hrj

(For previous posts in this series, see items tagged with 'messisbugo'.)

Identifying distinct 4th and 5th courses in the template is, perhaps, a bit of a stretch. A clear distinction between the 3rd and 4th courses only occurs in two menus (1536 & 1537). Two menus have similar dishes to these but include them all in the 3rd course.  The 1524 menu (as we previously saw) inserts a duplicate 2nd course labeled “Third” and lists the dishes ordinarily appearing in the 3rd course under the label “Fourth”. The 1524 course labeled “Fourth” also includes the dishes found in the Fourth Course for the 1536/1537 menus, but in this is follows the the other two with combined 3rd/4th templates. The last menu (1540) does not serve any of the dishes found in the Fourth and Fifth Course templates.

A distinction between the Fourth and Fifth Course templates only occurs in the 1524 menu. The 1536/1537 menus include the same dishes but in under the 4th course label. The 1548 menu includes these dishes in the 2nd course list. And the other two menus do not have any dishes corresponding to the Fifth Course template.

Yes, this is very confusing. Let me sort it out by labeling the “course templates” A, B, C, D, and E and the menu list groupings 1-5. Then we get the following:

15?0: 1A, 2B,         3C, 3D, xx
1524: 1A, 2B, 3B, 4C, 4D, 5E
1536: 1A, 2B,        3C, 4D, 4E
1537: 1A, 2B,        3C, 4D, 4E
1540: 1A, 2B, 3B, 3C, xx,  xx
1548: 1A, 2B,        3C, 3D, 2E

Moving on to the actual dishes, the universally more elaborate 1524 menu has an extra set of seafood dishes as part of the Fourth Course list that don’t have counterparts in any of the other menus. (Remember that this menu is the only one with non-oyster seafood of any kind, and it has several seafood dishes in every course (with the exception of the Fifth Course, though the standard template there has oysters). The “extra” seafood dishes in the 1524 Fourth Course are sea-crabas with a gilded motto on their backs and a soup of calcinelle (a type of shellfish).

The common template for the Fourth Course consists of the following:

• Wafers (5 of 6 menus) - Sometimes listd as “clouds and wafers” though I haven’t looked further into what “clouds” might refer to.  In any event it seems to be distinct from the following, as both occur in two menus:


• Clotted Cream (4 of 6 menus) - In one case, this appears to be a “mock” clotted cream, listed as “Faux junket with sugar, almonds, and rosewater in place of clotted cream”.


• Cheese (2 of 6 menus) - Unspecified in one, given as “Piacentino cheese” in the other.


• Pasta (2 of 6 menus) - A sweet pasta in both cases: macaroni with sugar and honey, or buttered vermicelli with rosewater and sugar.

The template for the Fifth Course is even shorter and more universal:

• Oysters (4 of 6 menus) - No cooking method is specified for these but I don’t know if that should be taken to imply that they were eaten raw as is common today. A very large number is specified -- over a dozen for each diner in most cases.


• Oranges with pepper (3 of 6 menus)

One menu also lists Hypocras in the 4th/5th Course listing whereas drinks are not typical given at all (except for the sugar-water in the collation). So it may be that the other menus would include a similar drink at this point. Although I’ve grouped it with the 5th course template, there’s insufficient information even to include it as a standard offering.

Summary

So our basic standard template would be:

Fourth Course

• Clouds and Wafers


• Clotted Cream


• optional: Cheese or sweet pasta

Fifth Course

• Oysters


• Sliced Oranges with Pepper

Menus

Dishes that I consider to fall in the Fourth Course template are in bold. Dishes in the Fifth Course template are underlined. Dishes that are listed in the 4th or 5th course but that I’ve placed in an earlier template are in italics. Otherwise, see the notes regarding where the dishes are listed in the actual text of the menus.

15?0
(listed in the 3rd Course)

• Cheese, 10 plates.


• Butter vermicelli with rose water and sugar, with fine sugar on top in 10 plates.


• Clotted cream [lattemele], 20 plates.


