🌸 Suger Plate - Medieval Sugar Candy with Flowers

Originally published 5/10/2015 - Updated 5/27/2026

Sugar plate looks simple at first glance: sugar, rosewater, a little water, and flowers. In practice, it is a small master class in medieval sugarwork. It asks the cook to understand heat, texture, timing, humidity, and the mysterious moment when syrup becomes candy.

When I first made this recipe, I worked from the version in Pleyn Delit. I originally associated it with Harleian MS. 279, but while revisiting the recipe for this update I traced the attribution more carefully. In the second edition of Pleyn Delit, the recipe is identified as GK13, which points to Goud Kokery, recipe 13, preserved in Harleian MS. 2378 and printed in Curye on Inglysch.

That discovery changed the way I read the recipe. The original Middle English text does not describe a modern hard candy in thermometer language. Instead, it tells the cook to test the sugar between the fingers, remove it from the fire, stir it, work it, and make the “plate.” That suggests a softer, worked confection may be closer to the historical method, though the hard-crack version is still beautiful for feast display.

Violet petals preserved in sugar plate. The clearer amber candy was cooked to hard crack; the paler version was cooked lower and beaten.

What Is Sugar Plate?

Sugar plate is a medieval confection made by cooking clarified sugar, flavoring it, and forming it into a sheet or slab. The word “plate” here does not mean a dinner plate. It means a flat piece, layer, or formed sheet of sugar.

This is different from sugar paste. Sugar paste is usually a kneadable mixture used for molded or sculpted sugarwork, often involving a binder such as gum tragacanth. Sugar plate, by contrast, begins as cooked sugar and is poured or worked into a flat confection.

In a medieval feast setting, sugar plate belonged to the same elegant world as comfits, preserved fruits, marchpane, wafers, and subtlety work. It was sweet, scented, decorative, and expensive enough to make a statement. A small dish of rose-scented sugar with flowers would have been both dessert and table ornament.

The Source Trail: From Pleyn Delit Back to Goud Kokery

This recipe began for me with Pleyn Delit, but the revised edition gives the source as GK13. That abbreviation refers to Goud Kokery, one of the Middle English recipe collections included in Curye on Inglysch. The printed source identifies the recipe as Suger plate, from Harleian MS. 2378.

Finding the original mattered because it changed how I interpreted the cooking process. The modern recipe gives a practical adaptation, but the Middle English instructions are more revealing about texture and technique.

Original source: Suger plate, GK13, from Goud Kokery in Curye on Inglysch, Harleian MS. 2378.

Modern interpretation: The Pleyn Delit version used for my original kitchen testing.

You can explore the digitized source here: Curye on Inglysch, page 152, “Suger Plate” .

What the Original Recipe Tells Us

The original recipe gives several clues that are important for a modern cook:

• It begins with clarified sugar.
• The sugar is tested between the fingers, not with a thermometer.
• The cook is told to avoid letting it become too stiff.
• The sugar is removed from the fire and stirred.
• Rosewater is added after cooking.
• The sugar is worked or formed into a “plate.”

This makes me think the historical preparation was probably not a clear, glassy hard-crack candy in the modern lollipop sense. It seems more likely to have been a worked sugar confection, cooked to a stage where it could still be stirred, handled, flavored, and formed.

That does not make the hard-crack version wrong as a modern feast interpretation. It is beautiful, dramatic, and useful for display. But if I were choosing the version that feels closest to the manuscript process, I would choose the softer worked sugar plate.

Medieval Sugar Stages for Modern Cooks

Modern candy recipes usually give temperatures. Medieval recipes usually do not. Instead, cooks judged sugar by appearance, texture, behavior, and touch. That is why older confectionery language includes terms such as thread, pearl, feather, ball, and crack.

The exact temperatures below are modern approximations. They are useful for home cooks, but historical cooks would have relied on experience and physical tests.

Stage	Approx. Temp.	What It Does	Modern Use
Thread	223–235°F	Forms thin threads from spoon or fingers	Syrups, preserves
Pearl / Blow	230–240°F	Thick syrup, bubbles, stronger strands	Candied fruits, soft sugarwork
Soft Ball	235–240°F	Forms a soft ball in cold water	Fondant, fudge-like candies
Firm Ball	245–250°F	Forms a firmer but pliable ball	Caramels, chewy candies
Hard Ball	250–265°F	Holds shape but remains chewy	Nougat, divinity-style candies
Soft Crack	270–290°F	Forms flexible brittle threads	Taffy, butterscotch
Hard Crack	300–310°F	Sets hard and glass-like	Lollipops, brittle, clear candy
Caramel	320°F and above	Sugar browns and develops caramel flavor	Caramelized sugar

For this recipe, the manuscript clues point most strongly toward the thread, pearl, or soft-ball range rather than hard crack. In testing, about 230°F produced a softer, paler sugar plate that could be beaten and worked before setting.

Humoral Notes: Sugar, Rosewater, and Flowers

Medieval sweets often lived at the border between food and medicine. Sugar was valued not only for sweetness, but also for its usefulness in medicinal preparations, preserves, and digestive confections.

Rosewater adds another layer. Roses were associated with cooling and comforting properties, especially for the heart and stomach. Violets were also often understood as cooling and soothing. A rose-scented sugar confection served at the end of a meal therefore made sense as both pleasure and digestive finish.

For a modern cook, this helps explain why such a small sweet could matter. Sugar plate was not meant to be eaten by the handful. It was a fragrant, elegant closing bite: sweet, floral, and showy enough to belong on a banquet table.

Modern Recipe: Sugar Plate with Edible Flowers

I am including two modern approaches below. The softer worked version is the one I now think is closest to the manuscript process. The hard-crack version is a useful feast-table adaptation when you want clear, dramatic candy with flowers suspended inside.

Ingredients

• 2 cups sugar
• Enough water to thoroughly wet the sugar
• 2 tablespoons rosewater
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice, optional, to help reduce crystallization
• Edible flowers or petals, such as violets, roses, pinks, calendula, borage, or lavender
• Confectioner’s sugar, rice flour, or lightly oiled parchment for preventing sticking

Equipment

• Heavy-bottomed saucepan
• Reliable candy thermometer, preferably digital
• Heat-safe spatula
• Parchment paper or a marble slab
• Rimmed baking sheet or shallow candy molds

Safety note: Hot sugar syrup is dangerous. It sticks to skin and burns deeply. Keep children and pets away from the stove, use care while pouring, and do not taste until fully cooled.

Version 1: Softer Worked Sugar Plate

This is the version I now favor as the more historically plausible interpretation. It produces a pale, opaque, rose-scented sugar confection rather than a clear hard candy.

