Monday, November 9, 2015

How to Make an Eel Pie, 1465

Konrad Gesner, Historiae
animalium
(1604)
 "Boil for a while an eel which has been skinned and cut up in pieces. Pass almond juice, with verjuice and rose water, through a sieve into a bowl. It would likewise not be ill advised to make it thicker by pounding in raisins with three or four figs. Then mix orach, torn by hand with parsley and fried in a little oil, an ounce of raisins, also an ounce of pine nuts, a little ginger, pepper, cinnamon, and saffron. Mix into the above-mentioned with your hands until they make one mass. When they are mixed, put in a well-oiled pan with an undercrust, placing pieces of eel in layers, as it were. When it has been semicooked, pour a bit of verjuice, rose water, and sugar into the upper crust, which has been perforated in several places. When it is finally cooked, serve to your enemies, for it has nothing good in it."
Platina, De honesta voluptate et valetudine



Cooking a special meal is a great way to express your feelings for someone. Especially if the feelings are "I'd love for you to leave before dessert."

3 comments:

  1. You must really despise your enemies. That recipe sounds disgusting, smelly and difficult. What an effort to tell someone what you think of them.

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  2. Throughout the years, the recipe was simplified to merely spitting in their food and calling it a day.

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  3. I like how they don't tell you until the very end -- after all that work! -- that the result is a piece of sh*t. Moral of the story: Always read the entire recipe through before beginning lol

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