The Decadent Cookbook (5 page)

Pallet hearing the first of these dishes described, lifting up his hands and eyes, and with signs of loathing and amazement pronounced, “A pye made of dormice and syrup of poppies; Lord in heaven! what beastly fellows those Romans were!” … All the doctor’s invitations and assurances could not prevail upon his guest to honour the
hachis
and the goose; and that course was succeeded by another … “That which smoaks in the middle,” said he, “is a sow’s stomach, filled with a composition of minced pork, hogs brains, eggs, pepper, cloves, garlick, aniseed, rue, oil, wine, and pickle. On the right-hand side are the teats and belly of a sow, just farrowed, fried with sweet wine, oil, flour, lovage, and pepper. On the left is a fricassee of snails, fed, or rather purged, with milk. At that end next Mr. Pallet are fritters of pompions, lovage, origanum, and oil; and here are a couple of pullets, roasted and stuffed in the manner of Apicius.”

The painter, who had by wry faces testified his abhorrence of the sow’s stomach, which he compared to a bagpipe, and the snails which had undergone purgation, no sooner heard him mention the roasted pullets, than he eagerly solicited the wing of a fowl; … but scarce were they set down before him, when the tears ran down his cheeks, and he called aloud in a manifest disorder, “Z———ds! this is the essence of a whole bed of garlic!” That he might not, however, disappoint or disgrace the entertainer, he applied his instruments to one of the birds; and when he opened up the cavity, was assaulted by such an irruption of intolerable smells, that, without staying to disengage himself from the cloth, he sprung away, with an exclamation of “Lord Jesus!” and involved the whole table in havoc, ruin, and confusion.

Before Pickle could accomplish his escape, he was sauced with the syrup of the dormouse-pye, which went to pieces in the general wreck; and as for the Italian count, he was overwhelmed by the sow’s stomach, which bursting in the fall, discharged its contents upon his leg and thigh, and scalded him so miserably, that he shrieked with anguish, and grinned with a most ghastly and horrible aspect …

The doctor was confounded with shame and vexation … he expressed his sorrow for the misadventure … and protested there was nothing in the fowls which could give offence to a sensible nose, the stuffing being a mixture of pepper, lovage, and assafoetida, and the sauce consisting of wine and herring-pickle, which he had used instead of the celebrated garum of the Romans.

T. G. Smollett,
Peregrine Pickle.

We stay in Rome - city of eternal Decadence - to visit the kitchens of a much craftier set of princes: the Renaissance popes. These were men who had read Machiavelli, absorbed his lessons, and instead of being knifed and chucked into the Tiber at the age of 30 were allowed to die of old age, given magnificent funerals, and then canonized.

One of these was Antonio Ghislieri (better known as Pius V), remembered now as an ‘ascetic, reformer, and relentless persecutor of heretics, whose papacy marked one of the most austere periods in Roman Catholic Church history.’ He was born into a poor family in 1504, worked as a shepherd, became a monk, then joined the Inquisition. He was so keen on his job of rooting out error that he worried even the man who had appointed him, Pius IV. He became Grand Inquisitor in 1558, and Pope in 1566. On his election he introduced immediate reforms to church practices, and harsh new punishments for Sunday desecration, animal baiting and other profane activities. A decree published in Rome on 2 October 1566 says, “To prevent many evil customs and vices, both of the mouth and of gaming, lust, blasphemy, thieving and other unspeakable crimes, which are born from the abuse of inns and taverns, to the dishonour of our Lord God, to the harm of the inhabitants of this Holy City and the scandal of other peoples and nations… all persons residing in Rome or Borghi, and all prostitutes and dishonest women are forbidden to frequent inns and taverns in Rome and Borghi, to eat, drink, play cards, dice or other games, or do other illicit and dishonest things either openly or in secret. The penalty will be 25 golden scudi and three lashes; prostitutes and dishonest women will be whipped and imprisoned, with further punishments according to our judgement… Anyone informing on innkeepers or other prohibited persons guilty of infringement of this ban will be rewarded with one scudo per person accused.”