Method

1. Prepare your work surface. Line a baking sheet with parchment, or prepare a clean marble slab. Dust very lightly with rice flour or confectioner’s sugar if needed.
2. Prepare the flowers. Use only edible, unsprayed flowers. Remove stems and green parts. Petals are easier to use than whole blossoms.
3. Dissolve the sugar. Place the sugar in a heavy saucepan with just enough water to wet it thoroughly. Add lemon juice if using. Heat gently, stirring until the sugar dissolves.
4. Cook the syrup. Increase the heat and cook to about 230°F. This is in the thread to soft-ball neighborhood, not hard crack.
5. Remove from heat. Let the syrup cool slightly, then stir in the rosewater carefully. It may steam or bubble.
6. Beat and work the sugar. Stir with a heat-safe spatula as it cools. The sugar will begin to thicken and turn paler.
7. Add flowers. When the sugar is no longer violently hot but still workable, fold in the petals.
8. Form the plate. Pour or spread the sugar onto the prepared surface before it becomes too stiff.
9. Cool and serve. Let set fully, then cut or break into small pieces.

The result is softer and more delicate than modern hard candy. It is also more sensitive to humidity, so store it carefully between layers of parchment in an airtight container.

Version 2: Clear Hard-Crack Sugar Plate

This version is less likely to be the exact historical method for GK13, but it is beautiful and practical if you want a dramatic display candy. Flowers suspended in clear amber sugar look like tiny stained-glass windows.

Method

1. Line a rimmed baking sheet with lightly oiled parchment.
2. Scatter edible petals across the parchment, or have them ready to add just before pouring.
3. Cook the sugar syrup to 300°F.
4. Do not stir once the sugar has dissolved, as stirring can encourage crystallization.
5. Pour quickly over the petals or into molds.
6. Let cool completely before breaking into pieces.

This version sets rapidly. Work quickly, and do not try to handle the sugar while it is hot.

Kitchen Testing Notes

My first two attempts at hard-crack sugar plate were unsuccessful. I tested using the cold-water method, but both batches resulted in a soft, gummy candy. After that, I bought a digital thermometer, and the third attempt finally produced the clear amber candy I had been trying to make.

The lesson was immediate: sugarwork rewards accuracy. Humidity, pan size, water amount, heat level, and thermometer reliability all affect the finished candy. Medieval cooks would have learned these stages by experience. Modern cooks can absolutely learn the same skills, but a thermometer makes the learning curve less sticky.

I also tested the lower-temperature version because the manuscript wording seemed to suggest a pourable but not overly stiff candy. That batch was cooked to about 230°F and beaten as it cooled. I added petals of violets and pinks after the sugar began to turn pale.

Both versions were beautiful, and both were approved by my team of test teenagers. I had dim hope there would be leftovers based on the amount consumed by the test subjects. There were not many leftovers. This is, in my opinion, a successful sign.

Which Version Should You Make?

If you are making sugar plate for the first time, I recommend starting with the softer worked version. It is closer to the manuscript clues and gives you a better sense of how medieval sugar cookery worked by texture.

If you are making this for a feast display, a dessert board, or a dramatic final-course sweet, the hard-crack version is lovely. It may be less historically exact, but it creates a beautiful edible decoration.

Version	Temperature	Result	Best Use
Worked sugar plate	About 230°F	Pale, softer, opaque	Historical reconstruction, small sweets
Hard-crack flower candy	300°F	Clear, amber, brittle	Feast display, decorative shards

Flowers for Sugar Plate

Edible flowers turn sugar plate from simple candy into feast art. Use only flowers that are safe to eat and have not been sprayed with pesticides or florist preservatives.

Good Choices

• Violets
• Rose petals
• Pinks or dianthus petals
• Calendula petals
• Borage flowers
• Lavender blossoms, used sparingly

Delicate petals may discolor in very hot sugar, so add them late. For the hard-candy version, scattering petals onto parchment and pouring the syrup over them may preserve their shape better than stirring them into the pot.

For SCA Feasts, Classes, and Historical Demonstrations

Sugar plate is a useful recipe for teaching historical cooking because it shows how much older recipes depend on observation. The original does not give a thermometer reading. It gives behavior: test the sugar, watch the texture, stir it, and do not let it become too stiff.

• For a class: Make both versions and let people compare texture.
• For feast service: Serve small pieces with wafers, comfits, preserved fruit, or marchpane.
• For display: Use the hard-crack version for dramatic translucent shards.
• For historical discussion: Use the softer version to talk about sugar stages before thermometers.
• For transport: Pack pieces between parchment and keep dry.
• For humid weather: Store airtight and avoid leaving the candy uncovered for long periods.

Dietary Notes 🥕

• Vegetarian: Yes
• Vegan: Yes, assuming vegan sugar is used
• Gluten-Free: Yes
• Dairy-Free: Yes
• Egg-Free: Yes
• Common Allergens: None inherent, but confirm flower safety and possible cross-contact

Serving Suggestions

• Serve as part of a banquet or final course with comfits, wafers, marchpane, and preserved fruits.
• Break hard-crack sugar plate into irregular shards and arrange them on a small plate.
• Cut or mold the softer worked version into small pieces once it has set.
• Use rose petals for a romantic final-course sweet, or violets for a spring feast.
• Package small pieces in paper twists or tiny dishes for an event treat.

...

Sources

• Hieatt, Constance B. Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks. 2nd ed. University of Toronto Press, 1996. See “Sugar Plate,” p. 175, attributed to GK13.
• Hieatt, Constance B., and Sharon Butler, eds. Curye on Inglysch. Early English Text Society, 1985. “Suger Plate,” GK13, from Goud Kokery, Harleian MS. 2378.
• Internet Archive record for Curye on Inglysch

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.

🍊 Oranges after the Portugal Fashion - Candied Renaissance Oranges (Sir Hugh Plat, 1609)

Originally published 1/18/2015 - Updated 9/10/2025 - Refreshed 5/27/2026

Imagine being served what appears to be a glossy orange at a Renaissance banquet, only to discover that it has been boiled, candied in sugar syrup, filled with marmalade, and sliced open like a jewel-bright hard-boiled egg. Sir Hugh Plat’s Delights for Ladies (1609) preserves exactly that kind of culinary theater in his recipe “To preserve Orenges after the Portugall fashion.”

This is not a simple orange preserve. It is edible display. Whole oranges are softened, sweetened, filled with a stiff orange marmalade made from their own pulp, returned to syrup, and then served in slices. Plat promises that the finished fruit “will cut like an hard egge,” which is one of those historical recipe instructions that sounds impossible until you see it happen on the plate.

