Adam Balic

I should add that the very best venison pie I have had is made by Fletchers of Auchtermuchty. These are a small raised pie (like a scotch pie), made with venison and (I think) some pork (for fat?), spiced with juniper and a few other spices. Excellent stuff.

Hi Jack- by a very strange chance I was also interested in cooking these over the last week, so I have being doing some reading on them. But to start, Ivan Day's site is very useful. Venison was a prestige dish, so there are many recipes and they are almost continous throught time. Often they were sent to people as gifts, so they had to survive a journey over rough roads intact. Sometimes they were very large indeed (a whole side for instance). The earlier recipes that where intended for storage/transport are often made of rye flour (hot water or just a water, not fat pastry) as this is very tough and cheap. Early versions were simily the meat bones out, with a few spices and fat added. As they were prestige items they where often highly decorated (see Day's site).Essentially the pastry was a mode of transporting the venison, not a edible whole item. You just wanted a way of transporting large chunks of meat. As fresh is out of the question, this baked meat was the answer. Gradually it evolved into a pie plate dish, like in Dods', bust still highly decorated. If you want to make a older version then you need to use a lot of fat, either suet or butter. This is what I did. Roll out the pastry, cover in a thick layer of butter, lay on boned, skinned (of the silver stuff), slashed (to counter contraction), spiced, butterflied venison haunch. Then lay on more butter and seal the pastry well. I used hot water paste, about an inch thich. Basically then you put it in a hot oven to seal the pastry, then reduce the temperature right down. What you end up with is a very rich confit of venison. For more modern versions I have gently braised the meat, added veg etc and put it into a shortcrust pastry, then cooked this. I made a very modern mutton pie this weekend, this was ~19th century in inspiration and was mutton spiced with cinnamon and mace, cooked in a bottle of port and stock. I served this with parsnip chips and a few scraps of puff pastry on the plate to make it a 'pie'. So there are many variations on the theme to go for.

Yeh it is completely illegal, so not body does it in italy obviously.

Small birds are extremely popular in Italy, to the point that places like the Tuscan countryside are strangely silent (somewhere in my Tuscan blog, there is a photogrpah of some sparrows on sale). There is a whole range of dishes that reflect this. Either things that would go with cooked small birds or dishes that have some resemblance to the cooked birds.

"Beccofico" is "fig pecker" (aka. a Warbler). The fish rolls resemble the grilled birds. I can buy fresh sardines in Scotland, they are caught of the Cornish coast and were formally known as pilchards. Same species, different names. But in this case I had to substitute a related fish.

I actually cooked recently. This is a Northern European take on 'Sardines in the style of figpeckers' (Sarde a Beccafico).

It is very hard to find out side Italy. It is very common in zuppa inglese (makes it very pink). Cheap bottles are found in most Italian supermarkets, but a very expensive version is made by Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella in Florence (indicating it's medical origin). Originally it was made from the roots of Bugloss (also known as "Alkanet", (Anchusa spp)), which give a red dye, hence the name. I have been looking for a bottle for awhile, so it is great see a recipe.

No just an Italian fish soup (of which there are many), but one in particular with essentially the same name. While not on topic, I think that interest in origins of the dish (linguistic, method or ingredients), is neither irrelevant or banal. Why would a NY Italian restaurant serve cioppino? It is a regional dish, rather then specifically an ethnic one, and anyway I would imagine that there is quite a bit of variation in American-Italian and Italian-American food also. I would be surprised in the Italian population in the States was derived froma single geographic point and arrived at exactly the same time?

Colman Andrews gives a recipe for il ciuppin, which is ligurian. Can't remember if cheese is served with it. Cheese and seafood. Mostly not, but sometimes yes. Not all seafood is the same and the same can be said for cheese. edit. Just read francesco's post . Also, sorry for being banal, will have to watch that.

"Gobbo" is dilect for "hunchback", so the varity of cardoon called "Gobbo di Nizza" means "Hunchback from Nice". Not sure if all cardoons are "gobbi" or just some types though.

An added complication is that I bet that these were grown as mixed crops previously. By the look of the Tuscan tour site, the English version has been put through a translation thaqt simily turns 'farro' into spelt. No matter the species.....

I believe that natural or health food stores sell spelt as wheat berries; spelt can be traced back to prehistoric times in Europe. Farro, on the other hand, is emmer wheat and can be traced back to the Ancient Near East. The two are commonly confused and since spelt is more commonly available in the U.S., it's usually substituted. In Italy, the organic farro I find in the supermarket cooks up in less than half an hour. Wheat berries in the U.S. take longer to cook, less time if pre-soaked. ← You know, I've read stuff that went both ways in regard to is farro, spelt. I'll buy a bag of farro, bring it back to the US and buy spelt and see what we've got. When I was reading about farro, more than one of the sources said it came from Asia AND from the Mediterranean. The same grain developed in 2 places at once? ← "Asia" and the "Mediterranean" can be the same place. I think that much of the confusion with what "farro", stems from the fact that it isn't a specific term, but refers to hulled wheat (einkorn, emmer and spelt) in general, in some cases you will see the three grains distinguished as farro 'piccolo', 'medio' and 'grande'. The pearl type that I get vacuum packed from Umbria is farro medio (Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccum). There is a similar confusion in the South of France where Einkorn (Triticum monococcm) is known as épeautre and spelt is le grand Épeautre. As the former is relatively rare, it is common for the two to be confused, although they are not very similar.

