I haven't finished writing today and will be replaced tomorrow morning.

In addition, because I didn't read this chapter a while ago, I missed many bugs and typos, so I would like to edit and modify them one by one.

Another thing is that some adults have proposed about revolver pistols, steam engines, etc. It is not a bug, nor is it that I made a mistake. This has a historical basis. I will post it in the replacement chapter tomorrow and you will understand it after reading it.

I have carefully checked the information about these.

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Italian wine

Italy has always produced high-quality wines, and ordinary red wines are very nutritious. In Italy, the most beautiful women will eat red wine and dip them in a small piece of bread because they think this will make the body fuller (under the same conditions, plump women are the favorites of Venetians), and will be brighter and more charming.

——Fynesmoryson, "Travel Diary", 1617

Cooking techniques have been constantly being renovated for hundreds of years, and our discussions on this are almost exclusively only for the wealthy, because only the rich can choose their food freely. The choices of the rich can be bread and water, or cakes and wine. As for those poor farmers, they certainly do not have the right to choose such a thing.

In the Middle Ages, people once thought that beef was only suitable for lower classes and was not suitable for appearance on the tables of the rich. In the Renaissance, because veal (taken from the cattle that were slaughtered by minors) was very popular, the status of beef was improved. The nobles' right to slaughter calves symbolized their wealth and reputation. On the contrary, some ingredients that we now disliked were typical delicacies at that time: animal noses, eyes, cheeks, livers, intestines, heads, kidneys, belly, tongue, pancreas, crowns, and similar parts of fish, which was enough to explain why the authors of two classic Italian cookbooks mentioned the weird "dishoftroutintestines".

The Italian cuisine revival was also influenced by the Middle East. During the Crusades, Europeans discovered the Arab world’s saracencuisine, some of which were rarely known or even unheard of in Western Europe. Food historian C. Annewilson wrote: “In the West, the first dishes inspired by Saracen’s cooking were introduced were the nobles or royal families.” These new ingredients include sugar, almonds, pistachios, rice, date palms, citrus, pomegranates, rose dew and spinach. A newly introduced technique is to stew thick sauces with crushed almonds—marzipan made from almond paste with sugar to make a common dessert.

In addition, the cooking method of food was deeply influenced by the ideas of classical writers at that time. The "Four Liquid Theory" that dominated the medieval medical community was also used by people in the Renaissance in the form of linking food and medicine. This theory can be traced back to the ancient Greek internal medicine physician Galen. His basic view is that all living things have four elements, or four "body fluids": blood, yellow bile, mucus, and black bile. These four bodily fluids correspond to air, fire, water, and soil. Therefore, the chef is cooking

At the same time, it is necessary to balance the four characteristics related to these four body fluids: hot, dry, humid and cold. People believe that eating foods that do not take into account the balanced combination of these four body fluids is unhealthy, and some foods are specially used to balance the four liquids in the body. For example, people cook beef because it is "dry" and "cold"; roast pork to remove its "wet" characteristics; while fish are both "wet" and "cold", so people hope to make them dry and warm by frying.

"Basically," wrote food historian Jean Louisflandrin, "the most 'cold' and 'natural' meats need to be paired with the hottest and hottest sauces." Poultry meat occupies the most noble position in the food chain, so they only need to be cooked with "jance", a sauce mixed with white wine, apple cider vinegar, ginger and cloves. The "Four Liquids" also apply to the texture of food. Many dishes have crushed or chopped ingredients, which can make multiple body fluids evenly mix and be easier to digest.

The reason why the "Si Liquid Theory" developed during the Renaissance was that cookbook writers who drew on a large amount of past experience were indelible. These people were also influenced by the imported food trade at that time. Food historian Kenalbala commented: "They had a similar attitude towards food - openness, eclecticity, and very international."

Basic foods from the Renaissance

Basic foods from the Renaissance

Some writers who study Renaissance food believe that Italian food could be divided into three categories: bread, wine and all others. In fact, this is just an accurate description of the dietary structure of the peasant class, and the diet in the courts of each principality was not the case, and its composition was more diverse. Food historian Allengrieco pointed out a little-known fact that at that time, wheat flour was astonishingly expensive than meat. Today, meat is almost fifteen times more expensive than flour, while in Italy in the early Renaissance, pork was only twice as expensive as wheat flour and veal was only two.5 times more expensive. There is also a direct social relationship here: "The lower the social status, the higher the proportion of income consumed on bread."

Similar links also apply to alcohol consumption. Louisstouff found the following percentages when he studied the food budget of the studium papal in Provence around 1365:

Wine: 41%

Bread: 32%

Meat: 15.5%

Fish and eggs: 5.3%

Spices, cooking oils and cheeses: 3.1%

Fruits and vegetables: 3%

Food writer Clifforda Wright asked: "What can these data tell us? There is no doubt that the answer is that in Provence, wine is food, and the 'Mediterranean vegetables' that are boastful almost does not exist." However, here, the low proportion of vegetables may be because most of them are grown in their own gardens and people do not need to spend money to buy them.