I have served these at feast, and one of the best things about them was that people thought they were table decorations. They sat on the table looking so bright, polished, and ornamental that diners did not immediately realize they were meant to be eaten. The servers had to explain that yes, the oranges were part of the menu. That moment is exactly why this recipe matters. It shows how Renaissance sweets could blur the line between food, decoration, luxury, and conversation piece.

Best historical choice: use Seville or bitter oranges if you can find them. I first made this recipe with ordinary sweet oranges, which worked, but later a generous member of the historical food community sent me bitter oranges and helped refine the quantities. I wish I could remember whether it was Ken Albala or David Friedman, but I remain deeply grateful for the opportunity. The bitter orange version was, to my taste, far better: more balanced, less cloying, firmer in set, and much closer to what Plat seems to describe.

Whole oranges simmering in sugar syrup. Plat’s method creates both candied fruit and marmalade in one showpiece.

Why This Recipe Matters

Plat’s preserved oranges are a perfect example of early modern English banquet culture. By the late 16th and early 17th centuries, elite tables used sugar, preserved fruits, marchpane, comfits, and molded sweets to display wealth and skill. These foods were often served in a banquet course, not necessarily as the main meal, but as a refined display of delicacy, hospitality, and status.

The phrase “after the Portugall fashion” is especially interesting. Portugal was strongly associated with citrus, sugar, maritime trade, and fashionable imported luxuries. Sweet oranges were sometimes linked with Portuguese trade and cultivation, while bitter oranges remained especially useful in preserves and marmalades because of their peel, acidity, bitterness, and natural pectin. In a recipe like this, the name signals more than geography. It suggests refinement, foreign fashion, and an expensive style of sweetmaking.

It is also worth remembering that “marmalade” did not always mean the soft breakfast spread we know today. Early marmalades were often stiff fruit pastes, closer to quince paste or fruit cheese. Plat’s instruction that the oranges should slice “like a hard egg” makes much more sense when we imagine a firm, sliceable citrus paste tucked inside the candied peel.

Historical Recipe

To preſerue Orenges after the Portugall faſhion. Take Orenges & coare them on the ſide and lay them in water, then boile them in fair water til they be tender, ſhift them in the boyling to take away their bitterneſſe, then take ſugar and boyle it to the height of ſirup as much as will couer them, and ſo put your Orenges into it, and that will make them take ſugar. If you haue 24. Orenges, beate 8. of them till they come to a paſte with a pounde of fine ſugar, then fill euery one of the other Orenges with the ſame, and ſo boile them again in your ſirup: then there will be marmelade of orenges with your orenges, & it will cut like an hard egge.

- Sir Hugh Plat, Delights for Ladies (1609)

Modernized Transcription

To preserve oranges after the Portugal fashion: core each orange on the side and soak them in water. Boil them in clean water until they are tender, changing the water during boiling to reduce their bitterness. Then boil sugar to a syrup, enough to cover the oranges, and put the oranges into it so they take sugar. If you have 24 oranges, beat 8 of them to a paste with a pound of fine sugar, then fill each of the remaining oranges with that paste. Boil them again in the syrup. Then there will be marmalade of oranges within your oranges, and it will cut like a hard egg.

Bitter Oranges vs. Sweet Oranges

If you can find them, Seville oranges, also sold as bitter oranges, sour oranges, marmalade oranges, or sometimes naranja agria, are the best choice for this recipe. They are more bitter than supermarket navel or Valencia oranges, but that bitterness is exactly what makes the preserve work. The sharpness balances the sugar and gives the finished confection a much more complex flavor.

Bitter oranges also behave better in the kitchen. Their peel is well suited to candying, and their higher pectin helps the marmalade filling set firmly. Sweet oranges can certainly be used, and I include a sweet-orange adaptation below, but they tend to produce a softer, juicier filling unless the pulp is drained and cooked down.

Factor	Seville / Bitter Oranges	Sweet Oranges
Historical fit	Best choice	Modern adaptation
Flavor	Bittersweet, complex, aromatic	Milder and sweeter
Pectin	Higher, firmer set	Lower, softer filling
Best use	Historical recreation and feast display	Accessible home version

Where to look: Seville or sour oranges are often seasonal, usually appearing in winter. Try Latin American groceries, Mediterranean or Middle Eastern markets, specialty produce shops, or online citrus growers. If you see “marmalade oranges,” those are usually exactly what you want.

Humoral and Feast Notes

In early modern food theory, oranges were often understood as cooling and drying, with bitter or sour oranges especially valued for cutting richness and stimulating appetite. This makes them a sensible banquet sweet after heavy meats, sauces, and rich dishes. The sugar, while luxurious, was also treated as useful in preservation and digestion, not merely as indulgence.

For a feast table, these oranges work beautifully as an entremet, subtlety, or banquet-course confection. They can sit among marchpane, comfits, candied peels, preserved fruits, wafers, or hippocras. They are especially effective because they do not immediately announce themselves as food. They invite the diner to ask: “Is that decoration?” And then the feast begins to talk back.

Renaissance Bolognese Sausages – Salsiccioni Bolognesi from a 1560 Carnivale Feast

Bolognese Sausages – Salsiccioni Bolognesi

Bolognese sausages served with chicken pinwheels as part of the Primo servitio posto in tavola, the first service from Domenico Romoli’s 1560 Carnivale feast.

These were the surprise champion of the first service. Of all the dishes placed on the table for the Primo servitio posto in tavola, the Bolognese sausages were the ones people fought over. The cold roasted crane-style chicken may have been the prestige dish in theory, but at our table the sausages staged a quiet little coup and vanished.

That reaction makes sense. These sausages are familiar enough to be comforting, but layered enough to make people stop and wonder what they are tasting. Pork, fat, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, rosewater, and cheese come together into something warm, subtle, and deeply savory. Nobody guessed that there was cheese in the sausage, and nobody could taste the rosewater directly, but everyone knew there was something more than pork happening.

This is exactly the sort of dish that makes Renaissance food so interesting. It is not strange for the sake of strangeness. It is rich, careful, elegant, and festive. A courtly sausage, if such a thing can be said without sounding ridiculous.

Why Bolognese?

The word “Bolognese” matters here. Bologna was already associated with fine pork products and sausage-making, and specifying Bolognese sausage likely signaled more than geography. It suggested a recognizable style: refined, carefully made, and worthy of a formal table.

Much as certain modern regional food names carry expectations of quality, “Bolognese” in a Renaissance feast menu may have told diners that these were not ordinary rustic sausages. They belonged to the world of urban craft, skilled butchery, and prestige foods. In one period-style description of Bolognese practice, the sausages are described as being made “for princes,” which is too wonderful a phrase to leave sitting quietly in the corner.

In other words, these are not merely pork tubes. These are pork tubes with credentials.

