description, it is made clear that what I am calling the “pre-course” is placed on the table before the guests come in.


• The guests come into the hall, wash their hands in scented water, and sit, partaking of the dishes already on the table.


• The first course is served.


• There is a musical performance.


• The second course is served.


• There is a musical performance.


• The third course is served.


• A musical dialog is performed.


• The fourth course is served.


• There is a musical performance. (The performances are all described in terms of the voices and instruments and sometimes a named performer of note.)


• The fifth course is served.


• There is a musical performance.


• Somewhat differently from the Carnival menus, at this point the tables are cleared and the first tablecloth is removed.  Napkins, knives, salt cellars, and bread are provided, along with decorations representing Hercules defeating the Hydra.


• The sixth course is served.


• There is a musical performance.


• The seventh course is served.


• There is an entertainment involving clowns.


• The eighth course is served.


• There is a musical performance while the tables are cleared and the second tablecloth is removed. Then the decorative figures are returned to the tables.


• Scented water for handwashing is provided.


• The confectionary course is presented, along with fresh napkins and knives, and scented toothpicks.


• There is a musical performance.


• Doorprizes are brought in and distributed while other music plays, then the guests adjourned to another room while the tables were taken away and the grand hall was cleaned.


• The guests return to the grand hall to dance.


• A collation is served.


• The guests return to dancing until dawn.

So while this event was far more elaborate and extensive, it helps show the general structure and rhythm of the entertainments, which are mentioned much more briefly and ambiguously in the Carnival menus.

The next installment will discuss the contents of the “collation” which, as we have seen above, is intended as a light repast to restore the guests after (or in the middle of) the dancing.

 

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

As I mentioned in the last installment, the contents of the numbered courses and their relationship to each other is complicated. But before I skip over to the removal (with the promise to come back to the numbered  courses in detail), I thought I should lay out the general structure.  There are 3-5 numbered courses. Of the 6 menus, 3 have 3 courses, 2 have 4 courses[1], and 1 has 5 courses. There are certain dishes that are either universal or nearly so across all the menus in a particular course, other dishes where a general category-slot seems to be near-universal, and then the option for other dishes with greater variability. When the corresponding dishes are examined, it appears that the larger set of courses is not due to an additional set of templates, but rather to repetitions of the existing templates, especially from the 2nd and 3rd courses. That is, a 5-course banquet follows a template more along the lines of “course 1, course 2a, course 2b, course 2c, course 3”.

And that’s about as much as I want to get into until I do the detailed analysis. Now on to the Removal.

[1] As mentioned previously, in one case the “pre-course” is labeled as the first course, for a total of 5 numbered courses in that menu, but they only count for 4 “numbered courses” in terms of the abstract structure.

(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)

Here's the expanded version of the menu with recipes (or sources) included. I'll post more on how the dinner went (swimmingly) later.( Read more... )