JF Ptak Science Books Continuing Post 718
"Salad, a term derived from the Latin sal (salt), which yielded the form salata, 'salted things' such as the raw vegetables eaen in classical times with a dressing of oil, vinegar or salt. The word turns up in Old French as salade and then in late 14th century English as salad or sallet." ---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford Univeristy Press:Oxford] 2nd edition, 2006 (Quote found at Food Timeline, here.)
I was looking for an antique recipe for pesto and came
across this remarkable book by Salvatore Massonio, Archidipno overo dell'insalata
e dell'vso di essa, published in Venice by Marc'Antonio Brogiollo in 1627. It
is in short a philosophical cookbook for salads—and the first of its kind
dedicated solely, devoted entirely, to the salad. IT must have been a revolutionary
publication, and probably intended for the very wealthy. The book is no slim effort: 68 chapter and
425 pages long, it describes the stuff of the salad and its dressing. Actually salad wasn’t limited to just greens
in this book, and his quasi-vegetarian sentiment was tested by including cold
salted meats, cold salted tongue, livers and such in the mix. But Massonio was definitely far ahead of
anyone else at the time dealing with the benefits of the salad for both health
reasons, as well as for making the salad not a meal in itself but an appetizer
for something larger to come. In another
great possible “first”, the wonderful Massonio seems to be the first to
describe the use of garlic in a sauce.
Now. About that pesto recipe…all I need is some stuff from Italy and a special-marble mortar and I’ll be somewhat on my way, at least as the purists are concerned. The birthplace of pesto, Liguria, takes its poition as the originator of the great green delicacy very seriously, legislating exactly how and with what peso should be made. And that is as it should be.
"They say the divine Augustus was preserved in a time of ill health by the use of lettuce, and no wonder, because it aids digestion and generates better blood than other vegetables. It is eaten cooked or raw. You season raw lettuce this way if it does not need washing...put it in a dish, sprinkle with ground salt, pour in a little oil and more vinegar and eat at once. Some add a little mint and parsley to it for seasoning so that it does not seem entirely bland..." ---Platina: On Right Pleasure and Good Health, [Italian:1475, original text in Latin], translated by Mary Ellen Milham [Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies:Tempe] 1998.
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