The Scappi Version: Courtly, Spiced, and Delicate

The main recipe used for this redaction comes from Bartolomeo Scappi’s Opera dell’arte del cucinare, Book II. Scappi’s sausage is not smoky or aggressively rustic. It is finely worked, warmly spiced, and softened with rosewater and, if desired, grated cheese. The cheese does not make the sausage taste cheesy. Instead, it gives depth, savoriness, and a richer mouthfeel.

The rosewater is especially interesting. Modern cooks often worry that rosewater will make savory food taste like perfume, but in this sausage it did not announce itself at all. I diluted the rosewater by half with plain water because modern rosewater can be strong. After the sausage mixture rested for a few days before cooking, no one could identify a floral flavor. My suspicion is that the rosewater functions partly as an aromatic liquid to help distribute the spices evenly through the meat.

📜 Period Italian and English Translation

Italian, Scappi, Opera, Book II	Faithful English Translation
Prendi carne magra di porco ben netta di nervi, & grassa buona nella sua proportione; pestala finemente con pepe, cannella, garofani, noce moscata, & un poco di zenzero; aggiungendovi sale quanto basta, & acqua rosata; et se vuoi farle più delicate, mettivi del formaggio grattugiato. Poi insaccale in budelli sottili, & falle cuocere in acqua, o rostirle alla graticola.	Take lean pork well cleaned of sinews, and good fat in proper proportion; pound it finely with pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and a little ginger; adding salt as needed, and rosewater. And if you wish to make them more delicate, add grated cheese. Then stuff them into thin casings, and cook them in water, or roast them on the grill.

A Bolognese Variant: Sausages for Princes

There is also a regional Bolognese-style sausage tradition that describes lean pork or veal, beaten very fine, seasoned with salt and pepper, stuffed into larger casings, made about the length of a hand, and dried in smoke. A richer immediate-use version could be made with half lean meat and half fat, with fennel added, though that version was not intended for keeping.

This distinction is useful. Scappi’s version is delicate and courtly, with rosewater, spice, and optional cheese. The Bolognese variant emphasizes regional practice, size, drying, and smoking. Together they suggest why “Bolognese” was worth naming on a feast menu: the word carried culinary weight.

📜 Period-Style Bolognese Reconstruction

Italian

English Translation

Salsicce bolognesi Se vuoi fare buone salsicce bolognesi, togli carne di porco o di vitello della coscia, senza nervi né grasso, et pestala quanto puoi. Aggiungi sale et pepe, et mescola bene. Poi togli budella grandi, nettale et lavale bene, et empile forte della carne, et falle lunghe quanto una mano, secondo l’uso di Bologna. Poi ponile ad asciugare al fumo. Et così le fanno per i principi. Et se vorrai, puoi farle più grasse con metà carne magra et metà grasso, et con buon finocchio, ma queste non sono da serbare.

Bolognese Sausages If you wish to make good Bolognese sausages, take pork or veal from the haunch, without sinew or fat, and beat it as much as you can. Add salt and pepper and mix well. Then take large intestines, clean and wash them well, and fill them firmly with the meat, making them the length of a hand, according to the custom of Bologna. Then set them to dry in smoke. Thus are they made for princes. And if you wish, you may make them fatter with half lean meat and half fat, adding good fennel, but those are not for keeping.

Humoral and Feast Context

These sausages make excellent sense in a first service. Pork is rich, fatty, and satisfying, but the warming spices transform it into something more refined. Pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger all bring heat and digestive stimulation. In humoral terms, this is food meant to wake the appetite and prepare the stomach for the courses to come.

That richness is balanced by the rest of the Primo servitio. Bitter chicory, dressed citron, sharp capers, carrot salad, cold roasted bird, and savory meats all work together. The capers are especially important because they appear repeatedly throughout the larger feast. They are not just garnish. They are little salty, acidic punctuation marks that cut through fat and keep the table lively.

This is one of the things I love about reconstructing an entire service rather than an isolated dish. You begin to see the rhythm of the table. Romoli is not simply listing foods. He is building contrast.

At Our Table

These sausages were the clear favorite of the first service. They were warm, subtle, and delicious. The spice was present, but not loud. It did not taste like modern breakfast sausage, nor did it taste like a sweet sausage. Instead, the flavor was courtly and layered: familiar pork, softened by fat and cheese, lifted by warm spices, and rounded in a way that made people keep reaching for more.

Nobody realized there was cheese in the sausage. Nobody tasted roses. But everyone knew there was something more than pork. That hidden richness is likely why the dish worked so well. The cheese gave savoriness without becoming obvious. The rosewater, diluted with water, helped carry the spices without turning the dish floral.

For this reconstruction, I included fennel, following the richer non-keeping Bolognese tradition described in period sources. The result felt especially harmonious with the warm spice blend and likely contributed to the sausage’s broad appeal at the table.

By the end of the meal, there were leftover pieces of the cold crane-style chicken and some chicory salad. There were no leftover sausages. That says everything.

No Casings? A Modern Kitchen Solution

Traditional sausage casings are ideal if you have them, but I did not use casings for this feast. Instead, I shaped the sausage mixture in plastic wrap, twisting the ends tightly to form compact logs. I placed the wrapped sausages in a shallow pan and gently simmered them until set. After poaching, I unwrapped them and finished them in a pan with a little oil to brown the outside.

This is not a period technique, but it is a practical and effective modern adaptation. It lets the cook make historical sausage without needing special equipment, casings, or a sausage stuffer. The result held its shape, sliced well, and was good enough that the platter emptied.

Cold Roasted Crane (Chicken Adaptation) – Domenico Romoli’s Carnivale Feast (1560)

Cold Roasted Crane (Chicken Adaptation) – Pollo Arrosto alla Maniera di Gru

Cold Roasted Crane, adapted with chicken: a period-style reconstruction for the Primo servitio posto in tavola from Domenico Romoli’s 1560 Carnivale banquet.

Originally prepared for the Carnivale Feast project. This dish belongs to the Primo servitio posto in tavola, the first service set upon the table in Domenico Romoli’s 1560 banquet plan. In the printed menu, the dish appears as grue arrosta fredda, or cold roasted crane. Since crane is neither practical nor appropriate for a modern kitchen, this version uses chicken while preserving the table logic, method, and service style of a large roasted bird served cool or cold as part of a Renaissance first course.

At first glance, “cold roasted crane” may sound like the sort of ingredient that sends modern cooks quietly backing away from the recipe. Yet that strangeness is part of its value. Crane was not everyday food. It belonged to the same world as swan, peacock, heron, capon, and other impressive birds that appeared on elite tables as signs of wealth, access, skill, and spectacle. A bird like crane was food, certainly, but it was also theater. It told the guests that this was not a household supper. This was a table laid for display.

