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82-16 RECIPE FOR A BANQUET
How many times have you given a dinner party and agonized over the music you would serve your guests during each course—Gregorian chant with the hors d'oeuvres, perhaps—little knowing that there was a book which could help you with that very subject, provided, of course, that you have the budget of a Duke and are accustomed to entertaining 50-odd guests, each one with the appetite of a blue whale!
In 1549, Cristoforo da Messisbugo, a steward of the d’Este family of Ferrara, published detailed descriptions of ten banquets, three lunches, and a soiree which he himself had organized over the preceding 20 years. He prints these not merely as documents glorifying the events (which they do), but as guides for equally ambitious hosts, and one of his messages is that appropriate music must be chosen for each course of the dinner. Messisbugo must have convinced somebody, because his book went through 15 editions, the last edition in the third decade of the 17th century. On today's Micrologus, I will be reading some of the dishes which comprise just a few of the courses which Messisbugo describes. Almost all are from a single event:
A banquet given on Saturday, May 20, 1529, by Ippolito d’Este, Archbishop of Milan, for his brother Ercole d’Este, Duke of Chartres (later Duke of Ferrara), his brother's wife, Renée de France, Francesco d'Este, and various other lords, ladies, and gentlemen, fifty-four in all.
Some of the dishes may sound unpalatable to us today, but I expect that others will send the more adventurous cooks scurrying to the kitchen, inspired to an act of mouth-watering recreation:
When the guests had gathered, they went into the garden, where an elaborately decorated table had been prepared. On the left side of the garden was a bower under which the musicians sat and played throughout the meal. They began, naturally, with:
Hors d'oeuvres
Marzipan biscuits
Asparagas salad
Anchovy salad
Pastries filled with caviar
Tuna stomachs, pickled in brine
Marinated catfish
Then came the real first course:
100 hard-boiled eggs, split and stuffed and served with a french sauce
Sturgeon's milk, pike's spleen and other seafood delicacies, fried and garnished with orange, cinnamon and sugar
A white soup, called diamond soup
Fluffy Catalan pancakes
Small fried fish from the Po river
and during this first course trombones and cornetti played.
[MUSIC]
During the sixth course, there was:
Loin of veal, roasted, with cherry sauce
Peacocks roasted on a spit
Deer meat, covered with lemons and with red sauce in honor of the Most Reverend Archbishop
Wild boar in dark broth sprinkled with almond slivers
Little pastries stuffed with meringue, eggs, cheese and sugar
Marinated lake trout, served hot
104 Mediterranean Bream fish, grilled, with leeks and small onions, sauteed in butter, and topped with spices
And during this sixth course, Rozanti and five companions and two ladies sang songs and madrigals and they went around the table debating in dialect about rustic things.
[MUSIC]
During the seventh course there were:
Fat kidneys in dark wine broth, with almond pieces
Pike fried In Spanish sauce
Fried shad-fish, covered with sugar and cinnamon
Raisin soup
Marinated giant catfish, served hot
Omelettes with fresh caviar
Various kinds of German pastry, filled with marzipan and fried
Pies made with vegetables, eggs, sugar and white wine
And during this seventh course, a pipe and tabor player of Renée de France came out of the bower with couples who danced around the table.
[MUSIC]
During the eleventh course, there were:
Giant trout tails, fried
Sturgeon boiled, German style, in white wine and orange juice
Florentine egg pies, filled with raisins and pine-nuts, and dusted with sugar and cinnamon
Venetian cuttlefish stew
French-style eggs
Fried sparrows with oranges
And during this eleventh course, from out of the bower came a richly dressed young lady who played and sang to the lute superbly well.
[MUSIC]
During the thirteenth course, there were:
French-style pastries with carp
60 stuffed pastries, 30 with cracked wheat and 30 with eggs and cheese in meringue
Fish from the fountains, and lobster, shelled and fried
Creamed spinach over slices of bread
A fine ragout
Little cakes with cream
Turtle, lightly fried with a special sauce
And during this thirteenth course viols played.
[MUSIC]
During the sixteenth course, there were:
Little pastries made with large cherries
Italian cream pies
Pastries made with large dates
Clear gelatin in the french style
500 oysters, fried with a twist of lemon
Fresh bean pastries, with egg yolks and fresh cheese cut into curls
Sweet pastry in the form of stuffed ring cakes
Stewed prunes
And during this sixteenth course, four French singers sang embellished chansons.
