Saturday 14 June 2014

Doctor's orders

To make a concentrate (broth) of capon

Take a plump capon that is middle aged [i.e. between a year and eighteen months] not force-fed, not too young and not decrepit, because the young one lacks substance and the overly old one will be too tough and take too long to make a broth...The capon should be freshly slaughtered, because the longer it has been dead, the less strength the concentrate will have. Once the capon has been gutted, cut into small pieces. It will be better if its throat has been cut rather than its neck wrung, because its meat will stay whiter. And if you can do it without washing it, that would be better, though to make it cleaner and more delicate, wash it once without wringing it out. Place the little pieces into a glazed earthenware pot that does not smell and cover with four fingers of water. Boil it on a low fire and skim throughly. Once skimmed,  put an earthenware cover onto the pot, sealing it with dough all around so no vapour escapes. Then place the pot on the coals away from the flames, with a brick or another weight on top of the cover so the lid does not lift. Simmer slowly for around three hours, depending on the age of the chicken, until it has reduced by two-thirds. To be certain (about the timing) and without having to uncover the pot many times, put the chicken's feet into another pot and boil them too in water with the pot well-sealed. When the feet are cooked, then the broth will be well reduced and ready.  Put it through a filter or strainer. Give it for drinking with sugar or other substances as prescribed by the Physician.

This recipe is taken from Book VI of Bartolomeo Scappi's Opera (1570) which deals with food for convalescents. Scappi had reached the pinnacle of his profession as the pope's personal cook. Yet throughout Book VI, he is painstakingly careful to show his recipes follow doctor's orders; for "court physicians...alone had the authority and the responsibility to prescribe what should be consumed by the truly sick" (Terence Scully).  Scappi even tells us that the pope's physician, Federigo Donati, could testify that these preparations had been tried and tested (esperimentade) on many signori. Within the recipes, repeated reference is made to the Physician determining whether to add or exclude certain ingredients. 

According to medical tradition, rich concentrated capon or chicken broths were prescribed when physicians wished to restore the lagging strength of the sick, the elderly and women in childbirth.  


Complexion or temperament was the individual balance of the qualities of hot, cold, wet and dry resulting from the mixture of elements in the body. All foods were variously classified as relatively hot, cold, wet and dry and so to eat right was to select foods matched to a person's individual complexion or which could temper any imbalance. To eat right involved calibrating the right combinations of foods in in the right amounts at the right time, taking into account other factors such as age, season and exercise taken.  


The physician Castor Durante, who practiced in Rome, describes capon as highly nutritious, "perfectly temperate in all qualities",  agreeable for "all complexions" and preferable to all other meats because it "generates perfect blood and balances all the humours". Capon, he says, was good for all ages and all seasons. 


Actual recipes and what physicians thought should be eaten are often at total variance with each other. But not here. Scappi follows medical advice in offering capon to recovering patients in its most concentrated and easily digestible form; a restorative drink, to be supped by those too weak to fully digest even the lightest foods.   The aging cardinal Pietro Bembo was dosed by Scappi with a distilled concentrate of capon. Here his recipe closely resembles the method outlined in an official printed pharmacopoeia, the Ricettario Fiorentino,  with the capon meat suspended by little (silk) threads in a sealed glass flask. The key point about Scappi's recipes for convalescents is that he expected physicians to tailor these preparations to match individual complexions--sugar or other ingredients were added according to the doctor's individual prescription. 


There is no indication that Scappi was familiar with learned medical tracts and he never tries to explain why these broths worked. But the value of such restoratives was already widely diffused in popular culture. Ulisse Aldrovandi noted 
"Our (Milanese) women pound up a pullet with its bones and cook it in its own broth until it is reduced to a very small quantity and acquires the consistency of a white pap; this they give to patients with excellent results".  Scipione Mercurio observed that in Venice "at the start of almost any illness, people immediately resort to a restorative--an essence of distilled chicken".  

 




No comments:

Post a Comment