The good times were definitely over. But not just for gamblers, innkeepers and prostitutes: priests had to spend more time in their parishes, and monks and nuns who took vows of seclusion were forced to stop going to parties and actually shut themselves away from the world. Nepotism was outlawed, corrupt monastic orders suppressed, and dissident intellectuals driven into exile or burnt at the stake. In March 1571, Pius published a list of books which he regarded as morally degrading or un-Christian, and hundreds of printers fled to Switzerland and Germany. He forced Jews to live in ghettos, and encouraged tyranny, ruthlessness and intolerance in Catholic rulers, threatening them with the wrath of God if they spared the lives of heretics. “Let them perish,” he wrote, “in the agony they deserve.” He died regretting only one thing: that he had been too lenient.

How did this merciless patron of prosecutors eat? Was he a dry bread and water man, or did he sit down after a hard day at the Inquisition and wallow in papal troughs of gluttony?

His portrait on a medallion shows a cunning, weaselish face, hollow-cheeked and sharp-nosed, buried in thought. It’s impossible to guess what’s on his mind. But a cookbook published in 1570 by his chef, Bartolomeo Scappi, suggests that Pius was no stranger to the pleasures of the table. Among many fine dishes proposed by Scappi are fried birds’ tongues (first tasted at Cardinal Grimano’s in Venice), pig’s blood omelette, stuffed squid, boneless frog soup, barbecued bear, spitted calf’s head, baked dormice, roast hedgehog, and a range of interesting pies: snail pie, tortoise-innard pie, frog’s liver pie, and a puff-pastry
crostata
made with the sweetbreads, eyes, ears and testicles of a young goat. We could still be in ancient Rome.

Scappi has lots of useful ideas for Decadent cooks: his black broth makes an excellent starter, with its lush blend of quinces, raisins, prunes, black cherries, grape juice, red wine, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, crushed fruit-cakes, Seville orange juice, and sugar. Menus are given for every month of the year, including Lent and fast-days, and what to serve if the Emperor Charles V comes to lunch (he expected at least 400 dishes). There’s also a handy appendix:
Il Trinciante
(the Carver) by Vincenzo Cervio, which tells you how to cut up everything, including peacocks, cranes, oysters, wild pig’s heads, crabs, thrushes, melons and eggs.

Scappi knew how to furnish a table, and the Decadent faced with entertaining a party of dandies, bishops or chief constables for breakfast could do worse than use this menu - originally served after Vespers in a garden in Trastevere on a May morning.

The table was laid with three table-cloths and decorated with a variety of flowers and leafy boughs, the wines were various, both sweet and dry, the sideboard furnished with cups of gold, silver, majolica and glass. A large bun made with milk, eggs, sugar and butter was placed under each napkin, and scented water was offered for the guests’ hands. There were eight stewards and four carvers. Fresh white napkins were given with every change of the table-cloth. Gold and silver knives and forks were used for the savouries and spoons for the sweets. Each course was accompanied by six statues: the first made of sugar, the second of butter, the third of sweet almond pastry. Music, played on a variety of instruments, accompanied the meal.

D
IANA
WITH
THE
MOON,
BOW
AND
ARROWS
,

DOGS
ON
A
LEASH,
AND
FIVE
NYMPHS
.

F
IRST
NYMPH
HOLDING
A
SPEAR
.

S
ECOND
NYMPH
WITH
A
BOW
AND
QUIVER
.

T
HIRD
WITH
A
VIOLA
.

F
OURTH
WITH
A
BUGLE
.

F
IFTH
WITH
A
CYMBAL
.

8 plates of each of the following:

Preserved yellow cherries, strawberries with sugar, candied grapes, sweet oranges with sugar, Neapolitan fruit cakes, marzipan lozenges, miniature almond pastries, sweet pine-seed cakes, buns, cream cheeses with sugar, syringed butter sprinkled with sugar, junkets served in leaves with sugar and flowers, sliced fish-roes with lemon juice and sugar, pickled sturgeon and herrings, tuna fish charcuterie, pickled anchovies, asparagus salad, sugared caper and raisin salad, salad of sliced citrons with sugar and rose-water, lettuce and borage flower salad, cold trout pies, butter tartlets, Spanish olives, mushrooms stuffed with rice à la turque.

The first table-cloth was removed and perfumed water offered for the guests’ hands.

A
N
E
LEPHANT
WITH
A
CASTLE
ON
ITS
BACK,

H
ERCULES
STRANGLING
THE
L
ION,

A
LARGE
C
AMPIDOGLIO
R
USTIC,