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————Echo of vegetarianism

Vegetarian Echo

As we have known from the moment, rhizome crops like onions and garlic have always been relatively low, but they also appear on the dining tables from the court to the civilians. However, when people make dishes with garlic with some popular meat (such as poultry), garlic is no longer cheap and becomes "noble". The focus of any luxurious feast is meat delicacies, but Montaigne, in his travel journal, wrote: "People in this country are not used to eating too much meat." Italian chefs elevated fruit, vegetables and pasta to the same level as meat.

In the UK, France and Germany, meat is absolutely dominant. People eat fish on fasting days, so certain types of fish are regarded as the best alternatives to meat, such as sturgeon. Skapi recorded twenty-three recipes for cooking sturgeons in Opera, and the fasting days mentioned in the book are mainly special fish, sturgeon. Eels are also highly valued because they can survive for several days after being caught in straw baskets, which can be stored for several days, bringing convenience to transportation. "Fishes are not inferior to those meats that best satisfy people's taste buds," Skapi wrote. "In fact, fish are the most delicious food that nature gives us."

Cheese is another food that can replace meat. From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, the status of this former "peasant food" has been increasing, from the initial fasting day to the later Lent, from the Holy Ash Day to 40 days before Easter. The translator's note is increasingly valued. "Summalacticiniorum" (1469) is the earliest work on dairy products, whose author Pantaleoneda Confienza wrote in the book: "King, duke, earl, marquis, barons, soldiers, nobles and merchants (all ate cheese). Cheese is usually an integral part of the royal banquet; Messisbugo recommends

Recommended are "hard, fat-rich cheese", such as pecorino (pecorino, cottage cheese); while Sgapi likes "freshly shaved Parmesan cheese" and mozzarella (mozzarella). Their predecessor Pratina mentioned that there were two cheeses "equal colors" in Italy as early as the mid-15th century, namely marzolino, and Parmesan cheese from Tuscany. Interestingly, beef and goat milk was not used as a daily drink at that time, but as one of the ingredients for cooking or making cheese. Pratina believes that "goat milk is the best...ewe milk is second, and milk is third." This may be because there was no refrigerator at that time, and milk was difficult to preserve for a long time.

Cheese from ancient Roman times

Cheese from ancient Roman times

Pecorino Romano dop cheese (pecorinoromanodop, Roman hard feta cheese) is one of the oldest existing cheeses, originating from Latim in the ancient Roman period. It is one of the components of the daily rations of the Roman army. Pecorino Romano cheese produced every year now exceeds 67 million pounds, mostly produced in Sardinia.

Compared with people in other parts of Europe, Italians prefer to use various vegetables in cooking, and this tendency has always been criticized for being criticized by costanzofelici in 1569 to complete a monograph on edible plants - "De?insalataepiantecheinqualunquemodovengonopercibodel?homo),

He mentioned in his book: "People living on the other side of the Alps think salads are exclusive food for greedy Italians. It is the Italians who snatch the food from lower animals that feed on green leaves and grasses." Nevertheless, since Martino, all the great cookbook authors have recorded recipes based on vegetables and herbs, such as soups made with cabbage, fennel, pumpkin, lettuce, broad beans, peas, marjoram, mint or parsley, pies and fritters.

Ocastelvetro was an Italian who went into exile to England because of his Protestant status. In 1614, he wrote a book about "root vegetables, leafy vegetables and fruits eaten by the Italians", which was not published until after his death. In the book, he claimed that "the Italians consume more vegetables and fruits than meat", and gave the following reasons:

The main reason is that our lovely Italy is far less fascinated by meat than France and the island (UK). Because we Italians have to spend a lot of effort to find new food to feed the many people living in such a small land. There is also a factor that is that Italy is as powerful as the one mentioned above, that is, it is that it is in high temperatures for nine months a year, making us tired of eating meat.

The most popular vegetable in the late Renaissance was artichoke. Although artichokes were not mentioned in the books of Martino and Platina, it appeared in the works of Messi Bugo and Sgapi. Costanzo Felic wrote in the monograph mentioned above: "They are fruits that grow among the thorns of grass, and are well-known. People's fanaticism has remained unabated, so everyone is familiar with them now. Among the great men, they are well-known vegetables." The way these great men eat artichokes

If eaten raw, it will also be "grilled on a grill or fire, or stewed with rich and mellow broth." Paul Zachkia wrote in his 1636 book "Foodforl": "Cooked artichokes are suitable for swallowing; roasted artichokes are suitable for digestion and absorption; artichokes cooked with truffles (as the chefs introduce, refer to the recipe of mint, a small amount of chopped garlic, pepper, oil and salt) can awaken people's taste."

There were many vegan recipes in Martino and Platina’s cookbooks, which was indeed a significant improvement at the time. In the Middle Ages, it was believed that only the poor could eat vegetables, and most of them were cooked into soups. In the Renaissance, in order to keep healthy, people began to advocate eating vegetables - it is said that vegetables could be liberated from the burden of digesting meat by using the stomachs of the diners to keep their minds free. Italian cookbook authors subverted the ancient stereotypes of the rich eating meat and the poor eating vegetables since the Middle Ages, thus opening up a whole new world in the history of cooking.

Obviously, in Renaissance Italy, the most important vegetarian diet was pasta. Some types of pasta have existed since ancient Roman times, such as lagana, which is now lasagna. In the Middle Ages, chefs tried to cook different shapes of pasta in different ways, and similar attempts continued until the Renaissance. The ancient Romans roasted pasta and ate them, while Renaissance chefs used water, milk or broth to renovate.

