Is There a Nutmeg in the House? by Elizabeth David, Jill Norman
Authors: Elizabeth David, Jill Norman
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one only of the confectioners’ shops for which Turin is famous.
The Spectator , 4 October 1963
Erbaggi Mantovani: Vegetables of Mantua
Bartolomeo Stefani’s L’arte di ben cucinare first appeared in Mantua in 1662. Stefani, who was Bolognese by birth, had trained with his uncle, a master cook working in Venice. At the time his book was written and published Stefani was chief cook to the ducal house of Gonzaga in Mantua. The family’s glory and prosperity had long since departed, but that they were still able on occasion to entertain on a splendid scale can be seen from descriptions of some of the state banquets included by Stefani in the Nuova Aggiunta or New Additions to the third edition of his work which appeared in 1671. One such occasion was the visit in November 1655 of Queen Christina of Sweden when, Stefani says, he personally served all the ceremonial and ornamental cold dishes and presented the numerous and grandiose trionfi of sugar work and also of pleated linen. On the whole, however, the Gonzaga in Stefani’s day seem to have eaten quite frugally, and few of his recipes are for rich or complex dishes. Compared indeed to the styles of cooking described in contemporary French and English works such as Robert May’s Accomplisht Cook of 1660 and La Varenne’s Le Cuisinier François of 1651, Stefani’s is almost modern, distinguished particularly by many interesting vegetable dishes and a number of unusual sauces and relishes in which fruit plays an important part.
The Italian love of both vegetables and fruit and their skill in growing them is of course apparent in all their cookery manuals from the days of Apicius to the publication in 1570 of Scappi’s magisterial Opera , and in all those stewards’ handbooks which were such a notable feature of Italian publishing from the second half of the sixteenth century right up to the end of the seventeenth. But in Stefani’s work a new, and intensely personal, approach is evident. He picks and chooses his ingredients and his words with equal care, puts them together thoughtfully, weighs and specifies his quantities, explains his methods clearly. He loves his work and is proud of his profession. Altogether he is making a great effort to fulfil the promise carried in his title of ‘instructing the less expert’ in the art of good cooking. ‘This little book,’ he says in his address to the readers, ‘does not come from an academy but from a kitchen.’ It certainly reads as though he had been writing close to the cooking pots and the fire, the spice boxes and the knives, the scales and the strainers. That ever-present sound of all kitchens of his day, of weighty pestle pounding in huge mortar is still in his ears as he composes his book. In seventeenth-century Italy that quality is uncommon. Since 1570 Scappi’s great work had stood alone in dealing directly with practical cookery, and in having been written by a practising cook. Physicians, chemists, scientists, agricultural and horticultural experts, and above all the stewards and professional carvers had all had their say on household and domestic matters, some of them at considerable length. But among them all none since Domenico Romoli, author of La Singolare Dottrina , a work first published in 1560 and reprinted in 1570, appear to have personally come to grips with the realities of the kitchen proper as distinct from the work of the Credenza or Pantry, in which the salads and cold dishes, the desserts and fruit were prepared.
Of the following brief selection of vegetable recipes from Stefani’s L’Arte di ben cucinare , the minestra d’erba brusca is from the Additions to the 1671 edition, all the others having already appeared in the original 1662 edition.
MINESTRA DI FINOCCHIO
(a dish of fennel)
Take well cleaned fennel and wash it in cold water, and having first cooked it in a vegetable broth and cut it into mouthfuls, you are to put it in a glazed vessel with a little capon broth, and
The Spectator , 4 October 1963
Erbaggi Mantovani: Vegetables of Mantua
Bartolomeo Stefani’s L’arte di ben cucinare first appeared in Mantua in 1662. Stefani, who was Bolognese by birth, had trained with his uncle, a master cook working in Venice. At the time his book was written and published Stefani was chief cook to the ducal house of Gonzaga in Mantua. The family’s glory and prosperity had long since departed, but that they were still able on occasion to entertain on a splendid scale can be seen from descriptions of some of the state banquets included by Stefani in the Nuova Aggiunta or New Additions to the third edition of his work which appeared in 1671. One such occasion was the visit in November 1655 of Queen Christina of Sweden when, Stefani says, he personally served all the ceremonial and ornamental cold dishes and presented the numerous and grandiose trionfi of sugar work and also of pleated linen. On the whole, however, the Gonzaga in Stefani’s day seem to have eaten quite frugally, and few of his recipes are for rich or complex dishes. Compared indeed to the styles of cooking described in contemporary French and English works such as Robert May’s Accomplisht Cook of 1660 and La Varenne’s Le Cuisinier François of 1651, Stefani’s is almost modern, distinguished particularly by many interesting vegetable dishes and a number of unusual sauces and relishes in which fruit plays an important part.
The Italian love of both vegetables and fruit and their skill in growing them is of course apparent in all their cookery manuals from the days of Apicius to the publication in 1570 of Scappi’s magisterial Opera , and in all those stewards’ handbooks which were such a notable feature of Italian publishing from the second half of the sixteenth century right up to the end of the seventeenth. But in Stefani’s work a new, and intensely personal, approach is evident. He picks and chooses his ingredients and his words with equal care, puts them together thoughtfully, weighs and specifies his quantities, explains his methods clearly. He loves his work and is proud of his profession. Altogether he is making a great effort to fulfil the promise carried in his title of ‘instructing the less expert’ in the art of good cooking. ‘This little book,’ he says in his address to the readers, ‘does not come from an academy but from a kitchen.’ It certainly reads as though he had been writing close to the cooking pots and the fire, the spice boxes and the knives, the scales and the strainers. That ever-present sound of all kitchens of his day, of weighty pestle pounding in huge mortar is still in his ears as he composes his book. In seventeenth-century Italy that quality is uncommon. Since 1570 Scappi’s great work had stood alone in dealing directly with practical cookery, and in having been written by a practising cook. Physicians, chemists, scientists, agricultural and horticultural experts, and above all the stewards and professional carvers had all had their say on household and domestic matters, some of them at considerable length. But among them all none since Domenico Romoli, author of La Singolare Dottrina , a work first published in 1560 and reprinted in 1570, appear to have personally come to grips with the realities of the kitchen proper as distinct from the work of the Credenza or Pantry, in which the salads and cold dishes, the desserts and fruit were prepared.
Of the following brief selection of vegetable recipes from Stefani’s L’Arte di ben cucinare , the minestra d’erba brusca is from the Additions to the 1671 edition, all the others having already appeared in the original 1662 edition.
MINESTRA DI FINOCCHIO
(a dish of fennel)
Take well cleaned fennel and wash it in cold water, and having first cooked it in a vegetable broth and cut it into mouthfuls, you are to put it in a glazed vessel with a little capon broth, and
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