[MUSIC]
During the seventeenth course, there were:
Fresh beans
Piacenza and Marzolino cheeses
Cherries
60 artichokes
Chestnuts in roses
Buttermilk and herbs, with candied aniseed and whipped cream
And during this seventeenth and last course, and while the guests washed their hands with perfumed water, Alfonso della Viola conducted a composition with voices, viols, lutes, trombone, recorder and many other instruments. It was very well concerted and thought by everyone to have been the best thing they had yet heard.
[MUSIC]
After this last official course there was dessert, including one confection of cinnamon pine-nuts, pistachio nuts, melon seeds, and aniseed, all mixed together and coated with white sugar.
The very last dish was indeed a useful one: 100 perfumed toothpicks, with white napkins.
The Archbishop then gave a gift to each of his guests, and while the gifts were being distributed, four flutes played.
[MUSIC]
After the Archbishop had given gifts to all his guests, and as the clock struck five, the shawms started up and twenty-four musicians came out of the bower and danced a most beautiful Moresca, after which the guests went home.
[MUSIC]
The inspiration for this program came from an article by Howard Mayer Brown, entitled: “A Cook's Tour of Ferrara in 1529.” More information on the pageantry of Medieval and Renaissance banquets, along with a few recipes, can be found in the book Fabulous Feasts: Medieval Cookery and Ceremony by Madeline Pelner Cosman. Actual cookbooks with recipes for many of these delicacies include: To the King’s Taste and To the Queen’s Taste, both available from Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Pleyn Delight: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks, from the University of Toronto Press.
Series
Micrologus
Episode
Recipe for a Banquet
Producing Organization
CWRU
Contributing Organization
Ross W. Duffin (Pasadena, California)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip-4ca0940effb
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Description
Episode Description
How many times have you given a dinner party and agonized over the music you would serve your guests during each course—Gregorian chant with the hors d'oeuvres, perhaps—little knowing that there was a book which could help you with that very subject, provided, of course, that you have the budget of a Duke and are accustomed to entertaining 50-odd guests, each one with the appetite of a blue whale! In 1549, Cristoforo da Messisbugo, a steward of the d’Este family of Ferrara, published detailed descriptions of ten banquets, three lunches, and a soiree which he himself had organized over the preceding 20 years. He prints these not merely as documents glorifying the events (which they do), but as guides for equally ambitious hosts, and one of his messages is that appropriate music must be chosen for each course of the dinner. Messisbugo must have convinced somebody, because his book went through 15 editions, the last edition in the third decade of the 17th century. On today's Micrologus, I will be reading some of the dishes which comprise just a few of the courses which Messisbugo describes. Almost all are from a single event: A banquet given on Saturday, May 20, 1529, by Ippolito d’Este, Archbishop of Milan, for his brother Ercole d’Este, Duke of Chartres (later Duke of Ferrara), his brother's wife, Renée de France, Francesco d'Este, and various other lords, ladies, and gentlemen, fifty-four in all.
Segment Description
"Pass'e mezzo" by Mainerio, Giorgio (S-37524) | "Zorzi" by Anonymous (H-71326) | "La rocha el fuso" by Anonymous (H-71326) | "O bene mio" by Willaert, Adrian (Telefunken 6.35052) | "Constant Billy" by Anonymous (private issue) | "Madonna qual certezzo" by Willaert, Adrian (L'Oiseau-Lyre 12 BB 203-6) | "Madonna qual certezzo" by Barberiis, Melchoir (L'Oiseau-Lyre 12 BB 203-6) | "Ricercare" by Tiburtino, Giuliano (L'Oiseau-Lyre 12 BB 203-6) | "Allons, allons gay" by Willaert, Adrian (MMG 1104) | "La, la, la, je ne l'ose" by Certon, Pierre (MMG 1104) | "Coppia gentil" by Malvezzi, Cristofano (EMI IC 165-30 114/15) | "Amour me poingt" by Sermisy, Claudin de (SBZ-3810) | "Chi passa" by Anonymous (S-60361)
Created Date
1982
Asset type
Episode
Genres
Talk Show
Topics
History
Music
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:28:10.920
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Credits
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Host: Duffin, Ross
Producing Organization: CWRU
AAPB Contributor Holdings
Ross W. Duffin
Identifier: cpb-aacip-da16b098560 (Filename)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
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Citations
Chicago: “Micrologus; Recipe for a Banquet,” 1982, Ross W. Duffin, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-4ca0940effb.
MLA: “Micrologus; Recipe for a Banquet.” 1982. Ross W. Duffin, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-4ca0940effb>.
APA: Micrologus; Recipe for a Banquet. Boston, MA: Ross W. Duffin, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-4ca0940effb