Healthy Diet?

[Andy Lynes]

Ugo - today there's an obsession about foods that are good for you and those that aren't so good. Were you aware of any food related health issues?

[Peter Elbling]

The Italians of the Renaissance --

There were no Italians in the Renaissance.

Thank you, Ugo. What I meant was that the various little

principalities–

Some of them were not so little. Venezia was very big. So was Roma. Even Corsoli, where I came from --

All right, all right. You answer this.

Grazie. As I lived during this time, and worked as the food taster for Duke Federico, I believe I know a little more about this than you do. Potta! Ha il cervello di una gallina!

Growing up peasants on a farm we did not concern ourselves with being healthy. Just eating was being healthy. But that changed when I worked in the castello of Duke Federico because I learned that all foods affect the humors and organs of the body in one way or another.

I should point out that from the time of Hippocrates, it was believed that the body’s health was governed by the four humors: blood, phlegm, black bile and –

Yellow bile. Thank you Mr. Writer. Because of Duke Federico’s various conditions, the cooks, Cristoforo and Luigi, had to be very careful. Onions for example. All onions make one weep, although those which come from Tuscany are not so strong which is why we preferred them in Corsoli. Red onions are sharper than the white ones, the dried ones more so than the fresh ones and the raw ones more than those which have been cooked. Although they like to grow in cool places it is best to keep them near smoke which is why, in Duke Federico’s kitchen, they were hung up by the fires. Piero, Duke Federico’s doctor, forbade him to eat too many of them because he said they caused inflammations, Federico suffered from gout, and were bad for the brain. Piero said they also prevented him from sleeping. This last was true.

Piero also claimed that they sometimes caused phlegmatic humors, and sometimes not. (He always said that when he was not sure about something.) However, when onions were mixed with other foods in moderate proportions, they loosened the bowels, which Federico needed, and stimulated the appetite, which he did not. Piero said that if onions were chopped up and placed against hemorrhoids it made them shrink, but he never told Federico this because he did not want to be the one to have to do it. So to answer your question... what was the question?

Did you concern yourselves with matters of health?

Yes we did. And as Duke Federico’s food taster I came to know about many things like this.

People believed in humors until the middle of the 19th century, just about the time Italy came into being.

Hmmm.

What does that mean?

Niente. Just hmmm.