The Decadent Cookbook (6 page)

A C
AMEL
RIDDEN
BY
A
M
OORISH
K
ING,

A U
NICORN
WITH
ITS
HORN
IN
A
SERPENT’S
MOUTH,

M
ELEAGER’S
BOAR
WITH
AN
ARROW
IN
ITS
BREAST.

8 plates of each of the following:

Tender peas boiled in their pods with vinegar and pepper dressing; cooked artichoke hearts in vinegar, salt and pepper; truffles cooked in oil, Seville orange juice and pepper; artichokes fried in butter served with Seville orange juice and pepper; raw truffles served with salt and pepper; small Neapolitan palms; pear tarts; pears in wine and sugar; fresh musk-pears; yellow morello cherries; Florentine raviggiolo cheeses; sliced Parmesan cheese; March cheeses served in halves; fresh almonds on vine leaves; preserved grapes; cream cheeses with sugar; wafer rolls; small circular buns; roast chestnuts stewed in rose-water and served with sugar, salt and pepper; turnip compôte, carrot compôte, cucumber compôte, samphire compôte.

The table-cloth was removed and water offered for the guests’ hands. Change of spoons, forks and napkins.

P
ARIS
HOLDING
A
GOLDEN
APPLE,

P
ALLAS
A
THENE
NUDE,

J
UNO
NUDE,

V
ENUS
NUDE,

G
OLDEN-HAIRED
H
ELEN
OF
T
ROY
CLOTHED,

E
UROPA
ON
A
BULL
WITH
HER
HANDS
ON
THE
HORNS.

8 cups of each of the following preserved fruit:

Citrons, small lemons, small bitter oranges, water-melons, melons, pumpkins, pears, peaches, apricots; pickled nutmegs and walnuts.

8 plates of each of the following:

Wild cherries in syrup, quince jelly in boxes, quince marmalade in boxes, Sienese nougat in boxes, quince cakes, boxes of sugared aniseed, boxes of large sweets, sugared melon seeds, sugared coriander seeds, sugared almonds, pistachios, fennel and pine-seeds.

40 bunches of flowers, their stems wrapped in silk and gold.

40 toothpicks scented with rose-water.

All this is fine for Sunday breakfast, of course, but what about more everyday fare - the midweek supper, the working lunch? Here are a few more dishes from the Grand Inquisitor’s table.

Frogs are small tail-less animals, green and yellow in colour, with white bellies. They live in fresh water and swamps, and have a variety of cries. They are very plentiful in Italy, especially in Lombardy and around Bologna, where you can see them carried along in sackloads on carts.

This little animal has a large liver from which pies can be made. Its season runs from May until the end of October. This is also the time of verjuice (green grapes), so while grapes are green frogs are in season.

Cut off the frog’s head, which has a large mouth, and the ends of its legs up to the first joint. Soak in fresh water for 8 hours, changing the water from time to time. This purges and deflates them and blanches the meat. Take them out of the water. To fry, fold the legs under, or cut off the thighs and remove the thighbones, then dip them in flour and fry them in oil. Serve hot with a little pounded salt on top.

Once they are fried they must never be covered or kept for very long as they become tough and lose their goodness. They can also be fried with cloves of boiled garlic and parsley. Serve with garlic, parsley, pepper, and pounded salt, which is how Pope Pius IV of happy memory used to eat them in 1564, served by me.

After frying simply in flour they can also be conserved in fresh verjuice and egg yolks, and served hot or cold as you like. Or they can be fried and served with fennel leaves, basil, garlic cloves, breadcrumbs soaked in verjuice, salt and pepper. Or cover with garlic sauce and hazelnuts in the Milanese style.

Soak the frogs as above, then put them in plain water; bring to the boil, remove from the hot water, put them in cold water, remove the meat from the thighs and put it in a pan with butter or oil and fry gently with a little crushed onion, adding some of the white water they were cooked in, & gooseberries or sour grapes, sweet spices, a touch of saffron, and at the end a few crushed fresh herbs; serve hot. If you don’t want to use onions, add crushed almonds or breadcrumbs to thicken the broth.

You can also cook this soup in the same way leaving the bones in.

Bear has to be caught young and in the right season, which is winter. In July the bear is fatter as a result of feeding, but its meat gives off a bad smell.

First skin the bear. Take the best parts - its thighs - and leave them to hang for a few days. To roast them on the spit, first grill them for a while unlarded, then sprinkle with salt, fennel, pepper, cinnamon, and cloves, and cook as you would a goat, i.e. on a slow fire, collecting the fat that drips off. Serve hot with a sauce made of rosé vinegar, sugar, salt, fennel, pepper, cinnamon, and cloves, and the reserved fat from the cooking.

You can make the same dishes from bear that you make from stag. The heads of bears are not good to eat, and are usually avoided. The meat is not much eaten either, although I have on occasion cooked it.

Catch the porcupine at its fattest in the month of August, but avoid it from October to January, when its meat has a miserable smell. Let the meat hang for four days in winter, one and a half days in summer. Remove the skin and cut the body in half, crosswise. Lard the rear half by studding it with pieces of fat rolled in pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt. The pieces should be quite big and cover the meat completely. Add some garlic, cloves and rosemary to take away the bad smell, then roast the meat on a spit, collecting the juices. Serve hot with a sauce made of cooked grape-must, rosé vinegar, pepper, cinnamon, cloves and the roasting juices.

Alternatively you can spit-roast porcupine whole, or stuff it as you would a baby goat* and roast in the oven. The fore-parts can also be used to make a rich, fatty broth by adapting the recipe for goat.**