The dough is cooked. They also use dried pasta, which makes it easier to preserve. It is the dehydration and drying process that turns the pasta from a handmade food into a commercial product. The central cities that produce commercial pasta are mainly Sicily, liguria and Genoa; and many early cookbooks mentioned pasta as "Genoa". For details about macaroni (the common name for dehydrated pasta), please refer to Chapter 3.

Martino was the first chef to propose how to make and cook vermicelli (also called "little crawler"):

Knead the dough as above, and then use your fingers to make thin strips like small crawlers; put them in the sun to dry them so that they can be stored for two or three years. When cooking, cook the noodles with broth or rich and high-quality chicken soup for half an hour, and then serve them with grated cheese and spices. If it is a meat-free day, cook them with sugared almond milk or goat milk. However, because the cooking time of milk is not as long as the noodles are, you can boil the noodles with water first and then use milk like cooking rice. The same is true for cooking noodles, tria and vermontini noodles. In addition to cooking with milk, all pasta dishes must be served with saffron-like golden yellow.

It is worth noting that Renaissance chefs cook pasta for a long time because it seems that they do not have the concept of aldente (the texture of the cooked noodles is "flavored" and chewy). It was not until the seventeenth century that chefs suggested that cold water be poured in when the water boils. This temporary stop cooking method makes the cooked noodles have a tough texture. At that time, the way chefs used pasta in cooking was completely different from now, such as Sgapijian.

It is recommended that "cooked duck with macaroni is an ancient Roman-style dish", and "cook the fat goose and pour it into annolini". Of course, these are delicacies that will only appear at banquets at that time, including pasta either as a side dish, or just a part of the main dish. For farmers, pasta with butter, cheese, sugar and cinnamon, or pasta with spicy sauce is the main dish in their meal, and it is also a typical vegetarian dish.

Lombardy Rice in Sgapi

Lombardy Rice in Sgapi

First stew the stock of castrated chicken, goose and cervelate (cervelate) and cook the shelled rice with this stock. Use the pottery, silver or tin plate to serve the cooked rice and sprinkle with cheese, sugar and cinnamon. Then spread a layer of fresh "butiro" cheese, duck breast and goose, and cut into large slices of Servelate. Then sprinkle a layer of cheese, sugar and cinnamon on it to form three layers. A layer of moist and freshly melted "butiro" cheese should be topped with.

Renaissance food storage cabinet

Salt is a necessity for kitchens during the Renaissance and is relatively expensive. There are two common salts, one is the fine salt used on the dining table, and the other is the coarse salt suitable for cooking or marinating fish and meat. Most of the salt in Italy comes from the mines of the island of Ibiza, and salt from Nordics is also supplied here. Regarding the importance of salt, Platina wrote: "Salt is indispensable on the dining table, otherwise all food will be light.

It's tasteless; it's like we call a fool who is tasteless and boring, because his character lacks essence." An interesting phenomenon is worth our attention, that is, salt is rarely mentioned in the recipes of Martino and Platina. Although people may have added salt to the broth used to cook pasta at that time when people cook pasta, it is obvious that both masters believed that the diners should wait until the dishes are served before adding salt to their own.

Speaking of pasta, food historian Cliffordwright mentioned: "There is enough evidence that macaroni was well known in the fourteenth century... The early history of macaroni is closely related to Sicily. Although we cannot determine whether Sicily was the birthplace of macaroni, we know that macaroni was eaten there as a noble and Jewish people." One thing is clear that the trend of eating pasta expanded from Sicily.

Another food historian of the Apennines, Odileredon, added: "We have always believed that it was Marco Polo that made pasta popular, but now we have to doubt the record of this beloved legend, aroni (heroni). In the Middle Ages, there was also a guild of pasta makers in Florence called the Lasagnai. The third chapter will introduce pasta in more detail.

When it comes to dairy products, beef and goat milk is extremely perishable. Therefore, beef and goat milk sold by hawkers in the city is sometimes diluted with water. Overall, goat milk and goat milk produce more than cow milk, especially in the southern part of the Italian Peninsula. Butter is more frequently used than southern Italy; in the south, people use more olive oil to cook. Cream is not mentioned in the medieval and Renaissance cooking books, and the reason is still a mystery. Eggs are widely used; and sometimes people cook them quite simply, and a recipe even proposes to cook them directly into the embers of the fire.

Cheese mainly consists of two types. One is soft cheese like ricotta and ricotta. - Translator's note. They are usually made in spring and are mostly used as filling for frying pies. The other is the hard cheese that is grated and sprinkled on vegetables and pasta - mostly made with sheep's milk. Cheese is also usually made into pies and is prepared like a cheesecake, melting "all the cheeses that you think are suitable for mixing together" together, mixing them completely with egg yolks and whipped egg whites, and then pouring them into the crust and baking them.

Chicken cubes (gratonata)

Cut the chicken and stir-fry with lard and onion. Add a little water to help stir-fry; and stir-fry with a tablespoon from time to time; add spices, saffron and sour grape juice, and start cooking. On the other side, take the egg yolk in the proportion of four egg yolks of each chicken, stir well with sour grape juice, and cook the egg yolk liquid in another pot. Then, put all the ingredients in a pan and whip them with the chicken pieces. At this time, turn off the heat and enjoy the delicious stewed chicken pieces.
Chapter completed!