For this reconstruction I used chicken, not because chicken is identical to crane, but because it allows the modern cook to reproduce the structure of the dish: a large bird, briefly boiled, roasted, cut into pieces, dressed with a saffron-colored onion and wine sauce, and served over softened bread. In that sense, the dish is not merely “roast chicken.” It is roast chicken wearing crane’s court clothes.

Why Crane?

Crane appears in medieval and Renaissance dining as one of the large birds associated with noble or courtly service. It was a prestige item, not a humble barnyard bird. Even where a full prescriptive Italian recipe has not been found in the sources I have available, the culinary treatment is not mysterious. Large birds were boiled, roasted, sauced, carved, and served according to the same family of techniques used for other game and domestic fowl.

This matters because historical cooking often requires us to distinguish between an exact ingredient and a period method. The crane is the prestigious ingredient. The method is the recoverable part: parboil, roast, sauce, cut, arrange, serve. Chicken cannot replicate the social status of crane, but it can preserve the practical and culinary logic of the dish.

How Was a Crane Carved?

One of the clearest reminders that crane belonged to formal table service comes not from an Italian recipe, but from an English carving manual. The Boke of Kervynge, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1508, gives specific instructions for carving crane:

“A crane syse the wynges fyrst & beware of the trumpe of his brest.”

In modern terms, the carver was instructed to take the wings first and to take care around the “trump” or central breast structure. This sort of instruction reminds us that large birds were not simply cut apart in the kitchen and carried out anonymously. They could be part of formal service, handled with specialized knowledge and presented in ways that showed refinement. The full text of The Boke of Kervynge may be read at Wikisource, and a digitized copy is also available through the Cambridge Digital Library.

Although this is an English source, not an Italian one, it is useful comparative evidence for late medieval and early Renaissance table culture. It shows that crane occupied a recognizable place among ceremonial birds, and that diners and servers understood it as something requiring proper handling.

The First Service: Cold Meat, Sharp Flavors, and Display

The Primo servitio posto in tavola was not a random scattering of dishes. It was a carefully arranged opening act, designed to delight the eye, stimulate the appetite, and set the tone for the feast to follow. Cold meats made sense in this setting. They could be prepared ahead, arranged attractively, and served alongside salads, relishes, preserved foods, sauces, and breads.

In this Carnivale first service, the cold roasted bird sits among bitter chicory salad, sweet-sour carrot salad, dressed citron, capers, cold pork testa, capon in sopromenti, and Bolognese sausages. The logic is beautifully balanced: bitter, sharp, rich, aromatic, salty, and sweet. The chicken provides a familiar savory center, while the onion, wine, saffron, and bread connect it to the more formal sauce-and-sop traditions of period dining.

That bread is important. To modern diners, sauce-soaked bread often reads as “soggy bread.” To a period diner, it could be part of the point. Bread was not just a side item. It absorbed broth, fat, wine, and spice. It became the edible foundation of the dish. In medieval and Renaissance cookery, sops were a well-established way to carry flavor and make sauce substantial.

Period-Style Reconstruction

I was unable to locate a prescriptive crane recipe in the 14th to 16th-century Italian culinary sources available to me. This reconstruction is therefore style-faithful rather than a direct transcription from Romoli. The method is based on period Italian culinary practice and service conventions for large birds: brief boiling, roasting, cutting into portions, simmering briefly in sauce, and arranging the meat with bread and sauce for service.

The source menu comes from Domenico Romoli’s La singolare dottrina, first printed in 1560. Digitized copies of Romoli’s work are available through Google Books and the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek.

📜 Period Italian, Style-Faithful Reconstruction

Italian

English Translation

Pollo arrosto alla maniera di gru Togli un pollo grande ben mondo, et fallo bollire alquanto in una pignatta grande. Poi mettilo allo spiedo, et rostiscilo bene, ma non ripieno. Togli una cipolla, et tagliala minuta, et friggila bene in sugna, et colorala con zafferano. Abbi pane tagliato et alquanto tostato, et vino bono, et fa’ bollire il vino con la cipolla. Taglia il pollo a pezzi, et fallo bollire brevemente nel detto vino. Nel brodo magro della salsa ammorbidisci il pane. In un tagliere grande ordina la salsa, le spezie et la carne con ordine, et alla fine metti sopra un poco del grasso della salsa, et servi.

Roast Chicken in the Manner of Crane Take a large chicken, well cleaned, and boil it briefly in a large pot. Then put it on the spit and roast it well, but not stuffed. Take an onion and cut it small, and fry it well in lard, coloring it with saffron. Have bread sliced and lightly toasted, and good wine; boil the wine with the onion. Cut the chicken into pieces and boil it briefly in the said wine. In the lean broth of the sauce soften the bread. On a large trencher arrange the sauce, spices, and meat in good order, and at the end put over some of the fat from the sauce, and serve.

Humoral and Dietary Context

From a period dietary perspective, this dish is more balanced than it first appears. Chicken was often treated as a gentler, more digestible meat than heavier red meats or strongly flavored game. Wine, onion, and saffron add warmth and aroma. The saffron also gives the sauce a golden color, making the dish visually richer and more appropriate for a feast table.

Served cold or cool, the roasted bird would not have felt as heavy as a hot roast brought straight from the fire. The wine and onion sauce stimulates the appetite, while the bread carries the liquid and fat. In the larger first service, this dish sits between richer meats and sharper accompaniments, helping explain why Romoli’s opening table feels so carefully composed rather than merely abundant.

At Our Table

This dish was good, but it was not the star of our table. I suspect that in period, a cold roasted crane would have been one of the prestige dishes of the service: visually impressive, formally carved, and understood as an elite bird. In our modern recreation, the chicken was pleasant and familiar, but it was overshadowed by the more exciting dishes around it. The capon in sopromenti was more interesting, and the Bolognese sausages were the dish people fought over.

The sops were the hardest sell. Sauce-soaked bread is not something most modern diners are used to eating, although I remember “gravy bread” as a treat when I was younger. For this feast, I used a rustic Italian loaf that I baked in the oven. Everyone tried the bread beneath the chicken, but the reaction was unanimous: to modern palates, it read as “just soggy bread.” This is useful information, not a failure. It shows one of the places where period texture expectations and modern preferences diverge sharply.

The onion sauce was also received as “just okay” at first. I prepared it simply, with onion, saffron, and wine, and did not add additional seasoning beyond the historical flavor base. Diners added their own salt and pepper and liked it better. I also reduced the sauce because it was initially too brothy to cling to the chicken, but the reduction made the flavor more intense. In the future, I might use a slightly different wine, season the sauce more confidently, or add a very small touch of sugar to soften the onion and wine. For my own portion, I used a mixture of lemon juice, water, and a small splash of white wine vinegar instead of the wine sauce.

