Today Mardi Gras and Carnival festivals can get pretty raucous but they ain't
nothing compared to how they tore it up in the Middle Ages.
So to party like it's 1399 we're making ravioli for a meat day from 15th century Italy.
So thank you to my Patreon patrons for continuing to support this channel and
for keeping me inspired with wonderful suggestions like Medieval ravioli
this time on Tasting History.
Mardi Gras literally fat Tuesday is just that. It is the last day before Lent
that you can go ahead and get fat by eating or drinking the fat.
You were going to drink the fat.
Specifically fat from animals: milk, cheese, eggs, butter
and of course meat, and that's actually probably where the term Carnival comes from.
Either from carne levare meaning remove meat or carne vale a farewell to meat,
and with that in mind any Medieval cook worth his butter would be looking for
a cheese, egg, and meat-filled dish to make the most of their Mardi Gras.
Like this one from the 15th century Italian cookbook
'Libro de arte Coquinaria' by maestro Martino da Como. "Ravioli for meat days. To make 10 portions:
take a half pound of aged cheese and a little of another fatty cheese
and a pound of fatty pork belly or veal breast boiled until it falls apart;
then chop it well and take some nice well chopped herbs, and pepper, cloves and ginger
and it would taste even better if you add ground breast of capon.
Mix all these together.
Then make a thin sheet of pasta and stuff the mixture inside, as for other ravioli.
These ravioli should not be larger than a half chestnut.
Cook them in capon broth or good meat broth made yellow with saffron when it boils
Let them boil for the time it takes to say two Pater Noster.
Then serve topped with grated cheese and sweet spices mixed together.
Similar ravioli can be made with breast of pheasant partridge or other birds.
Now there's a lot to love about this recipe but I think my favorite thing is the cook time. That
he says to boil it for the length that it takes to say two Pater Noster or the Lord's Prayer.
You don't find that too often in modern cookbooks.
So for this recipe what you'll need is: two cups or 200 grams of freshly grated parmesan cheese,
plus more for topping. A half cup or 110 grams of ricotta, 10 ounces or 280 grams of pork
belly or fatty veal, six ounces or 170 grams of boiled or roasted chicken breast shredded up,
six tablespoons of chopped herbs, and it's really up to you which herbs you want to use.
I used oregano, sage, and tarragon. A half teaspoon of black pepper or long pepper,
an eighth teaspoon of cloves, a quarter teaspoon of ginger, and a mixture of sweet spices.
This was often called powder douce or sweet powder,
and really it depended on who the chef was-
what was in this mixture. Sometimes it had sugar, sometimes not.
Many of the other ingredients were clove, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, so I'm using a
little bit of everything. Then you'll need two quarts or two liters of meat, or chicken broth,
a pinch of saffron threads, and for the pasta two and a half cups or 300 grams of pastry flour.
All-purpose works too and three large eggs.
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So first boil the pork belly in water for about an hour and a half or until it's very soft.
Then chop it up small. Now it'll do if you just chop everything really,
really fine but it's better if you kind of grind it up like in a
food processor. It just makes it much easier to make the ravioli later on.
So add the pork and the chicken breast to the food processor, and then the parmesan
and ricotta cheese, and then finally the chopped herbs, black pepper, cloves, and ginger
and blend everything until it's like a paste.
Then set the filling aside while you make the pasta dough.
Pour the flour onto a countertop and create a well in the middle.
Then crack the eggs into the well and using your hands whisk the eggs up.
Then just a little at a time start incorporating the flour.
Keep working it until you have a nice paste to come together
and then start kneading the dough for about 10 to 15 minutes or until it's nice and smooth.
Now you might not use all of the flour, you just don't want this to be a dry dough but
you also don't want it to be a sticky dough so just use as much as you need
to get a nice smooth dough. Then set it aside and cover it for about 20 minutes.
Once the dough is rested take about a fifth of the dough and roll it out.
Now if you have a rolling pin you can do this with a rolling pin. It is harder
than using a pasta machine but either one will work. Essentially the process is the same.
With the pasta roller you want to start with the widest setting
rolling it smooth and then fold it into thirds like an envelope and roll it out again.
No matter what you're using do this four or five times before rolling it as thin as possible.
With a pasta roller just keep rolling it out each time
lowering the width of the pasta. Now there are lots of ways to
shape your ravioli. This is just one that you can do without using a ravioli tray.
So lay the strip of pasta out onto a floured surface making sure not
to get any of the flour onto the top side of the pasta.
Semolina flour works really well for this. Then spoon about a teaspoon of filling about
an inch and a half separated down the center of the pasta.
Then fold the pasta over the filling and gently press around each one to seal it.
Then cut out the ravioli making sure they are well sealed and set them on a dish.
Then take another fifth of the pasta dough and do the same thing.
Now you don't want to roll out all the pasta dough and then go on to making the ravioli
because the dough will dry out before you're done and it's going to be really hard to work with, so
you got to kind of go back and forth. It's not a quick process. It does take some time but we have
plenty of it because I'm about to tell you what it was like to go to Carnival in Medieval Europe.
