Insalata di Carote – Roasted Renaissance Carrot Salad (Primo Servitio)

Published: May 21, 2026

Insalata di Carote – Roasted Renaissance Carrot Salad (Primo Servitio)

Insalata di Carote, or carrot salad, appears as part of the Primo servitio posto in tavola, the first service placed upon the table, in the Carnivale Feast menu inspired by Domenico Romoli’s sixteenth-century Italian banquet tradition.

At first glance, this seems like one of the humbler dishes on the table. It appears beside chicory salad, shredded prosciutto, cold pressed head meat, citron dressed with rose vinegar, cold roasted crane, capers, capons, and Bolognese sausages. Yet this simple roasted carrot dish became one of the quiet successes of the feast. The carrots were sweet, almost parsnip-like, and the bright oil-and-vinegar dressing brought them beautifully into balance. By the end of the meal, not a single carrot remained.

Insalata di Carote served feast-style with hand-torn prosciutto. The original menu lists carrot salad and shredded prosciutto separately, but they paired beautifully on the same platter.

The Original Menu Context

Primo servitio posto in tavola

Insalata di cicoria bianca, insalata di carote, prosciutto sfilato, testa di ruffolatto fredda, fette di cedro condite con aceto rosato, zuccaro & cannella, grue arrosta fredda, capperini, capponi salpamentati & salsiccioni bolognesi.

Translation: White chicory salad, carrot salad, shredded prosciutto, cold pressed head meat, slices of citron dressed with rose vinegar, sugar, and cinnamon, cold roasted crane, capers, capons salpamentati, and Bolognese sausages.

This carrot salad belongs to the same opening service as Insalata di Cicoria Bianca con Uva Passera e Scalognetti, another light salad dish from the Carnivale Feast. Together, these dishes helped create contrast at the beginning of the meal: bitter greens, sweet roots, sharp vinegar, salty cured meat, preserved fruit, and rich cold meats.

What Was the Primo Servitio?

In Renaissance Italian dining, a servitio was not simply a modern course in the plated sense. It was a structured presentation of several dishes placed before the diners, often emphasizing variety, abundance, and contrast. The primo servitio posto in tavola, or first service placed on the table, acted as the opening movement of the banquet.

Rather than immediately overwhelming diners with the richest foods, the first service often included dishes that awakened the appetite: salads, dressed vegetables, cured meats, preserved fruits, capers, and cold or temperate preparations. These foods offered brightness, acidity, salt, sweetness, and texture before the heavier dishes of the meal appeared.

That makes a carrot salad more important than it first appears. It is not merely a side dish. It is part of the architecture of the table.

Italian Food, French-Style Service

For this modern recreation, the Carnivale Feast was served in a French-style manner, with multiple dishes available at once for diners to sample. This is a practical and familiar way to serve a historical feast today, especially when cooking for a group without the army of servers, carvers, and attendants available to elite households of the past.

Sixteenth-century Italian banquet service had its own logic. Dishes were organized into services, and many foods passed through the credenza, or sideboard, where they could be arranged, sliced, dressed, garnished, or otherwise finished before appearing at table. Cool and temperate dishes such as salads, cured meats, preserved fruits, and dressed vegetables were especially suited to this kind of preparation.

In the original menu, insalata di carote and prosciutto sfilato are listed as separate dishes. At feast, because serving dishes were limited and because the flavors worked so well together, the hand-torn prosciutto was placed over the roasted carrots. This should be understood as a feast presentation choice rather than a claim that the original dish required prosciutto. Happily, the pairing was delicious.

Reconstructing a Missing Recipe

No direct prescriptive recipe for insalata di carote has yet been identified in the Italian culinary sources consulted for this project. This is not unusual. Historical menus often preserve the names of dishes without explaining how they were prepared, especially when the preparation may have been familiar to contemporary cooks.

For this reconstruction, I consulted Platina’s De honesta voluptate et valetudine, Maestro Martino’s Libro de arte coquinaria, Bartolomeo Scappi’s Opera dell’arte del cucinare, and Domenico Romoli’s La singolare dottrina. While these sources do not appear to provide a direct carrot salad recipe, they do support a broader culinary pattern: vegetables could be cooked, cooled or served temperate, and dressed with oil, vinegar, salt, and sometimes spices.

The method used here follows that logic. The carrots were cooked until tender, cooled, and dressed simply with olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper. A small touch of honey was added for modern taste, softening the acidity of the vinegar and echoing the sweet-sour balance beloved in Renaissance cooking.

A Comparative Early Modern Sallet

Although the Italian recipe remains elusive, a later English example helps show that cooked root vegetables could indeed be treated as salads in early modern cuisine. Robert May’s The Accomplisht Cook includes a “Diverse Sallet Otherways” made with boiled parsnips arranged with small salad greens, watercress, lettuce, alexander buds, oil, and vinegar. In a modern redaction of that dish, carrots and parsnips are often paired together.

