I'm currently writing a paper for the Renaissance Society conference next week about 3 cookbooks from the 1540s and the mutual influence among Italy, France and England. Anyway, I came aross this recipe that appears virtually the same in two of them called variously soupe capilorde or suppa di capirotta. Both are ultimately versions of an older Spanish dish called Capirotada. But it just dawned on me as I was writing that this is a version of the souped up (literally) grilled cheese ideas that have been floating around lately among food bloggers. Except this one is literally floating around.
Just try to imagine this. Roasted capon breast taken off the bone and shredded. Think leftover chicken here. Then take slices of good toast and fry them until crisp and brown. Then take a bowl and put down a "sop" of the bread, cover with some chicken, some cheese and a whole mess of spices. Especially cinnamon, some sugar and ginger. More IS better. And make layer after layer of these ingedients. Then pour good broth over it into the bowl. A floating chicken grilled cheese sandwich. I think I may just have to make this tonight.
Oh, and if you're wondering, yes, it's descendant is the capirotada of Mexico, a sweet cheesy bread pudding. And incidentally I have seen baroque recipes for this that are also then baked so the cheese all melts and the bread really soaks it up, and then it's garnished with cockscombs, testicles, circles of marrow, ambergris, gooseberries.
"Lambs and slothes and carp and fruitbats and orangutans and breakfast cereals.... skip a bit brother." Who can name the source of that feast?
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About Me
- Ken Albala
- Food Historian at the University of the Pacific. Author of Eating Right in the Renaissance, Food in Early Modern Europe, Cooking in Europe 1250-1650, The Banquet, Beans (2008 IACP Jane Grigson Award) and Pancake.THE LOST ART OF REAL COOKING with Rosanna Nafziger. Coeditor of Food and Faith; Editor of A Cultural History of Food: The Renaissance. Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia (4 vols.) Three World Cuisines: Italian, Mexican and Chinese won the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards Best Foreign Cuisine book in the World. The Routledge International Handbook to Food Studies. THE LOST ARTS OF HEARTH AND HOME with Rosanna Nafziger. Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food, a little book on Nuts and The Food History Reader. The Most Excellent Book of Cookery (translation of a 16th c. French Cookbook with Tim Tomasik). The Sage Encyclopedia of Food Issues Encyclopedia. At the Table. Noodle Soup, The Great Gelatin Revival, Opulent Nosh. Forthcoming: Atlas of Fermentation
Noodle Soup: Recipes, Techniques, Obsession
This is me. GO COOK.
8 comments:
It's from the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch speech in Monty Python & the Holy Grail, isn't it?
Well done!
what a great quote! after all my high school memorization of the Holy Grail I've never had the opportunity to use that one. But now that I'm really into cooking, well...
For more about present-day Mexican capirotada, you may want to read the March 14, 2009 Mexico Cooks! article about Lenten food. You'll find it here:
http://www.mexicocooks.typepad.com.
Thanks Patalarga! That article is really good. I would never have thought of it as a Lenten dish because in the middle ages it was usually made with chicken. And chicken broth too in the 16th century recipes. But I'm going to try this one. Thanks for the lead.
Hi Ken,
interesting article on my second favourite mystery salad (the other beind Salmagundi).
Have you got a opinion on the origin of the dish? Apician Sala Cattabia or Arabic Tharid for instance?
at the risk of sounding sophomoric, that shit is totally fascinating...
Thanks palarga for sharing much appreciated.
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