Now the origin of Carnival is really up for debate.
Some scholars believe that it grew out of the pagan festivals
that happened to take place around the same time of year
but there is no concrete evidence for that, but in 743 at the Synod of Leptines
they took inventory of all the pagan practices that were still observed
and there were definitely some similarities between
the old pagan practices and the Medieval Carnival.
They made special note of de spurcalibus in februario, debauchery in February.
"The women disguise themselves as men and the men as women;
others, putting on skins and horns, transform themselves into beasts;
all run through the street, howling, leaping and coming a thousand extravagances ."
Sounds like a blast to me and not that different from the later celebrations.
Now Carnival or the weeks leading up to Ash Wednesday did take different forms
in different parts of Europe but they all tended to be rather raucous and gluttonous.
In England it became known as shrovetide and on shrove Tuesday they celebrated by
making pancakes in an effort to use up the last of the butter eggs and milk.
Similarly in Eastern Orthodox countries they celebrated Maslenitsa
which has been celebrated since the 2nd century. They too made pancakes and ate
lots of cheese while participating in sleigh rides and snowball fights.
In many parts of Catholic Europe Carnival was celebrated all the way
from the end of Christmas until Lent.
In France it kicked off with the Feast of Fools which was celebrated either on New Year's day
or Epiphany which was January 6th and it was the Medieval version of
opposite day. All of the rules of polite society were out the door that day.
The poor would boss around the wealthy, everyone could mock the clergy
and you could do things in public that you usually would not do in public,
and there was always a king of fools sometimes dressed as the Pope himself.
It was usually the lowliest person in town who was raised up and treated like royalty for that day,
and he could basically tell everyone else what to do.
In 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' Quasimodo is given this dubious honor.
Though I've always thought this was a bit anachronistic
because it's supposed to take place in 1482, but
in 1431 the Council of Basel had forbidden it to take place, and
while it was probably still going on in certain places I doubt it
would have been right in front of Notre Dame.
That said who am I to-
well actually Victor Hugo.
Now while it kicked off with the Feast of Fools, carnival was a bit more subdued for
the next couple months until it ramped up near the end culminating in Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras.
Then the next day Ash Wednesday began the 40 or 46 days of Lent.
They're actually 46 days but they don't count Sundays so often they say 40 days of Lent.
This whole period was a catharsis where the general population could
release their frustrations that they had pent up all year with feudalism, their lords, the Church,
and just being treated like a Medieval peasant because they were Medieval peasants.
In a way it was sort of like the Purge. Now murder was not legal but the festival did seem
to encourage violence and drunkenness, lust, gluttony, the best of the seven deadly sins.
A blind eye was turned to them all on Mardi Gras because you knew that you were going to spend
the next six weeks atoning for whatever you did that day, but it wasn't a total
free-for-all even though you could do pretty much whatever you wanted within reason. During
Carnival there were still like set agendas and and events scheduled, Carnival plays for example.
These were allegories that were put together to explain to people
why they were behaving the way that they were behaving.
They would often pit Carnival and Lent against each other in a sort of trial, and in one
Lent complains that Carnival has been encouraging people to commit adultery,
perjury and even murder, but Carnival comes back and says that Lent should actually be grateful
because Carnival's existence is indispensable to Lent's existence.
Without the depravity of Carnival the temperance of Lent really means nothing.
It's kind of like without a Joker there is no Batman. Now sometimes these plays would include
a mock battle between Carnival and Lent most famously depicted by Pieter Bruegel. Carnival
was usually a corpulent fellow fighting with a meat skewer against an emaciated man or woman
wielding a fish, and sporting the cross of ashes on their forehead.
In one rather epic battle Lent leads an army of onions herring and a whale,
while Carnival is supported by cheese, venison flavored with pepper, and a flock of pheasants
that have already been roasted. Now often these trials or battles would end with kind of an
ambiguous ending like oh what's going to happen even though everybody knows that the next day
Lent wins, but in Hans Folz 15th century 'Ein spiel von der fasnacht' Lent is given the victory
at which point the everyman narrator who has kind of been on Carnival's side the entire time
plays innocent. "Dear Sirs, our prank's continued long enough, the fool's fashion is not everyone's
favorite. We wanted to frighten Carnival here; it seems instead we've stirred her up."
Now this play would have likely been performed in Nurenberg
which had one of the most unique Carnival celebrations.
See in1469 the Burgermeister and city council decided to
quash some of the more uncouth activities.
They forbid crossdressing and mask wearing, fireworks,
"And no one, especially not the wildmen, shall run after people and force them to give money
with cries, insults, and injury...
for indeed in the last Carnival various people used light headed, luxurious, immodest,
impolite words and gestures in plays. Such behavior is in the presence of
honorable people and especially of maidens and women sinful, annoying, and shameful."
So the plays were gone as were the wild men.
Now the wild men were basically the real life embodiment of the Medieval green man
who is a symbol of rebirth and can be found carved into buildings all throughout the world.
