[MR] Amusing Historical Food Fight... :-)

[Karen]

Meli asked:

> I saw this on a local news website this morning, and thought it might
> amuse some of the historical foodies among us.  Does anyone have
> access to a redacted version of Loseyns that I might try?  Sounds
> intriguing...  :-)

Redacted versions of the "losyns" recipe (from Forme of Cury/Curye on
Inglysch) can be found at
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/miscellaneous.html#3 and
http://www.blacktauna.com/sca/losynstartlettes.html
http://users.iafrica.com/m/me/melisant/cook/pasta.htm
http://www.geocities.com/katjaorlova/lasagna.htm
http://ladybethany.tripod.com/FEAST.HTM

Other pasta dishes from thereabouts include:

Macrows (noodles with cheese)
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/miscellaneous.html#4
http://www.godecookery.com/friends/frec68.htm
http://www.stoneclave.com/tavern/food/macrows.asp
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jawllms/recipes.html

Makerouns (noodles with cheese)
http://www.medievalcookery.com/recipes/makerouns.html
http://www.ostgardr.org/cooking/alsace.html#makerouns
http://www.godecookery.com/goderec/grec6.htm
http://users.iafrica.com/m/me/melisant/cook/pasta.htm
http://www.erasofelegance.com/medievalrecipes.html#1

Rauioles (cheese ravioli)
http://www.blacktauna.com/sca/netravioli.html
http://www.midnightgrove.20m.com/pasta.html

See also http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/Medievl-Pasta-art.html
for other notes on these recipes.

I'm not sure why the story has suddenly made news recently; it's more
like, "Zowie, we were making pasta a lot earlier than we thought we
were!" than "The English *invented* pasta!"  Considering that Apicius
(ca. 1st century AD) references a pasta dish he calls "lagana" (see
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/apicius.html or
http://users.ipa.net/~tanker/apicius.htm) ... and the 12th century
Arabic geographer al-Idrisi, in the "Nuz’hat al-mushtaq," describes a
spaghetti-like pasta made in Trabia, near Palermo, which he calls
"tria" (and which he indicates were exported to Calabria and other
countries) ... and that it's thought that Asian cooks were preparing
noodle dishes long before Apicius ...

I'm not sure why it's such a revelation that the English had adopted
what were probably already Italian recipes in the 14th century
(especially since this particular cookbook has been fairly easy to find
for some time).  The English "losyns" are similar to about a half-dozen
other lasagna recipes from Italy during that time, from what I
understand.  (See
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Studio/3425/trecento.html for an
example of a lasagna recipe from 14th century Tuscany.)

(Ravioli, too, comes from the Italians.  See
http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~gloning/frati.htm for recipes from
Venice from around that same time.) :)


Karen
who happens to know that at least one of the feasts this autumn will
very likely include handmade pasta from a 15th century Italian recipe
... :)