• Clouds and wafers, 20 plates.

(No 4th or 5th Course list)

1524
4th Course list

• 20 little apple tarts in 20 little plates.


• Marzipan pastries, 20 little plates.


• Guaste pears and apples in large pies, 20 little plates.


• *Large sea-crabs with a little motto in gold on their backs that said, “Vsque, and nothing more is found,” in 12 little plates.


• *Soup of calcinelli [a kind of shellfish] in 20 little plates.


• Neapolitan-style macaroni of fried royal dough, with sugar and honey on top, in 20 little plates.


• 100 caroelle pears in 20 little plates.


• Piacentino cheese in 20 little plates.


• Clotted cream [lattemele] in 20 little plates.


• Clouds and wafers in 20 little plates.

5th Course list

• Oysters in 20 little plates.


• 100 sliced oranges with pepper in 20 little plates.

1536
4th Course list (no 5th Course)

• 500 oysters in 10 plates.


• Hippocras, 30 cups.


• 30 oranges and pepper in 10 plates.


• 500 wafers in 10 plates.

1537
4th Course list (no 5th Course)

• 1000 oysters in 14 plates.


• Clotted cream [lattemele] in 51 plates.


• Wafers [cialdoni] in 51 plates.

1540
(No 4th or 5th Course list)

1548
(from the 2nd Course list)

• 400 oysters with oranges and pepper, 20 plates.

(from the 3rd Course list)

• Faux junket with sugar, almonds, and rosewater in place of clotted cream, 7 plates.


• Small and large wafers, 140 in 7 plates.

(No 4th or 5th Course list)

My Mini-Messisbugo

I’ve been waiting to discuss the dishes from the numbered courses that I served in my “mini-Messisburgo” dinner because I greatly conflated and condensed the course templates.  Just as a re-cap, here are the stripped down basic templates for each course.

Course 1

• Multiple fowl dishes (partridge with tomaselle, pheasant with oranges, capon, pigeons, small birds with meatballs, duch with torteletti)


• A liver dish


• A quadruped dish


• A fresh fruit dish

For the mini-banquet, I served:

• roast stuffed game hen with oranges


• torteletti


• an artichoke pie


• grapes (left on the table)

The fowl dish was intended to combine reasonable price with several of the repeating features (oranges as an accompaniment, torteletti as a side dish). The Carnival menus are almost completely void of vegetable dishes with the exception of the salads in the pre-course. Messisbugo’s recipe book, however, has a good selection of dishes that either focus on vegetables or use them as a significant accompaniment to a meat dish. I’ve included a couple of vegetable dishes in part as a nod to modern dietary preferences and in part because they’re just such fun recipes.

Course 2

• Multiple fowl dishes (capon, pheasant, partridge)


• A roast of a young quadruped


• A roast loin


• A sauce


• A flan or torte


• A fruit pie

For the mini-banquet I served:

• pork loin


• plum sauce


• eggplants


• a torte of apples

Again, the inclusion of a vegetable dish was done for variety and as a nod to modern expectations (though the recipe is from Messisbugo). As I’d done a fowl dishi n the first course, I went with the quadruped dish in this course for variety.

Course 3

• Oyster pies or fried oysters


• Olives


• Fresh grapes


• Pears and sometimes also apples in pies


• A decorative dish in jelly or pastry

Course 4

• Clouds and Wafers


• Clotted cream


• Cheese or Sweet Pasta

For the mini-banquet I served:

• olives


• wafers with clotted cream


• cheese

Although the oyster dishes are clearly a standard part of these menus, I omitted them due to the unpredictability of their reception. (I didn’t know who most of my guests would be until the day of the banquet as I’d left it to the guests of honor to make the invitations.) Without oysters, there seemed no reason to serve a separate Fifth Course, although I could have included sliced oranges in this group.

Course 5

• Oysters


• Sliced oranges with pepper

And that brings my Excessively Geeky Messisbugo Analysis to an end. At some point I’ll be cleaning this all up, putting it into a more logical order, and adding it to my web site.