But in Nuremberg at this time they were not carvings but real men who
would dress as goats or horses or other figures associated with male fertility.
They wore green leaves around their waist and carried a green branch in their hand.
Then at Carnival they would enter the city and abduct presumably a young woman and take her back
to the forest. Now these were not actual people that lived in the forest. They were people from
the city who just behaved this way on Carnival and it sort of reminds me of the ancient Roman holiday
of Lupercalia which included young men running around the city slapping women with goat skins,
and I kind of wonder if maybe it's not a not a descendant, I don't know.
But in 1469 in Nuremberg they were done along with all the other fun stuff
that went along during Carnival except "We make exception for those who serve the butchers and
as protection for their usual Carnival dance..."
Butchers you say? See in 1348 the artisans of Nuremberg revolted,
and the knife makers and butchers of the city did not participate and so
as their reward they were given the opportunity every year at Carnival
to dance through the streets. They didn't revolt against the rulers of the city
and instead of giving them money or a raise of any kind they let them dance.
It's like the Medieval version...
of the pizza party. -_-
But it was an honor and every year the butchers and knife
makers of the city would dress in silk and velvet.
The knife makers would dance holding knives and swords
and the butchers held onto leather rings mimicking a string of sausage
as they danced from the castle over the fleischbrücke and around the city.
And per the exception of the Burgermeister when the rest of Carnival was cancelled
the butchers and knife makers still got to do their dance along with 12 nobles
and 12 commoners who would dress in masks to clear the way and protect the dancers.
Now with the butcher's dance or schembartlauf being the only activity left it really grew .
The costumes became more elaborate and in 1475 a
float was added usually in the form of a giant ship of fools.
This lasted until 1539 when the Lutherans became the majority in the city and
got rid of anything to do with Carnival except
that they actually kept around images of the wild men but they put the Pope's face on him.
Now as cool as the butcher's dance was it never became as famous
as the Carnival in Venice. Even in the Middle Ages Venice's celebration was held in esteem
not only for the meat-fueled debauchery, but its well-crafted and brightly colored masks.
Even Shakespeare comments on this in 'The Merchant of Venice'
"What are the masks? Hear you me, Jessica:
lock up my doors and when you hear the drum and the vile squealing of the wry-necked fife,
clamber not you up to the casements then, nor thrust your head into the public street
to gaze on Christian fools with varnished faces."
Now the character saying this seems to be a little worried about the revelers
and unfortunately he had right to be. See the character was Shylock who was Jewish
and the holiday especially in Italy tended to be accompanied
by mistreatment of the Jewish population.
Now Venice's heyday for Carnival reached
its zenith in the 18th century during the time of Casanova.
The holiday had all but banished in most of Europe so its continued celebration in Venice
was a great opportunity for tourism. Unfortunately it also caught the eye
of Napoleon Bonaparte when he visited the city with his army.
He was afraid that the celebration would give the citizens an opportunity to foment rebellion,
and so in 1797 he cancelled it and it remained cancelled until 1979.
In fact most of Europe's Mardi Gras celebrations are revivals rather than ongoing traditions. It
was really left up to places like New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro to keep up traditional Carnival,
but in either place I doubt they'll serve you Medieval ravioli for a meat day.
So once you've shaped all of your ravioli, boil the chicken broth, and add in the saffron.
Then let it boil for about five minutes until the saffron colors it yellow.
Then add your ravioli just a few at a time.
Now the recipe says to boil these for the length of two Pater Noster which is like
two minutes, but maybe they talk really, really slow because two minutes ain't gonna cut it so
go with about four minutes or until they're done.
Regardless once they're all cooked cover them with plenty of parmesan
and sprinkle with a bit of the powdered douce or sweet spices,
and here we are Medieval ravioli for a meat day.
So I had to cut one in half because they were just too big,
I wish that I could have made them smaller.
They're supposed to be smaller but it's I think it's a skill so it is what it is.
Let's give it a shot.
[CHOMP]
Hm!
So there is a hint of that spice in there but it's not overwhelming by any any stretch
of the imagination. I wouldn't think oh this is sugar and cinnamon and ginger,
not at all. That's great. What's weird is I don't taste the meat. I get a little bit
of that meaty quality, but it's not meat, it is cheese! This is cheese and herb.
Really you could just take like take like an herb cheese and fill these I think you're going
to end up with something very very similar. What does not come through at all is the saffron. You
don't get any saffron flavor from boiling it in the saffron it's just going to help color them.
So you could probably leave that out. Overall the flavor is really, really great.
What isn't is the texture I think it's a little bit dry I-
maybe I'm just so used to having like a sauce
on my pasta. Even if it was just a drizzle of olive oil or a light butter sauce.
I think that would really, really help but that you know that's an easy change to make.
So whether you make Medieval ravioli or not I hope
you have a marvelous Mardi Gras and a crazy Carnival,
and follow me on Instagram @tastinghistorywithmaxmiller
and I will see you next time on Tasting History.