In these two contributions we have highlighted Maineri's scientific approach in dissecting and measuring each individual ingredient, with a dedication similar more to the Galilean scientific method than to the alchemical one. We continue, now, to deal with other recipes and raw materials that lead us directly to the Middle Ages
Meat and fish
The same formulation of dietary rules that is attentive to the nature of the ingredients and their preparation concerns more complex prescriptions, which not only require cooking the meat and combining it with a sauce, but presuppose a precise preparation of the food. This is the case of "pastillation", a preparation by which the meat is enclosed in a thin dough of flour, which provides for cooking comparable to today's baking, designed to moderate the "humidity" of the meat, even if to a lesser extent less than roasting.
Magnino recommends preparing this "batter" with beef and porcini together, and seasoning it with sweet spices (very "hot" and "dry"), verjuice, "butiroso" cheese in summer; in winter with white onion, powdered strong spices, and verjuice. Or, he suggests a "pastilla" ex carnis subtilioribus: in this case, the recipe calls for a "pastilla" of "thin" meats, with almond milk, verjuice, powdered sweet spices and egg with verjuice, for the summer season; wine and more spices in addition, in winter. They are perhaps dishes originating in northern Italy, or commonly consumed in these areas in the Middle Ages. Another important sauce in the recipe book of the Milanese doctor is the camelina sauce, made up of ginger and cinnamon, mentioned above all in the cookbooks of the French area.
In the Regimen it is recommended in combination with roasted rabbit and chicken and is made up of water and cinnamon; it can be made thicker by adding breadcrumbs, with verjuice in summer and wine in winter. It is a "hot" and "dry" sauce, the cinnamon (its main ingredient) being "hot" and "dry" to the third degree.
Among the other birds, three recipes are reserved for the capon (castrated rooster when young) and for hens. One of them provides for cooking the boiling, designed to preserve the "hot" and "humid" nature of these meats. According to this recipe, the condiment uses the water (“hot” and “humid”) of the meat itself as liquid-base, with the addition of more water, all mixed with crocus and vine juice in summer; or, a powder of sweet spices ("hot" and "dry"), sage, hyssop, parsley, in winter. Otherwise, if you make a "pastillation" (i.e. the meat enclosed in a thin dough) of both fatty capon and hen, it is good to simply season it with a little spice powder, to which it is advisable to add verjuice in summer, wine in winter A winter sauce, to be used with capon and roast hen, is Valba allea bullita; or, a wine-based condiment with powdered good spices, especially sweet wine, may be sufficient. In summer Magnino suggests the use of “weak” (clear) or sour wine, with a lower quantity of spice powder than that used in winter.
These recipes reveal the constant attention to the "right flavour" sought by the author for each dish, and responds to the belief that dietary needs and gastronomic pleasure are essential in the diet. It is a "lean" cuisine, typical of the Middle Ages in which fats, such as oil and butter, do not appear in the composition of sauces, generally consisting of wine in winter, vinegar in summer and winter, verjuice in summer .
To these elements are added herbs or spices, including, for example, ginger, saffron, pepper, parsley. Often, to make the sauce thicker, Magnino suggests the use of roasted bread, almonds, egg yolk; conversely, he recommends the use of meat broth, to make it more diluted
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A cook … a scientist
Fish sauces and condiments
Since Antiquity, the attention given to fish in encyclopaedic-naturalistic works has also invested their therapeutic virtues: just think of Pliny's Naturalis Historia or Solino's Collectanea rerum memorabilium.
This patrimony of notions was transmitted to the early Middle Ages through the mediation of authors such as Isidore of Seville (mid-6th-mid-7th century) and Hrabanus Maurus (late 8th-early 9th century), who integrated ancient knowledge with inspired passages in their treatises to the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers. In a more purely dietetic-culinary context, the Greek physician Antimos (6th century) dedicates a few paragraphs of his epistle De observatione ciborum to the listing of the types of fish considered "good" in a correct diet; of them the author indicates the most suitable condiments and cooking according to the quality of the fish connected to the original habitat of the animal (sea, river, pond, etc.). In the 12th century, Hildegard of Bingen illustrated in the fifth book of her Physica the variety of fish she knew, classifying their quality based on the environment of origin and describing their therapeutic properties. These are opinions connected “to a solid tradition, into which Greek-Arab notions had converged during the 11th century, through the mediation of Constantine Africanus”. These medical-naturalistic notions are found in the medieval regimena sanitatis especially as regards the curative aspects.