That is one of the joys of recreating a feast rather than merely reading one. The menu may suggest that this dish should command attention, but the table decides for itself. In this case, the cold crane-style chicken served its role as a familiar anchor, but the surrounding dishes stole the applause.

Fette di Cedro Condite – Citron with Rose Vinegar, Sugar & Cinnamon (Carnivale Feast, Romoli 1560)

A Renaissance Citrus Dish from the Carnivale First Service

Published: May 22, 2026

A modern Carnivale feast interpretation of fette di cedro condite con aceto rosato, adapted with blood oranges, rosewater, lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, dates, and chocolate mint.

At first glance, fette di cedro condite con aceto rosato, zuccaro & cannella seems almost too simple to hold its own on a Renaissance feast table. Slices of citron. A little rose vinegar. Sugar. Cinnamon. Let it stand, then serve it in the first course.

And yet this small dish may be one of the quiet keys to understanding the whole opening service.

The Primo servitio posto in tavola, the first service placed on the table, was not shy. It included bitter salads, carrot salad, shredded prosciutto, cold testa, cold roast crane, capers, seasoned capons, and Bolognese sausages. In other words, it was rich, salty, fatty, spiced, and deeply meat-forward. A dish of perfumed citrus was not an afterthought. It was relief. It was contrast. It was brightness set deliberately among abundance.

The Carnivale Menu Context

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.

In English, this first service included white chicory salad, carrot salad, shredded prosciutto, cold testa, citron slices dressed with rose vinegar, sugar, and cinnamon, cold roast crane, capers, seasoned capons, and Bolognese sausages.

This is exactly where the citron belongs. It sits between the heavy and the sharp, the fatty and the fragrant. The service already contains several balancing elements: bitter chicory, sweet carrots, capers, rose vinegar, citrus, and lemon used elsewhere on the table. Renaissance menu design was not merely a parade of impressive dishes. It was culinary architecture. The cook built contrast into the meal so diners could keep eating, keep tasting, and keep being delighted.

That matters because a feast is not only a list of foods. It is pacing. A slice of perfumed citrus after pork, sausage, or cold capon wakes the mouth back up. It clears the palate without removing the sense of luxury. In this case, the citron dish acts almost like a bright little window cracked open in a room full of roasted, salted, and spiced meats.

Why Citrus Appeared on Renaissance Tables

Citrus fruits carried prestige in Renaissance food culture. They were tied to Mediterranean trade, elite gardens, medicinal use, and the pleasure of aroma as much as flavor. Modern cooks often think of citrus primarily as juice, but period cooks valued perfume, rind, bitterness, acidity, and visual drama.

Citron, or cedro, was especially prized. It is one of the older cultivated citrus fruits, with a thick aromatic rind and relatively little juice compared with modern oranges or lemons. It is not the same thing as the diced candied citron many people know from fruitcake, though that candied peel tradition comes from the same broad appreciation for citron’s fragrant rind.

On an elite table, citron brought more than flavor. It signaled access. It suggested refinement. It also offered a sensory contrast to rich meats, heavy sauces, and preserved foods. When dressed with rose vinegar, sugar, and cinnamon, citron became sweet, sharp, floral, and warm all at once.

What Is Rose Vinegar?

Rose vinegar is exactly the sort of ingredient that reminds us how differently historical cooks thought about flavor. It combines acidity with perfume. Rather than simply making a dish sour, it adds fragrance and elegance. In a period kitchen, roses belonged not only in gardens and perfumes, but also in syrups, waters, vinegars, conserves, and medicinal preparations.

In this recipe, rose vinegar gives the citron a floral sharpness. It would have softened the fruit’s bitterness, lifted its aroma, and made the dish feel more refined. The sugar moderates the acidity, while cinnamon adds warmth and spice.

For my feast, I did not use wine vinegar. Wine and wine vinegar can trigger migraines for me, so I made a practical substitution: rosewater with a splash of lemon juice. This preserved the two most important features of rose vinegar, floral fragrance and acidity, while making the dish something I could safely eat myself. Historical cooking is most meaningful when the table includes the cook, too.

Source Text

Original Italian	English Translation
Togli cedri maturi, et mondali bene della scorza grossa et dell’amaro. Tagliali in fette sottili. Metti sopra aceto rosato in poca quantità, zucchero quanto basta, et un poco di cannella pesta. Lasciali stare alquanto tempo, et servili nel primo servizio.	Take ripe citrons and clean them well of the thick peel and bitterness. Cut them into thin slices. Put over them a little rose vinegar, sugar as needed, and a little ground cinnamon. Let them stand for a short while, and serve them in the first service.

Authentic Recipe vs. Feast Adaptation

The period recipe calls for citron, rose vinegar, sugar, and cinnamon. That is the historical anchor of this post. It is the dish named in the Carnivale menu, and it belongs exactly where the menu places it: in the first service, among dishes that need brightness and contrast.

My modern Carnivale version used blood oranges because citron was not available. If I had been able to source citron, pomelo, or Oroblanco grapefruit easily, I would have considered those as substitutes because their structure is closer to citron. Blood oranges are juicier and softer than citron, but they were available, beautiful, and very effective in the same culinary role.

The goal was not to pretend that blood orange is citron. It is not. The goal was to preserve the function of the dish: bright citrus, floral acidity, sweetness, warm spice, and visual contrast in a meat-heavy first service.

For the feast, I used blood oranges with rosewater, a splash of lemon juice, sugar, a light sprinkle of cinnamon, dates, and a sprig of chocolate mint. The cinnamon softened into the blood orange juices rather than sitting harshly on top. The dates added a little richness, while the mint lifted the whole dish back into freshness.

The result landed somewhere between fruit salad, palate cleanser, and tiny jeweled luxury. Against a table of cold meats, capers, sausage, capon, and testa, it punched far above its weight.

What to Use When Citron Is Unavailable

Citron can be difficult to find in modern grocery stores. For a closer texture, I would look first for pomelo or Oroblanco grapefruit. Both offer a thicker structure and a less aggressively juicy character than oranges. A thick-peeled lemon can work in a small amount if the pith is carefully removed, though it will be sharper and more intense.

Blood oranges are not the closest historical substitute, but they are a beautiful feast adaptation. Their color alone makes them worthwhile on a banquet table. In this service, where visual contrast mattered, the deep red-orange slices looked dramatic beside pale meats, greens, and capers.

Capponi Sopramentati – Renaissance Spiced Capon Served Cold

Capons Salpamentati / Sopramentati in a Renaissance Carnivale First Service

Originally published: September 28, 2021, 12:19 PM
Updated: May 22, 2026

Capponi sopramentati, adapted as sliced chicken pinwheels with prosciutto, herbs, cheese, lemon, and Renaissance spices.

