Florence, Renaissance. Art, science and literature are in great ferment. Cooking and food, great protagonists. And it is precisely the cuisine, in these years, that gives the measure of a society's wealth and poverty.
In the great courts, the pageantry of feasts is accompanied by the aroma of meat broth, boiled for hours with vegetables and spices. Soups, prepared in the most varied ways, are even served as desserts with the addition of sugar, saffron and herbs. A true luxury that few can afford.
Among the main courses, meat triumphs: previously boiled roasts, capons, chickens, ducks, peacocks and swans, and lots of game. All of this is always generously seasoned with butter and olive oil, accompanied by sweet side dishes of chestnuts, quinces and fruit. And again, eggs stuffed with cheese, marjoram, sultanas, mint and strong spices.
Among the most popular dishes at banquets and festivals are veal pie, stuffed ravioli, marzipan and fried cream.
The richer the dish, the more it was a symbol of power. A true instrument of social identification. Everything changed on the tables of the poor. No spices, no seasonings, just boiled vegetables and beans and little meat, especially pork. The belief, widespread in those days, was that the poor and peasants could not eat the foods of the rich: they would not have the stomach to digest them.
Bread also distinguished the two social classes: dark, with mixed cereal flours, for the country dwellers; white, with wheat flour, for the more affluent.
"[...] Everything is too abundant. This is how the barbarians ate. [...] For there is more beauty in a single broccoli, more dignity in a single carrot than in its twelve golden pots, stacked and overflowing with meat and bones."
So said Leonardo da Vinci who, in his albeit brief experience as a 'chef', had tried to replace over-seasoned soups and overcooked meats with simpler dishes that were also nicer to look at.
A futuristic genius also in the kitchen, this was for him a hymn to simplicity. Herbs, turmeric, aloe, saffron, poppy flowers, cornflowers, broom, mustard seed oil and linseed oil enriched his dishes, which were mainly vegetable-based.
Basil leaves arranged like petals around a slice of homemade bread flavoured with small pieces of sausage, a menu written from right to left, small portions and delicate flavours with attention to the aesthetics of the dish. An innovation that went hand in hand with his technical inventions: mechanical roasters, pepper mills, wind-up egg slicers were just some of his proposals for the banquets he worked on. Certainly too daring an impetus for a Florence devoted to abundance and those sins of gluttony that were hard to give up.
Precursor of today's modern nouvelle cousine? We do not know for sure: all this is recorded in the Codex Romanoff, Leonardo's alleged notes of which the original manuscript is missing. Certain, however, are his ideas and revolutionary use of spices found in the Codex Atlanticus.
Whether innovative and misunderstood or classical and traditional, Renaissance cuisine is present, without being aware of it, in today's habits. Many dishes created by chefs of the time can be found in restaurants today.
Saffron added to risotto, chops wrapped in golden breadcrumbs, and fried frogs are all recipes that date back to the court of Ludovico il Moro, to the court of those Sforzas where Leonardo Da Vinci was appointed 'gastronomic consultant for the festivities'.
When cooking is history.
Edited by Valentina Galeotti
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