In Maino de' Maineri's treatise, fish-based dishes are of considerable importance, so much so that within the XX chapter concerning sauces and condiments, an entire paragraph is dedicated to sauces to accompany fish: De Saporibus et condimentis piscium. The types of fish mentioned by the author come from marine and river environments. His attention is mainly directed to the different qualities found in freshwater and marine fish, the latter better than the former because their flesh is less full of "superfluities", less "phlegmatic" and closer to the nature of that of quadrupeds. Compared to freshwater fish, marine fish are more difficult to digest. For both, it is necessary to choose the fresh ones, whose flesh is “non est viscose sed frangibilis, non multum grossa sed subtilis, non gravis odoris sed suavis”. Another non-negligible factor is the hygiene of the places of origin of the fish; those that inhabit lakes, ponds, sordid waters are to be avoided; the optimal habitat is represented by deep seas, characterized by the continuous exchange of waters, into which many tributaries flow. Completely discouraged are the fish that live in dead seas, in the southern ones, less moved than the northern ones, therefore less healthy. In addition to the place of origin, the intrinsic qualities of these animals are fundamental. Often, their "wet" and "cold" nature requires the use of "hot" and "dry" sauces, and how much "sunt grandioris carnis et difficileis digestionis et plurium superfluitatum et humidioris nature tantum indigent Saporibus calidioribus et acutioribus". This rule applies above all to "bestial" fish, due to the "thickness" (excess fat) of their flesh. Among them, for example, porcus marinus requires the use of piperata nigra bullita, a sauce whose ingredients are very "hot" and "dry": black pepper, cloves, roasted bread soaked in vinegar, all diluted in the fish broth itself.
The essential function of this broth consists, thanks to its "humid" nature, in tempering the "dryness" of the pepper and cloves. Compared to the piperata suggested for meat, the piperata nigra bullita is stronger and "acute" thanks to the presence of cloves (not foreseen for meat), suitable for limiting the excesses of "humidity" and the "cold" nature of the porcus marinus. Eel, moray eel and lamprey, similar in nature to sea pig, "requirunt pro gusto galentinam ex fortibus speciebus", a blend of three very "hot" and "dry" spices, cinnamon, galangal and cloves , together with wine and broth (hot, tempered in "humidity") in which the fish is cooked. It is a sauce to be eaten cold a few days after its preparation, or to be used for preserving fish.
Sometimes, eel and moray eel (but also congro) are roasted, and then “sapor conveniens est salsa viridis cum fortibus speciebus et vino in hyeme et cum debilibus speciebus et agresta et vinegar in summer”.106 As in the case of meat , the green sauce is composed of parsley, rosemary, roasted bread, white ginger, eggs and cloves. The function of this sauce, like the others, is to make the fish hotter and "drier" than it is naturally. Regarding red mullet and capon fish, considered the best among saltwater fish, Magnino prescribes two simple and light sauces, the use of which depends on the type of cooking: if you choose boiling, it is good to use the camelina sauce, moderately “hot” and “dry”, based on vinegar and cinnamon, with verjuice in summer; tempered wine, in winter.108 Otherwise, roasting and frying involve the use of green sauce, in winter with vinegar, wine and spices; in summer a more delicate aroma with verjuice and vinegar is suggested. Or, with roasting, the author recommends a sauce used in the French area (“apud gallicos usitata”), not excessively “dry”: it is made up of white ginger, diluted in wine, with which, in turn, the roasted fish is moistened. This preparation is suitable for the winter; for the summer, instead of wine, it is advisable to use verjuice and, in less quantity, ginger. Green sauce is also suitable for frying small freshwater fish, generally less "cold" and "dry" than the others; if boiled in water, a condiment based on mustard or eucalyptus and white onion cooked with them is recommended. As for pike and barbello, their boiling requires the use of green sauce; frying and roasting require the use of wine or verjuice as a base liquid, in which to dissolve boiled white ginger. Everything is served on cooked (roasted or fried) fish and is used to moisten them.