This does not prove that Romoli’s insalata di carote was prepared in the same way. It does, however, support the broader idea that cooked roots dressed with oil and vinegar belonged comfortably within the early modern salad tradition.

A Humble Vegetable at a Noble Table

Carrots have a long and colorful history. The cultivated carrot likely originated in the region of Central Asia and Persia, especially around modern Iran and Afghanistan, before traveling west through trade, agriculture, and Mediterranean exchange. By the medieval and Renaissance periods, carrots were known in Europe, though they were not necessarily the bright orange supermarket carrots most familiar today.

Sixteenth-century Italian cooks may have encountered carrots in several colors, including white, yellow, purple, red, or reddish-orange forms. The standardized sweet orange carrot became more dominant later, especially through Dutch cultivation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For this recreation, I used modern orange carrots because they were readily available.

That practical substitution is worth noting, but not apologizing for. Modern orange carrots are sweeter and more uniform than many historical varieties, and roasting intensified that sweetness beautifully. In this dish, they became almost parsnip-like, which made them especially pleasing against the sharpness of vinegar and the saltiness of prosciutto.

Humoral Notes

In Renaissance dietary thinking, raw foods were often approached with caution, while cooked vegetables were generally considered easier to digest. Root vegetables such as carrots were associated with warmth and nourishment, especially when cooked. Serving them dressed with oil and vinegar in the first service made sense within the broader logic of the meal: they were gentle, appetizing, and helped prepare the stomach for richer foods to come.

The oil softened the dish, the vinegar sharpened it, and the small touch of honey rounded the dressing. This balance of sweet, sour, salty, and rich flavors is one of the reasons Renaissance food can feel surprisingly modern when handled with restraint.

Modern Redaction: Roasted Carrot Salad with Prosciutto

Carote Cotte et Condite
Cooked and Dressed Carrots
Serves 4 as part of a shared first-service dish

Ingredients

• 1 lb carrots, scrubbed and trimmed
• Olive oil, enough to lightly coat the carrots before roasting
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
• Salt, to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 tsp honey, optional, for modern taste
• 2 to 3 slices prosciutto, hand-torn, optional for feast-style service

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Lightly coat the carrots with olive oil.
3. Roast for about 20 minutes, or until tender and lightly sweetened by the heat.
4. Allow the carrots to cool to room temperature.
5. In a small bowl, mix the olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and honey if using.
6. Arrange the cooled carrots on a serving platter.
7. Dress lightly with the oil and vinegar mixture.
8. If serving feast-style, scatter hand-torn prosciutto over the carrots.
9. Serve cool or at room temperature.

At the Feast Table

This dish was one of the surprises of the Carnivale Feast. The carrots became very sweet after roasting, almost like parsnips in flavor. The dressing was simple, but it was exactly what the dish needed: oil for richness, vinegar for brightness, salt and pepper for depth, and a little honey to soften the edge.

The hand-torn prosciutto added salt, texture, and visual interest. While the prosciutto was listed separately in the original first service, placing it over the carrots worked beautifully for modern feast service. It also made practical sense at table, where serving dishes were limited and multiple dishes needed to share space.

Most importantly, the dish was eaten. Completely. For a large platter of carrots, that is no small praise.

Dietary Notes 🥕

• Gluten-Free: This dish is naturally gluten-free.
• Vegetarian: Omit the prosciutto.
• Vegan: Omit the prosciutto and replace the honey with a small amount of sugar, date syrup, or another plant-based sweetener.
• Allergen Notes: This recipe contains no common gluten, egg, dairy, or nut ingredients as written, though prosciutto may vary by producer.

Continue the Primo Servitio

This dish is part of the Primo servitio posto in tavola, the first service from Domenico Romoli’s 1560 Carnivale feast. Explore the rest of the table:

• Recreating a Renaissance Banquet from Domenico Romoli (1560) – the full feast overview
• Insalata di Cicoria Bianca – bitter chicory salad
• Insalata di Carote – roasted Renaissance carrot salad
• Fette di Cedro Condite – citron dressed with rosewater, sugar, and spice
• Testa di Ruffolatto Fredda – cold pressed pork in aspic
• Capponi Sopramentati – cold capon served with rich flavorings
• Cold Roasted Crane – adapted with chicken
• Bolognese Sausages – the surprise favorite of the table

Sources Consulted

• Platina, De honesta voluptate et valetudine (1474).
• Maestro Martino, Libro de arte coquinaria.
• Bartolomeo Scappi, Opera dell’arte del cucinare (1570).
• Domenico Romoli, La singolare dottrina (1560).
• Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook (1660), used as comparative early modern evidence for cooked root vegetable sallets.

AI Assistance Disclosure

AI Assistance Disclosure: Historical transcription, formatting, and redaction support were provided with the help of AI tools for research and editing. Some images were created or edited with AI tools. All historical interpretation and final text are curated and verified by the editor of Give It Forth.