This is one of those recipes that keeps returning to my table.

I first prepared this dish during the COVID years, when SCA feasts had largely gone quiet in our area. We had not yet returned to the normal rhythm of events and feast halls, but I still wanted to cook period food for people I loved. So I made a small historical picnic lunch for close friends. That earlier lunch can be found here: Crown Tournament Chez Beauvisage Picnic Lunch.

The dish was a hit then, and it was a hit again when it appeared in my Renaissance Carnivale feast. I was delighted to find this preparation, or something very close to it, listed in a period banquet menu. There is a particular joy in being able to point to a historical menu and say, “Here it is. This belongs here.”

This version is not a strict reconstruction of Scappi’s whole stuffed capon. Instead, it is a practical feast-cook adaptation: chicken breast, prosciutto, herbs, cheese, spices, and lemon, served cold in neat slices. It is economical, elegant, make-ahead friendly, and especially useful in a meat-forward service where a little richly flavored poultry can go a long way.

The Carnivale Menu Context

This dish appeared in the Primo servitio posto in tavola, the first service placed on the table, in a Carnivale banquet menu:

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.

In English, this service included white chicory salad, carrot salad, shredded prosciutto, cold testa, citron slices dressed with rose vinegar, sugar, and cinnamon, cold roast crane, capers, seasoned capons, and Bolognese sausages.

That first service is rich, bright, acidic, salty, and deeply meat-forward. The cold capon belongs beautifully in that company. It offers a composed, spiced poultry dish that can be prepared ahead and served sliced among other cold meats, salads, preserved flavors, and sharp garnishes. The lemons, capers, rose vinegar, and citron are not decorative afterthoughts. They help balance the richness of the meats and keep the opening service from feeling heavy.

Testa di ruffolatto in gelatina served beside sliced caponi sopramenti pinwheels during the Carnivale first service. The pairing shows how cold prepared meats, spice, acid, and texture worked together on the Renaissance table.

A Note on Salpamentati vs. Sopramentati

The Carnivale menu lists capponi salpamentati. In the digitized period text, the word can be easy to misread as falpamentati, because early printed books often use the long s, which resembles an f to modern eyes. Read as modern type, the word is best understood as salpamentati.

Bartolomeo Scappi’s related recipe, however, is titled cappon sopramentato. Are these precisely the same term? I cannot say that with absolute certainty. Historical spelling and culinary vocabulary are often flexible, and menus may use terms differently than recipe headings. What I can say is that the culinary context is very close: a capon preparation, heavily seasoned, suitable for cold service, and appropriate to a formal first service.

For this reconstruction, I chose Scappi’s detailed recipe for cappon sopramentato as the closest surviving practical guide to the capponi salpamentati named in the Carnivale menu.

Source Text: Scappi’s Capon Recipes

The following recipes are from Bartolomeo Scappi’s Opera dell’arte del cucinare (1570), translated by Terence Scully in The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570): The Art and Craft of a Master Cook, p. 198.

122. To boil a boneless capon

When the capon has been prepared in either of the above ways (skinned and deboned), get the flesh from the breast of another uncooked capon, and a pound of prosciutto and pork fat together, and beat those finely with knives, adding in half an ounce of common spices, a handful of finely chopped herbs, two egg yolks and two ounces of grated cheese. Stuff the capon with that mixture, pushing it into the wings and thighs; sew it up so the stuffing cannot come out, with its wings and thighs trussed, put the capon into an ample earthenware or copper pot with cold water and put that on the fire.

123. To boil and prepare the capon “sopramentato”

When the capon is plucked and drawn, whether stuffed or empty, boil it in a meat broth or else in water with a piece of prosciutto and crushed pepper. When it is done, take it out of the broth and let it drain. Then make several slashes across the thighs, body, and breast. Sprinkle it all over, especially in the slashes, with a mixture of sugar, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and fennel flour. Let it cool. When you wish to serve it, do so with it cold, with cut-up lemons over it. Before sprinkling it, you can also splash it with rose vinegar.

Authentic Recipe vs. Modern Feast Adaptation

The period recipe calls for a whole capon, optionally stuffed with another capon breast, prosciutto, pork fat, herbs, egg yolks, cheese, and common spices. That is a luxurious preparation, and exactly the sort of thing one expects from a high-status Renaissance kitchen.

My modern feast version is more modest and practical. Rather than stuffing a whole bird, I butterfly chicken breast, season it, add prosciutto and a cheese-herb mixture, roll it into pinwheels, and poach or bake it. For the Carnivale feast, I used a single butterflied chicken breast and a single slice of prosciutto to feed several diners because the rest of the service was already very meat-forward.

This is not a perfect one-to-one reconstruction. It is an interpretation. But it preserves the heart of the dish: seasoned poultry, prosciutto, aromatic spices, herbs, cheese, lemon, and cold service. More importantly, it is delicious and has become a favorite among those who have eaten it.

Common Sauce Spices

First, you will need to put together your common spices. This is delicious, and I use it quite a bit in my cooking. I have sometimes substituted cubebs and long pepper for the pepper and ginger to create a spicier blend.

Rupert de Nola’s Libre del Coch (about 1529) gives instructions for Common Sauce Spices. Roughly translated, the instructions are:

Cinnamon three parts; cloves two parts; one piece ginger; pepper a part; some dry coriander well ground; a little saffron. Be all well ground and sifted.

Common Sauce Spices, Amended

• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons cloves
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dry coriander, ground
• Pinch of saffron

Testa di Ruffolatto Fredda – Cold Pressed Young Boar in Gelée (Carnivale Feast)

Published: May 21, 2026

Testa di Ruffolatto Fredda - Cold Pressed Young Boar in Gelée (Carnivale Feast)

Testa di Ruffolatto Fredda, or cold young boar head meat, was one of the most surprising dishes served during the Carnivale Feast. It appeared on the table cold, sliced, and set in its own natural jelly. For many modern diners, the texture was unfamiliar at first. The flavor, however, won them over completely.

This was not a dish most of us eat regularly. Cold meat suspended in savory gelée can feel strange to modern palates accustomed to sliced deli meats, pâtés, or pulled pork. Yet by the end of the feast, there was none left. The turning point came when someone spread a slice onto warm bread, allowing the natural jelly to melt into it. Then someone else added capers. After that, everyone had to try it.

Testa di Ruffolatto Fredda served alongside caponi sopramenti pinwheels during the Carnivale Feast. Though unfamiliar in texture to many modern diners, the rich flavor quickly won people over.

The Original Source

This reconstruction draws on an Italian jelly-meat recipe from Libro di cucina / Libro per cuoco, a 14th/15th-century Italian culinary text translated by Louise Smithson. The recipe is not a modern head cheese recipe, but it gives us a clear period method for producing a meat jelly from collagen-rich cuts and spiced broth.