The fundamental assumption of this science is the idea that everyone should eat according to their physiological characteristics, ie according to the "humoral complex", the age and sex that distinguish them. Of no less importance are the external factors such as the climate, the natural habitat and the standard of living, which influence the individual's state of health and quality of life. If in ancient manuals all of these elements concerned man tout court (devoid of any particular meaning), at the time in which Magnino wrote (1330s) the act of eating according to the "quality of the person" has taken on social and cultural significance. Each class, according to the position it holds in the social hierarchy, corresponds to a specific food. The higher ranked the individual, the more the foods he eats must be refined; the more the individual belongs to the lower strata of society, the more suitable a coarse and common food is. Such a hierarchy of foods is not present in Maino de' Maineri who, in accordance with the conception of the ancients, distinguishes groups of individuals according to their "humoral complex", age, season, ability to interact with environment. Perhaps some of these recipes are the fruit of the author's personal observation, such as certain uses that Magnino defines as French (“apud gallicos usitati”), such as the case of the sauce combined with red mullet and capon. Also for other recipes there are references to common practices in certain geographical areas. For example, the camelina sauce (composed of ginger and cinnamon), often mentioned in the Regimen, is widespread in the French area, as the recurrences of this sauce in French cookbooks contemporary with the work of the Milanese doctor suggest.
Furthermore, the use of the "pastella" or "pastillatura" as a pasta casing that coats the meat seems to be a custom in vogue in the same centuries in Northern Italy. Therefore, these are recipes that in most cases refer to two well-defined geographical areas, Paris and the kingdom of France on one side, Milan and Lombardy on the other. The "experimental" character of the Regimen is not only connected to the author's desire to favor the concrete aspects rather than the theoretical ones. The intervention on food also refers, and above all, to concerns of a hygienic nature, of Hippocratic derivation, according to which no food in nature is balanced and the health of the individual depends on the ability to build a balanced diet.
Manipulating and preparing foods so that they ensure the maintenance of health, or at least do not damage it, and are at the same time pleasant to the taste are primary needs in the conception of the "doctor-cook" Maino de' Maineri. In this sense, gastronomy and dietetics are two complementary aspects of the same knowledge linked to the principle according to which "what is good is good for health". These are rules widely shared in dietetic treatises and cookbooks of the late Middle Ages, characterized by the same language that records the experience of the sensitive world and divides food into sensory categories hot/cold, dry/moist. Only from the XVII-XVIII centuries did dietetic science and gastronomic art begin to clearly distinguish themselves, the former using a new language, no longer based on physical observation but on chemical analysis. In the works of the Milanese doctor, the recipes that best embody the idea of a science of healthy living, conceived in its two fundamental aspects, the art of cooking and medical knowledge, are those relating to sauces. If in the Opusculum de tastibus they appear with a predominantly corrective function of foods, in the Regimen this function is, in a more decisive way, combined with the culinary one.
The intervention on foods does not respond to a reductive value of "diet" as it is commonly understood today; as in the ancient tradition, a broader notion of the term remains in the medieval one as well. However, if in classical dietetics the term diaeta was identified with a way of life, including nutrition, physical (and intellectual) activity and body hygiene, in medieval treatises considerable space (among the "res non naturales") is granted to food as a privileged tool for maintaining or restoring health. In the Regimen of Maino de' Maineri, as in many regimen of the XIII-XIV centuries, the meaning of diaeta narrows down in favor of cibus et potus (to the detriment of the other "res non naturales") falling within the ambit of the "construction of a gastronomic culture” proper to that medieval universalism which invests both cuisine and dietetics
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