Quotes from Francine Segan

Oddly, recipes came with warnings that to eat reheated cabbage was fatal. "Twice cooked cabbage is death," an ancient adage popular in the Renaissance, referred both to that belief and to the tedium of listening to a comment repeated over and over.

Orange-Scented Rice SERVES 4 … Rice,—what will this sister of mine do with rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. THE WINTER'S TALE, 4.3 COSTLY PERFUME INGREDIENTS such as ambergris and musk, with little or no flavor of their own, were often called for in Elizabethan recipes to add fragrance. Here, cooking the rice in orange juice, orange zest, and crystallized ginger adds fragrance as well as a lovely flavor.

Children and fried food; the more you make, the better they come out.

THE ELIZABETHANS ATE all sorts of fowl, including quail, crane, heron, buzzards, and pigeons. Partridge, like many of the other birds, was thought to "comforte the brayne and the stomachke, & Ã¢â'¬Â¦ augment carnall lust.

fundamental Italian cookery rule that less is more!

Some pigeons, Davy, a couple of short-legged hens, a joint of mutton, and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William cook. KING HENRY IV, PART II, 5.1 Kickshaws, the Elizabethan misspelling of the French quelque chose, "a little something," refers to dishes we now categorize as appetizers or hors d'oeuvres.

ORIGINAL RECIPE: To make pursses or Cremitaries Take a little mary, small raysons, and Dates, let the stones bee taken away, these being beaten together in a Morter, season it with Ginger, Sinemon, and Sugar, then put it in a fine paste, and bake them or fry them, so done in the serving of them cast blaunch powder upon them. THE GOOD HUSWIFES JEWELL, 1587 Individual Meat Pies

Place a mound of the onion in the center of each plate and top with a piece of salmon. Drizzle the remaining vinaigrette over the salmon and arrange the violets on the salmon and around the plate. ORIGINAL

Elizabethan cookbooks included not only carving instructions, but the proper terminology for each type of meat such as "breake that deer, leach that brawn, lift that swan, unbrace that Mallard, allay that Fesant, wing that partridge, disfigure that peacock, dismember hern, and unlace that coney." Lamb

Since the Middle Ages, pieces of toasted bread have been added to beer and wine to improve the beverages' flavor. It is from that practice that we get the expression "to drink a toast." In Shakespeare's day there was also another saying, "not worth a toast," meaning not worth a crust of bread.

THIS FRENCH-INFLUENCED dish calls for "lemon cut in square peeces like dice," which makes a beautiful and flavorful addition to the sauce. Since I began researching and preparing dishes from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cookbooks, I have come to appreciate the extra flavor available from lemons and oranges diced whole and added to stews and sauces or puréed into salad dressings. Citrus fruits were rare and costly back then so no part, not even the skin, was wasted.

Damson plums were a favorite Elizabethan fruit and "eaten before dyner, be good to provoke a mans appetyde." They were also popular dried into prunes. It is unclear why, perhaps because they allegedly inflamed men's appetites, but stewed prunes were a favorite dish at Elizabethan brothels and also were a synonym for prostitutes. Shakespeare mentions prunes in that context in King Henry IV, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Measure for Measure.

A curious fact surfaces in reading these Elizabethan cookbooks. The English did not thicken their sauces with flour. According to some scholars, it was actually a French chef, François Pierre de la Varenne, who first used that method in his 1661 cookbook, Le Cuisinier François. The English chefs of the time clearly shunned La Varenne's method of thickening, and it does not enter into English cookery books for at least fifty years.

Renaissance Rice Balls SERVES 10 (APPROXIMATELY 36 RICE BALLS) RICE BALLS like these, today known as "arancine," or little oranges, are still made in many parts of Italy. During the Renaissance these savory balls would have been colored purple or yellow with dried edible flower petals or saffron. This dish can be easily re-created using food coloring to produce the different colored balls. Of course, they are delicious without the coloring!

Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran! porridge after meat! TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, 1.2 ...................................... The English ate soup, or porridge as they called it, with the first course and considered it absurd to serve it following the meat course. However, for the rest of Europe, pottage accompanied the second or third course of roast meats. In general, pottage and broth were more popular in England than in the warmer Mediterranean countries.

Oyster Stew SERVES 4 Why, then the world's mine oyster, Which I with sword will open. THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, 2.2 THE ORIGINAL RECIPE calls for "slic't nutmeg," a sophisticated touch to add flavor to a dish. Nutmeg, one of the most common spices in Elizabethan recipes, became so popular that eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ladies and gentlemen carried small personal silver nutmeg graters with them to dinner parties.

Cauliflower Chowder SERVES 4 TO 6 VERJUICE, THE JUICE of unripe grapes now available in most gourmet grocers, adds a lovely touch to this velvety, mild chowder.

PEASE PORRIDGE in the pot, nine days old" fairly well summarizes the technique of stew preparation in Shakespeare's day. A thick soup would have been left cooking for days at a time, with new vegetables, stock, and bits of leftover meat continually added. This Italian version contains rich duck meat, a delicious and unusual addition to pea soup.

The original recipe calls for "periwinkles," the snail-like mollusk. Taking poetic and culinary license, I chose to reinterpret this ingredient as the flower.

The Elizabethans used many more herbs than we do today, including those rarely seen in modern kitchens, such as hyssop, pennyroyal, tansy, and rue. According to a sixteenth-century nutrition guide, A Dyetary of Healthe, "There is no Herbe, nor weede, but God hae given vertue to them, to helpe man." Puréed Carrots with Currants and Spices SERVES 6 Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast?

Crisp Fried Baby Artichokes SERVES 4 Green indeed is the colour of lovers Ã¢â'¬Â¦ LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST, 1.2 IN SHAKESPEARE'S TIME artichokes were thought to be an aphrodisiac. Only the bottoms were eaten and the leaves, if used at all, were only for garnish.

Coffin," as used in this recipe, meant a pie covered with a top crust. Coffin comes from the Middle French cofin for basket or holder. Pies and coffins were rectangular, square, or round and often had crusts thick enough to support the filling without an outer pan. Why, thou say'st true; it is a paltry cap, A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie: I love thee well, in that thou lik'est it not. THE TAMING OF THE SHREW