Buon Appetito!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: It’s hard enough to cook, sometimes, coming up with all the ingredients, at the right time, and make the oven at the right temperature and set the timer properly.
But let’s say you had to cook in 1577. 

Yeah, 1577. 

The year of the Great Comet. When Francis Drake sailed from England aboard the Pelican on the way to circumnavigate the globe. But cooking?

No grocery store, no electricity, no refrigeration, no microwave, no convection oven, no times and almost, no forks. But hey. Not a problem for the incredible Crystal King.

She’s not only a skilled cook, but a talented author, and, clearly, incredibly, culinarily brave.

We know Puck and Child, Beard and Garten, Jaffrey and Pepin. But do you know Scappi?

Listen to this amazing story.

Two Renaissance Recipes for the Modern Chef

                              By Crystal King

                  

 I write books about historical chefs, Italian culinary figures who left behind cookbooks or manuals of stewardship that laid the foundation of the Italian cuisine we know and love today. My latest novel, The Chef’s Secret, is about the first celebrity chef, Bartolomeo Scappi, known throughout Italy and possibly all of Europe for his grand banquets. 

His cookbook, L’Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi, contains over 1,000 recipes, including some of the first pasta dishes, hundreds of meat and fish recipes, and dozens upon dozens of delicious recipes for pies and pastries. It was published in 1577 and was a bestseller for nearly two centuries. 

I’m often asked if I’ve tried to make any of the historical dishes I describe in my works. Yes! I find that diving deep into the cookbooks and trying to recreate the meals of the past is one of my favorite parts about writing the stories I write.

Recreating a 500-year-old recipe isn’t as easy as you might think.

For example, I transformed a recipe for braised beef which calls for a beef tenderloin. Scappi suggests that the tenderloin should be boiled, which is something that would make most chefs of today shudder at ruining such a choice cut of meat.

But Scappi wasn’t going to the supermarket and picking up a pound of carefully butchered beef. Instead, he was dealing with an entire tenderloin which would be 7-8 lbs., a cut that could cost you anywhere from $75-300 at a butcher, depending on the quality. They also didn’t have the same sanitary conditions, so they would wash the meat in wine, then boil the meat before roasting it as a precaution to make sure that people weren’t going to get sick.

 This is just an example of how a direct translation of a recipe might not make for the easiest recreation or the best tasting representation. In those cases, I try to stay as true to the flavors as possible. Usually I make the recipe several times, tweaking it a little bit each time to get it right.

Here I give you two recipes that can go together or stand alone. If you make it, I’d love to know what you think!

Fricassee of Rabbit by Crystal King

This recipe, from Book II.94 of L’Opera di Bartolomeo Scappi, is a simple one for cooking rabbit. Scappi called for boiling the rabbit in salted water, as did many meat recipes of that time. 

Today we know that boiling meat can render out a lot of the flavor, so I recommend brining instead. He also called for spring onions, which, if you can get in season, you should definitely try! Scappi suggested dressing the rabbit with a mustard sauce of your choosing or a sauce called “black broth.” I have included a recipe for black broth following this one.

●      2 cups salt

●      Whole rabbit, approximately 2.5 lbs

●      Pork fat (we used a prosciutto stump) or lard for cooking

●      1 chopped onion

1.    Brine rabbit in 2 gallons of water, mixed with 2 cups of salt, for at least 6-8 hours. Overnight is fine.

2.    Cut rabbit into pieces, cut meat off carcass but leave bones in the legs.

3.    Render down the fat in a skillet, then cook pieces with bones first and then fry up the rest of the meat until brown, adding in onions during the last minute or two of cooking.

4.    Serve with a mustard sauce of your choice, or with black broth (see following recipe).

Black Broth by Crystal King

Scappi recommends this sauce, found in Book II.252 of L’Opera di Bartolomeo Scappi, for use with fowl and various quadrupeds. I pair this with his recipe for Fricassee of Hare (though I use rabbit), but it would also be delicious with duck, chicken or pork.

Scappi suggested adding some sugar if you don’t find the mixture sweet enough, but I have found that it is plenty sweet from the fruit. He also suggests sprinkling cinnamon and sugar on top but, again, the recipe is plenty sweet without this. Scappi put sugar on nearly everything (even fried eggs!), but we now know that using sugar so liberally isn’t very healthy.

The recipe calls for grape must, but you could use sapa, vincotto, mosto cotto (all available on Amazon or at a grocer that carries Italian products) or balsamic vinegar as a substitute.

1 quince (you can substitute a very crisp apple)

1 cup raisins

1 cup prunes

1 cup dried or fresh (pitted) cherries

3 1/2 tbsp grape must

1/2 cup red wine

2 tbsp sweet white wine or white grape juice

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tbsp flour

1 tbsp fresh squeezed orange juice

Put all ingredients into a saucepan except the orange juice. Cook this mixture down on medium heat, stirring frequently, until the fruit is soft, the mixture is slightly thick and the juices are bubbling. Strain and add the orange juice into the mixture. Pour over meat.

If you like, you can keep the fruit in the mixture and serve as a compote, or reserve the fruit for use in a pastry dish, or as a topping for ice cream.

HANK: Okay, truth. Would you make these things? Ah....not me. Am I fascinated? One hundred percent.

Have you ever tweaked a recipe? Sure. From the 1500's? Ah, no.
How cool is that?

What would you like to ask Crystal? Tell us one of your cooking secrets! And THE CHEF'S SECRET to one lucky commenter!

About The Chef’s Secret

A captivating novel of Renaissance Italy detailing the mysterious life of Bartolomeo Scappi, the legendary chef to several popes and author of one of the bestselling cookbooks of all time, and the nephew who sets out to discover his late uncle’s secrets—including the identity of the noblewoman Bartolomeo loved until he died.

When Bartolomeo Scappi dies in 1577, he leaves his vast estate—properties, money, and his position—to his nephew and apprentice Giovanni. He also gives Giovanni the keys to two strongboxes and strict instructions to burn their contents. Despite Scappi’s dire warning that the information concealed in those boxes could put Giovanni’s life and others at risk, Giovanni is compelled to learn his uncle’s secrets. He undertakes the arduous task of decoding Scappi’s journals and uncovers a history of deception, betrayal, and murder—all to protect an illicit love affair.

As Giovanni pieces together the details of Scappi’s past, he must contend with two rivals who have joined forces—his brother Cesare and Scappi’s former protégé, Domenico Romoli, who will do anything to get his hands on the late chef’s recipes.

With luscious prose that captures the full scale of the sumptuous feasts for which Scappi was known, The Chef’s Secret serves up power, intrigue, and passion, bringing Renaissance Italy to life in a delectable fashion.

Crystal King is an author, culinary enthusiast, and marketing expert. Her writing is fueled by a love of history and a passion for the food, language, and culture of Italy. She has taught classes in writing, creativity, and social media at several universities including Harvard Extension School and Boston University, as well as at GrubStreet, one of the leading creative writing centers in the US. A Pushcart Prize–nominated poet and former co-editor of the online literary arts journal Plum Ruby Review, Crystal received her MA in critical and creative thinking from UMass Boston, where she developed a series of exercises and writing prompts to help fiction writers in medias res. She resides in Boston but considers Italy her next great love after her husband, Joe, and their two cats, Nero and Merlin. She is the author of Feast of Sorrow, which was long-listed for

the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, and The Chef’s Secret.