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[Lady T]

To Ugo:

Welcome and thanks for taking the time to chat with us.

Given that the courts of your time swarmed with spies all happily reporting to various employers/masters -- did you have ways of keeping an eye on what was going on in the kitchen (who had access, who'd done the shopping at the market or the hunting in the field, who was cooking), to improve your odds of survival? Were you able to do that yourself, or did you have to attend the lord of the manor all the time?

To Mr. Elbling:

Apologies if I'm repeating a question from elsewhere/elsewhen, but I do wonder how long the translation of Ugo's journal took -- and if there are sources that might yield more of his history, perhaps?

[Peter Elbling]

Thank you for calling me Mr. Ugo. Strictly it should be Mr.

DiFonte, but any time anyone calls me Mister anything, I'll

take it. For some time, I, like many others in my calling,

used amulets and talismen; unicorn bones, scorpion

stingers, locks of hair that had belonged to Elijah, and so

on. But after a while I realized that most of these had

been made by some charlatan out to make a quick

ducat for himself. (As you will see in my book I tested

them out and found them to be worse than useless.)

Since I could not be in the kitchen all the time -- who

would want to be in the kitchen all the time?-- I made an

arrangement with Tommaso, a kitchen boy, that he could

have my daughter, Miranda in marriage, if he was my

eyes and ears in the kitchen. The fact that he was deaf

and blind much of the time, as well as a liar, made my life

very difficult. Before you get upset about giving my

daughter's hand in marriage for something like this,

remember that without me to look after her, her life

would not have been worth anything. Here is my

translator, Mr. Elbling to answer your other question.

Thanks Ugo.

Mr. Ugo.

Mr. Ugo. Translating the book took almost six years. Not

just because the manuscript was in bad shape but also

because Mr. Ugo was completely self-taught and his

writing skills somewhat lacking.

Potta! I worked like a dog--

Yes, yes, I know...you were a peasant, your fingers were

like sausages...I've heard it all before..To continue: I

haven't discovered any journals by other foodtasters and

as far as Ugo's writing's are concerned, he claims that he

is working on a sequel but he still writes with a quill, and

he's getting older and grumpier by the day, so I've no

idea when it will be ready.









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