Showing posts with label macaroni. Show all posts
Showing posts with label macaroni. Show all posts

Monday, July 28, 2014

How to Eat at Sea, 1607

Detail of ship, Hendrik Cornelisz Vroom, c. 1600
"A cheape, fresh and lasting victuall, called by the name of Macaroni amongst the Italians, and not unlike (save onely in forme) to the Cus-cus in Barbary, may be upon reasonable warning provided in any sufficient quantity, to serve either for change and variety of meat, or in the want of fresh victual."  
Hugh Plat, Certaine Philosophical Preparations of Foode and Beverage for Sea-Men
Need some sustenance for your upcoming sea voyage? You can subsist for months entirely on this special victual, called by the name of Macaroni amongst the Italians and the college students. Pair it with some ketchup and you're on your way to the Indies!

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

How to Make Macaroni, 15th century

Tacuinum sanitatis Casanatense
"Sicilian Macaroni. Make a dough of the whitest flour, one egg white and rosewater-- and should you be preparing two plates of it, put in only two or three egg yolks... these macaroni should dry in the sun and can be kept for two or three years; cook them in water or a good meat broth, and garnish them with grated cheese when you set them out on plates with fresh butter and mild spices. Boil them gently for an hour."

Neapolitan Recipe Collection, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS Bühler 19 (15th c.)

It's a wonder these Italians had time for a Renaissance, given that fifteenth-century pasta had to be boiled for an hour.