Subject: Re: ancient Italian cooking

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 22:46:04 EST

Check out FOOD IN HISTORY (Reay Tannahill) Stein and day, New York
"The basic diet of the Roman poor consisted of grain-pastes or coarse bread
bristling with chaff and a polenta-like porridge made from millet (p.93)
Between Roman times and the 15th century the epicure's table moved all the way
from bland  to mildly enticing when the Arabs introduced spices to round out
the cooking of fish, fruit, meats and grains.Large pieces of meat, eels in
sauces, and pastries filled with liver or marrow seem to be standard fare in
Europe until Columbus brought back all sorts of goodies from the New World. 
- Barry Lazar

---

From: [email-masked] (David Friedman)
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 19:08:56 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
[email-masked] wrote:
> "...Between Roman times and the 15th century the epicure's table moved all the way

This does not sound like a very accurate description of medieval food.
There is a marrow and egg pastry in Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks (Pety
Pernolys?), but off hand I cannot think of a single pastry filled with
liver. I doubt that either is common enough to count as "standard fare."
Can anyone offer a period recipe that could reasonably be described as
"pastry filled with liver?"

David Friedman

---

From: [email-masked] (Pat Churchill)
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 00:56:33 GMT

> "pastry filled with liver?"

I don't have my references here at work with me, but isn't there some
kind of liver-filled pie called a *faggot* ?  Or is it just a sort of meatball?
-- 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
            The floggings will continue until morale improves              
    [email-masked]  Pat Churchill, Wellington New Zealand     
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

---

From: [email-masked] (John Wilkinson)
Date: Fri, 04 Jun 93 10:03:49 PDT

[email-masked] (Pat Churchill) writes:

> kind of liver-filled pie called a *faggot* ?  Or is it just a sort of meatbal
> -- 

Just a coincidence, my paper had a feature on a Welsh lady named Gaynor Rees
and one of the recipes was for Faggots, or Ffagodau. Traditionally it is
cooked in a sheeps cawl ( stomach lining ), available now in supermarkets
as a kind of convenience food. The modernized version consists of liver,
bread crumbs, suet and spices formed into balls.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 4 Jun 93 16:11:07 -0500

> kind of liver-filled pie called a *faggot* ?  Or is it just a sort of meatball?

A faggot is just sausage meat wrapped in lacy caul fat instead of stuffed
into a casing.  I think caul fat comes from the outside of a cow's stomach,
or something like that.
--
James Harvey   [email-masked]   uucp:iugate!harvey   bitnet:harvey@indyvax

---

From: [email-masked] (David Friedman)
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1993 21:02:14 GMT

Several people have responded to my query with references to something
called a "faggot." The original question had to do with medieval cooking.
Does anyone have any evidence that this dish is medieval? "Traditional"
might mean only a century or two old. Think of all the traditional european
dishes that use New World ingredients--none of which are medieval.

David Friedman

---

From: [email-masked] (Scott Fisher)
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1993 06:05:18 GMT

>into a casing.  I think caul fat comes from the outside of a cow's stomach,

The caul is the amniotic sac, which is either better or worse than the
outside of a cow's stomach...  Which of course makes one wonder whether
the original recipe used placenta instead of liver.

--Scott "And this from a guy who just ate sweetbreads with ox tongue" Fisher

---

From: [email-masked] (Mary F. Shafer)
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1993 17:07:46 GMT

>the original recipe used placenta instead of liver.

But caul fat is the fat around the intestines.  More specifically, it's
the omentum.  It's used commonly in place of sausage casings.

I don't think the amniotic sac/placenta version is at all likely.  One
doesn't slaughter gravid animals and few animals are gravid in the
fall, during slaughter season.

---

From: [email-masked] ()
Date: 9 Jun 1993 17:30:05 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Mary F. Shafer) writes:
>doesn't slaughter gravid animals ... 
>
It could be a dish made of the placenta after the birth of the calf.
Dorothy Hartley mentions a similar item, "muggety pie," made of the
no-longer-in-use umbilical cords of lambs.  A seasonal dish, obviously.

Dorothy J. Heydt
UC Berkeley
[email-masked]

Disclaimer:  UCB and the Cozzarelli lab are not responsible for my
opinions, and in fact I don't think they know I have any.

---

From: [email-masked] (Scott Fisher)
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1993 00:35:53 GMT

>the omentum.  It's used commonly in place of sausage casings.

Ah, thanks.  RIght, the omentum would look like the stuff I've seen
around pates and the like.  Probably it.  And I had no excuse for
that one; when I made the previous posting, I was at home and could
have looked it up in the Larousse.  I'll have to try that the next
time I'm reading news from home.

>fall, during slaughter season.

If you think the only way to acquire a placenta/amniotic sac is
through slaughtering, perhaps you'd better talk to Kim... :-)

--Scott "Placenta: the organ meat that grows back" Fisher