Tag: History

New York Gingerbread, 1899

Today’s recipe is an interesting 19th century take on a classic: Gingerbread. Unlike most traditional gingerbread that is dense, dark, and heavy on ginger, this “New York” Gingerbread is soft and fluffy and has subtler flavors. When we think of gingerbread we tend to imagine little crunchy cookies shaped into little men for the Christmas…

Read More

Honey Crispels

If you thought deep-fried sweets like funnel cakes, elephant ears/beaver tails and doughnuts were modern inventions for the county fair, think again. Fried pastries have been around since ancient Egypt and China. The Romans ate something called scriblita, a fried pastry dough. Fried doughs were common throughout Asia, the Middle East and Europe in various…

Read More

Italian Blackberry Sauce, c. 1464

There is no shortage of 15th century Italian recipes thanks to Maestro Martino de Rossi, a well known and influential “celebrity” chef who worked in some of the greatest kitchens of late Medieval/Renaissance Italy. In 1464/65 he wrote Libro de Arte Coquinaria (The Art of Cooking), which is widely considered to be the first modern…

Read More

Apple Muse: an Ancient Apple Pottage

Apple Muse was an extremely popular medieval dessert, likely enjoyed in some form at every level of society due to the availability of the three core ingredients. There are many versions of this recipe found in a variety of manuscripts but often under different names: Appylmoes, apulmos, appillinose, etc. All versions I’ve found call for apples,…

Read More