You really have to love the Decameron The banquet will be arranged in two sections: three courses from the 15th century, and three courses from the 16th century. (Pan there will be music and dancing during the pause between these two sections, as well as "boxed" music in the background throughout) I saw the original of this a few years ago in Florence (Botticelli fan me) . It is part of a (very) private collection, so most images of it like this one are based on old photographs. The original is much more clear and the blues are much stronger. At that time I was interested in banquets, which this appears to be and it was wonderful to see the confits, fritters etc in such detail. Excellent looking menu. A real challenge and a huge amount of work. I do hope that you enjoy the experience.

If you are after Anglo-Indian curry powder recipes, the ingredients for a few 19th century ones are: William Kitchiner, 1820 Tumeric, coriander, black pepper, mustard, ginger, allspice, cumin, cardamom. Rundell, 1825 (58th Edition) Coriander, cumin, cardamom, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg. Meg Dods, 1829 Advises reader to mix their own curry powder and not to be taken in by a ‘one powder suits all recipes’ product. Curry powder; ginger, coriander, turmeric, cayenne. As you can see there is a wide amount of variation.

This sounds very exciting and a huge amount of effort. Good Luck. Is there any specific part of the Italian Renaissance that you are focussing on and what sources are you using?

This is fascinating. Congo peas must be the same as the "Carlin Peas" I vaguely remember as a child in Yorkshire. They were traditionally eaten on "Carlin Sunday" - the Sunday before Palm Sunday. I have no idea why that connection! They were eaten out of paper, like fish and chips, with vinegar. ← No they are not. Oddly enough I have been doing some investigation of these peas. The Carlin peas (and parching peas) are Pisum sativum, in almost all cases now are from the "Maple" pea type, which in seems to be mentioned as a type of Rouncival pea in some texts. This type of pea was replaced in the most part with improved garden peas and marrow fat peas. Now they are mostly grown as animal food and fodder, hence the confusion in names. There are a very common part of a mix for pigeons, and often go under the name of "pigeon pea". They are not true "pigeon peas" (Cajanus cajan), which will not grow in the UK in commercial quantities.

Actually, "Congris" is most likely a contraction of the creole "congo y riz", Congo and rice. "Congo" peas = gungo pigeon pea = goongoo pea = gunga pea = gungo pea = congo pea = congo bean = no-eyed peas = gandules (Cajanus cajan). Like black-eyed peas/crowder peas (Vigna unguiculata) they are old world peas (actually beans). Seems pretty obvious that the Lousiana version is derivative, with gungo peas being substituted for the locally common black-eyed/crowder peas. Find the region where gungo peas were historically common and you most likely have the original source.

OK, it seems that "Congri" is a name of a rice and bean dish found in both Cuba and Lousiana. In the latter case it refers to black-eyed peas/beans (which are of African origin), in the former red beans (mostly). Congri was also an important part of some 19th C voodoo rituals and also a feast dish. It could be that "Congri" made a transition to "red rice and beans" as part of some attempt at santisation or if it became an upwardly mobile dish. Onother angle is that as NO already had a dish of this name, if the Cuban dish of the same name was introduced at a later date, then it would be logical that the latter would loose its original name. Obviously, you would have to compare recipes to determine if there was any truth in this.

True, these dishes don't tend to end up in cookbooks, but some do as they are important local of even festival dishes. In the region, there seen to be numerous variations on the theme of rice and beans that have specific names (Casamiento, Moros y Cristianos, Congri, Gallo pinto). Moros y Cristianos (Moors and Christians) is a dish that is also found in Spain. One obvious thing to do is to make a list of the names of of the various dishes like those I have mentioned, then look for any likely links in older source material. Apart from the beans type, what is the difference between the Cuban Moros y Cristianos and the red bean and rice Cuban dish that you mention? Also, what is the origin of the red beans? Is it a strain that was specifically brought in from outside the region or is it a local bean that has been substituted into an outside recipe? The same with the rice. Who was eating rice and when in the region?

No need to soak the fresh lemongrass, another thing you can do is a Laotian method, where you pound the lemongrass until it shreds, then stuff the pork mixture inside. Like this. I haven't got my notes with me, but the spices (and the sate) are specific temple food, made by men and may involve some sort of phallic symbology. Some of the spices used were: Long pepper, nutmeg, coriander seeds, with roasted candlenuts.

Lemongrass. The meat mixture is: Pork mince, shredded fresh coconut, shallots, garlic, ginger, fresh tumeric and sacred spices. Green coconut husks used for smoke.

FYI. In Sydney (and the rest of NSW) it is common to hear people call spring onions/scallions "shallots". They also tend to use the word "eschalot" for shallot. Scallion/shallot/eschalot have the same root meaning and as long as you know what the people are refering to, it doesn't really matter.

Balinese Temple pork satay.

9 are small cuttlefish. 7 looks like a dory, but the lack of "thumb-spot" means it may not be John Dory.

OK. Most of the issues here with identification are due to confusion with common names. 15 is most likely Pagrus major or a related species like Pagrus auratus. The latter are known as "Snapper" in Australia, although they are a bream.