XXXI - Jelly of whatever meat. If you want to make a good jelly of any meat: of meat of pork of the woods (boar), take ears and feet and each thing, and capons and partridge, and thrush, and hare, and roebuck (venison), and pheasant, take these things and put these to the fire in part water and part vinegar and when they are boiled and well skimmed, put spices and pepper and cinnamon and ginger and saffron not beaten together, that you choose is enough with the meat. And when the meat it is enough cooked pull it out, until remains the ears and the feet until it is of enough substance. When it is pulled all these things from, pulverize all the meat and spices, and take the jelly from the fire and let it stand, and take saffron and temper with jelly and place the meat into a vessel that you want that is lined with bay leaves and put over this jelly and strain the jelly and saffron with wool (through a cloth). When it is strained over the meat, take sweet spices and mix with this same jelly and pour it above, it should be colored and good yellow, and put with to boil from that which is come together, and it will be a good jelly.

The method is wonderfully practical: cook collagen-rich meats in water and vinegar, skim carefully, season with spices, strain the broth, arrange the meat in a vessel, and allow the natural jelly to set. The result is a cold, sliceable meat dish suitable for display and service.

What Is a Ruffolatto?

At first, the word ruffolatto raised questions. It can look obscure to a modern reader, and it is easy to confuse this dish with other animal-head preparations from the same feast. However, the Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana identifies rufalotto, ruffolatto, and rufolatto as a young wild boar, specifically a cinghiale di pochi mesi, or a wild boar of only a few months.

This matters. The dish is not goat. It is associated with young wild boar, a prestigious game animal and an appropriate choice for a lavish Carnival banquet before the restrictions of Lent. Young boar would have offered tender meat, rich flavor, and excellent natural gelatin.

Because young wild boar is difficult to source for a modern kitchen, this feast reconstruction used country-style pork ribs. They were inexpensive, available, flavorful, and, most importantly, produced an excellent natural jelly without added gelatin.

A Cold Dish for a Banquet Table

Modern diners often imagine historical feasts as a parade of hot dishes brought steaming from the kitchen. In reality, many Renaissance banquet foods were served cool, cold, or temperate. Salads, preserved fruits, sliced meats, cured meats, jellied preparations, and composed dishes could be prepared ahead, arranged carefully, and served from the sideboard or brought to the table as part of a larger service.

Testa di Ruffolatto Fredda fits that logic beautifully. It was not a hurried dish. It required time, patience, careful skimming, cooling, and setting. Once prepared, it could be sliced and arranged neatly for the table, making it ideal for a feast with many dishes served together.

Nose-to-Tail Cooking and Banquet Luxury

To modern ears, head meat and jellied pork may sound humble or even intimidating. In historical kitchens, however, collagen-rich cuts were valuable. Feet, ears, heads, skin, bones, and joints were not waste. They were the source of texture, body, richness, and natural gelée.

This was not merely survival food. In an elite context, a well-made meat jelly showed skill. The broth needed to be skimmed cleanly, the meat cooked until tender, the seasoning balanced, and the final dish set firmly enough to slice. It was thrift and luxury at the same time, the sort of kitchen alchemy historical cooks understood deeply.

Why All the Skimming?

One of the least glamorous but most important parts of the process was skimming the pot during the first stage of cooking. As the pork slowly heated, foam rose to the surface. This is normal. It is made up of coagulated proteins and impurities released from the meat.

Removing that foam helped produce a cleaner broth and a clearer finished jelly. The original recipe specifically calls for the meat to be “well skimmed,” and this turned out to be excellent advice. For a cold sliced dish, appearance matters. A well-skimmed broth gives the finished gelée a cleaner flavor and a better look.

Why It Set Without Gelatin

One of the surprises of this reconstruction was that no added gelatin was needed. The country-style ribs produced enough natural collagen to set the broth firmly on their own.

The process was simple but slow. The pork was cooked low and slow until the meat fell from the bones. The meat was strained from the broth, then the broth was allowed to rest overnight so the fat could rise and harden. Once the fat cap was removed, the broth was reheated until it melted, poured over the shredded meat in a loaf pan, and chilled until firm.

This is the heart of traditional aspic cookery: collagen, time, and cooling. No packet of gelatin. No modern shortcut. Just patient cooking and a broth rich enough to become its own structure.

The French Connection

If you have eaten French charcuterie, this dish may feel more familiar than it first sounds. It belongs to the same broad family as fromage de tête, English brawn, German Sülze, and other European jellied or pressed meats. These dishes differ by region and seasoning, but they share the same essential idea: tender cooked meat held together by a savory natural gel.

That comparison helped me understand the dish at table. The sliced testa was not strange once treated as charcuterie. It wanted bread. It wanted something sharp. It wanted the capers that were already part of the first service.

The Surprise of the Table

I will admit that I was surprised by how well this dish was received. This is not something most of us normally eat, and the mouthfeel was unfamiliar to several diners. Served cold, the gelée gives the meat a texture somewhere between terrine, aspic, and rich pork spread.

The flavor, however, was excellent: deeply porky, gently spiced, savory, and comforting. Once someone spread it on warm bread and the gel melted into the crumb, the dish suddenly made sense. Then someone added capers, bringing salt and acidity to the rich pork, and everyone wanted to try it.

Bread had been baked for the sops beneath the crane, represented at feast by chicken, rather than specifically for the testa. Serving warm bread with the cold meat was not the strictest interpretation of the original service. Still, fresh bread had been baked, and refusing to serve it while its ghost lingered through the hall would have been a very naughty thing indeed.

By the end of the feast, there was none left. For a dish many diners approached with caution, that felt like high praise.

How Would This Have Been Eaten?

A dish like this would most likely have been served cold and sliced, as it was at the feast. Diners could cut small portions with a knife and eat them alongside other dishes from the same service. In a banquet setting, foods were not always experienced in isolation. A bite of rich meat might be followed by capers, bitter greens, preserved citron, bread, or another contrasting flavor from the table.

The capers were not written into the testa recipe, but they were present in the same service and made excellent sense. Sharp, salty, acidic foods balance rich meats beautifully. In that sense, the diners who added capers were participating in the same flavor logic that made Renaissance banquet tables so compelling.

Humoral Notes

In humoral thinking, rich meats and gelatinous broths were often associated with nourishment and strength. A dish like this would have been substantial, warming, and sustaining, especially when made from a young animal and served as part of a lavish pre-Lenten feast.

The vinegar in the cooking liquid and the sharpness of accompaniments such as capers helped balance the richness of the meat. That balance between fat and acid, rich and sharp, soft and bright, is part of why the dish worked so well for modern diners too.

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.