Lecture 15: A Renaissance in the Kitchen
on the heavens and the afterlife) meant that everyday topics such as
maintaining a household, cooking a healthy meal, and throwing a
banquet became serious topics worthy of study.Platina’s Cookbook
The fi rst printed cookbook, De Honesta Voluptate by Bartolomeo
Platina (originally Bartolomeo Sacchi), fi rst appeared around 1470
in Rome. It is actually two books uncomfortably stuffed together.
The recipes are borrowed from Martino of Como, who was a
professional chef for Cardinal Trevisan, who wrote a cookbook that
circulated in manuscript in the early 15th century. The cookbook is about natural history (what we would now
consider biology) and dietary medicine. Platina offers a way for
readers to enjoy themselves at the table and observe some dietary
rules and stay healthy. Thus, he recommends the classical ideal of
moderation, or the balance of pleasure and health. He also offers
guidelines on how to strike the balance and maintain it year round. Martino’s cookbook, which is really a late medieval cookbook,
features the use of sugar and spices and sweet-and-sour sauces, but
Martino was innovative in several ways. There is also the tendency
to present individual ingredients whole rather than pounded up and
disguised, as medieval cooks were so fond of doing. Probably most
important is the heavy emphasis on vegetables, which he treats as
dishes in their own right and offers all sorts of interesting recipes. For Platina’s entries, he typically quotes Pliny or some Roman
agricultural writer and offers a bit on how they were valued in ancient
times. The cookbook is primarily a piece of humanist scholarship,
so Platina also tells you about each food’s medicinal properties, how
easily it’s digested, and what kinds of humors it may provoke.Ficino’s Cookbook
In Florence, the birthplace of humanism, there was a particular
thinker named Marsilio Ficino who represented a late phase of
Renaissance humanism. He was about the same age as Platina,