The joy of wine

The only time I saw you happy... is when we tasted the red wine. Do you remember? You forgot all your sorrow... That night, we laughed and we talked...

——Francescodatini to Serlaomazzei, about 1400 years

Although the budget ratio of high-class people to spend on bread is not too high, the palace's imperial kitchen still bakes fragrant bread, just as farmers bake bread themselves. Regarding toasting, Platina has the following suggestions:

I suggest all bakers toast bread like this: the flour needs to be selected for wheat semolina, grind it carefully, sifted through a high-quality sieve, placed in a bread baking tray with warm water, and then sprinkle salt like the Italian ferrari. After adding an appropriate amount of yeast, place it in any moist place you can find to ferment. This way, making bread is simple and easy. The only thing to note is that the amount of yeast must be moderate. Too much will the bread will have a sour taste; too little will the finished bread will not fluffy and will be difficult to digest and is not conducive to health. Bread needs to be carefully baked in an oven, so it is best to spend more time; never bake too much in a day, because only bread made with fresh flour is the most nutritious.

The above-mentioned budget data for bread and wine do not apply to “bread matches” (orgpanagium) (other omnivores that diversify the dietary structure). Shepherds with low social status spend only fourteen percent of their total food expenses, while those who manage them spend nearly forty percent. “In short, bread accounts for an increasingly significant proportion of the dietary structure of the lower class of society,” Grico wrote, “instead, this proportion decreases with the increase of social hierarchy.”

Unlike beer, wine has always been regarded as a noble drink. Drinking water has the lowest status. A story tells this that a traveler asked local farmers for water in the province of Emilia. "My sir," replied the kind farmer, "Water, even the fence will be eroded by it, but if you want wine, I'm happy to give you some."

Since the Italian Renaissance, people have begun to give wine more meaning than just a drink with bread. Roystrong explained: "Now, people will carefully select different wines to match various dishes - low-degree white wine with appetizers, red wine with barbecue, and strongly intoxicated wine with desserts." Of course, people from different classes use different quality wines. Farmers have to make do with cheap wines, which are raw materials from pressed residual grapes, and virgin The original juice was used to make high-end wines for the upper class. "People choose the corresponding wines according to their social status, occupation, age and physique," wrote the food historian Odileredon. White wine and dry red wine are more suitable for the upper class because they have a more "exquisite" and "soft" taste; red wine is suitable for physical laborers because it is nutritious and "just" cheap. At that time, people often dilute wines with water to add portions and reduce alcohol content.

Vines with many uses

Even if not in all Italy, but in Tuscany, the unparalleled vines are the most valuable practical products in the area. Vines have the following uses: their fruits can be juiced and made of fine wine; their branches can be tied into small bundles for firewood; their branches can be fed to cows, and their grape kernels can be fed to pigeons.

Italian spice trade

Jean Louis Flandrin commented: "In the long river of European history, the importance of spices reached its peak in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; it was also during that period, because of their numerous species, frequent use and large amounts of use, the role of spices in cooking was more prominent than in other periods." The Republic of Venice was a major city-state participating in the spice trade. In the 11th century, ships made in Venice arrived at the holy land of Palestine with the crusaders of the Eastern Expedition. On their return, these ships were loaded with a large amount of pepper and other spices purchased in Alexandria. Among them, a large Venetian ship returning from Alexandria can bring back spices worth 200,000 dacarats, and the total amount of the year's trade in Venice is estimated to reach millions of dacarats.

Therefore, Venice is a well-deserved spice trade center, and with Europe importing more than 6.5 million pounds of pepper each year, pepper became the king of spices. Although the spice involved in the trade is not a type of pepper, the import of pepper accounts for more than half of all imported spices. No other spice is worth more than one tenth of pepper. Why do people love pepper so much? Henry Hobson explained: "At that time, the most common method for Europeans to preserve food was salt, and there was no other spice that could be paired with meat marinated with large amounts of salt. Salt and pepper were the tools of carnivorous humans to fight hunger, especially during the sailing or during the famine years when crops were poor."

The perfect sauce with a strong flavor

To make a strong sauce, you need cloves, cinnamon bark, cardamom, and hazelnuts heated over hot charcoal (swept the heated hazelnuts to peel); a little peeled bread and sugar. Mix the ingredients as above and mash them gently, plus vinegar to make the perfect sauce that suits all the barbecue dishes.

——Selected from the Book of Chefs (libropercuoco), about 1500 years

Historian Wolfgangschivelbusch mentioned: "People not only use spices in cooking, but also treat them as precious gifts like jewelry, or treasures suitable for collection." Schefberg further pointed out that the rich taste of spices, the origin of exoticism and the extremely expensive price tied them to heaven. "Pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg symbolize the identity of the ruling class, which show the world the power of the ruler and then be penetrated by the ruler's fruit. When entertaining guests, the more peppers are sprinkled on the plate, the higher the respect the guests will be given to the host of the banquet."
Chapter completed!