Recipe: Roast pork with three sauces

Tacuinum Sanitatis, Acorns (Late 14th C. Lombardy)

Once upon a time a long time ago, I suffered from a bout of helium hand and volunteered to cook the Barony's annual feast that one time. I phoned my friend Anne-Marie-the-cooking-Laurel in a dead panic, but she talked me off the ledge, gave me solid ideas about recipes that would be easy to cook and Not Weird(tm). 

It went so well, that I volunteered to do it again the next year, but did my own research and redactions, some of which I will now share with you, because we're getting on into the "roast meat is a good idea" time of year, which I love, and everyone knows that roast pig is the best, which these are for.

I went with an Italian theme, that year (don't fall over from shock), and had a great time with an excellent team putting the menu together. Now, as you know, an easy way to feed lots of people who have - gods help us - variable food preferences and period food fear, is to roast up an enormous hunk of meat, and then provide sauces and relishes of which they can control the application, so for the second course that's exactly what I did, and I will now share those with you.

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Maiale arrosto

Savore Tartaresco Perfettissimo

Salsa Sarasinesca

Salsa a Ziaschaduna Carne

Roast Pork

Most Perfect Relish of the Tartars
Saracen style Sauce
Sauce for Whatever Meat

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Roast the pork using your best method. Slice and serve on a platter with these relishes.

Savore tartaresco perfettissimo / Most Perfect Relish of the Tartars

LXXXIV. Savore tartaresco perfettissimo

Toy l’aglo mondo e choxi in aqua, toy mandole e cenamo e zenzebro e garofali e zucharo e rossi d’ovi cocti e masena ogni cossa inseme e distempera con aceto. Questo è bon savore a porchetta rosta ad altra carne.

LXXXIV. Most Perfect Relish of the Tartars

Take the garlic peeled and cook in water, take almonds and cinnamon and ginger and cloves and sugar and egg yolks cooked and mix everything together and temper with vinegar. This is a good sauce for roasted pork and other meats.

 

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I somehow managed to leave the cooked egg yolks out of this in the redaction, but it turned out nice anyway.

 
Serves 6
 
1 Head Garlic, blanched
½ C almonds, blanched
½ tsp Cinnamon
¼ tsp Ginger
1/8 tsp Cloves
1 tsp Sugar
2 TBSP White Wine vinegar
 
Combine ingredients in a food processor until roughly chopped and relishy-looking. Serve with roasted meat.

Salsa sarasinesca / Saracen style sauce

LXXXVIII. Salsa sarasinesca

Se tu voy fare salza sarasinescha toy mandolle, uva passa, zenzevro, cenamo e garofalli e melegette, gardamono,, galanga e noce moscate; masena ogni cossa inseme e distempera con agresta; questo è bon savore.

LXXXVIII. Saracen style sauce

If you want to make saracen style sauce, take almonds, currants, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, grains of paradise, cardamom, galangal and nutmeg; mix everything together and temper with verjuice; this is a good relish.

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This really is a good relish, and is practically foolproof. In fact, the professional caterers, whose kitchen we were using for prep, liked it so much they took home the leftovers and added this recipe to their repertoire. The almonds were left out for the feast, but they are included in the recipe below. Goes extremely well with roast pork.

 

Serves 6
 
1 C currants
½ tsp Ground Cinnamon
¼ tsp Ground Ginger
1/8 tsp Ground Cloves
1 tsp Grains of Paradise, crushed
¼ tsp Ground Cardamom
½ tsp grated Galangal
½ tsp Nutmeg
¼ C Verjuice

Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Serve with roast meat.

Salsa a ziaschaduna carne / Sauce for whatever meat

XC. Salsa a ziaschaduna carne
 
Toy lo fiore del fenochio non serato, po’toy un rasso d’ovo duro bene e toy rosmarino e masenali con quello fiore e distempera ogni cossa inseme e sarà bono.

XC. Sauce for whatever meat

 

Take the flowers of fennel not at evening, then take an egg yolk well hard and take rosemary and mix with these flowers and temper everything together and it will be good.

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A yummy “sauce.” Looks a bit interesting, but tastes fantastic spread on roast pork. I took the “temper everything together” to mean “add liquid until you get a sauce” so, since everything else that required “tempering” involved vinegar, I mixed in some of that and some pork broth until I had something the consistency of natural peanut butter. It thickened a bit after refrigeration, but that only made it easier to schmear on the pork.

Serves 6

 

4 egg yolks, hard boiled

1 tsp Nigella Seed

1 TBSP Fresh Rosemary

1 TBSP White Wine vinegar

2-3 TBSP meat broth (whatever meat you’re serving it with)

 

Combine all ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Serve with roast meat.

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All recipes:

Translation of Libro di cucina / Libro per cuoco (14^th/15^th C.) (Anonimo Veneziano)

 

Translated 2002 CE by Helewyse de Birkestad (MKA Louise Smithson) from the transcription of Ludovico Frati (ed.): Libro di cucina del secolo XIV. Livorno 1899 prepared and made available online by Thomas Gloning.

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