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recipe
March/April 2009
Broccoli in the Opera
a winter vegetable for Lent
Dutch
version of this recipe
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The Opera from this recipe has nothing
to do with music, and everything with the opus magnus of Italiaan cook
Bartolomeo Scappi, which appeared in print in 1570. Opera means 'the
work' (in Italian, in Latin it would have been 'the works'). Nowadays the
cookbook is mainly known for its magnificent engravings which illustrate all
kinds of kitchens, kitchen utensils, and even chamber furnishings (indcluding a
footwarmer). The recipe on this page is to celebrate the lovely English
translation of the Opera that was published by the Canadian culinairy historian
Terence Scully in 2008.
Bartolomeo Scappi (1500-1577) has had a professional life to be proud of when
his book was published. He served with several cardinals, and was cuoco segreto (personal
cook) for pope Pius IV
(1556-1565) and his successor Pius V (1566-1572).
A brief description of the Opera can be found at Scappi's recipe for
Tortelli in brodo. The picure on the left is of
a sixteenth century fresco from the
Abby of Monte
Oliveto Maggiore, which depicts Saint benedict with his brethren starting a
meal. On the small plates are little fish, the serving dish is filled with a
vegetable. Probably not broccoli, but some kind of lefy green. For the record:
Bartolomeo Scappi did not work in a monastery kitchen, but in palatial kitchens.
His patrons were worldly prelates, not monks.
Broccoli is probably the most hated vegetable
on Earth. Maybe that is because of the cabbage odor that permeates the kitchen
when it is cooked. "Just don't eat broccoli!", you would say. But alas, broccoli
is so disgustingly healthy that conscientious parents traumatize their offspring
by offering these green flower buds again and again. American ex-president George H.W. Bush (father
of the other Bush) is one of the most well known broccoli haters of this time. A
quote from 1990: "I
do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my
mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States and I'm not going
to eat any more broccoli." (view this little speech on YouTube in an
fragment of the British quizz
Have I got News for You). But there is also an American
fansite dedicated to broccoli.
And I know of not one but several cats who love to aet broccoli. My own
cat Clio even nibbled Brussels sprouts.
All members of the cabbage family are
healthy, but broccoli is the champion. This vegetable is rich in fibers, and
contains relatively high amounts of
calcium, iron, and vitamins C and E. Some even say that one of the chemicals in
broccoli, Indole-3-carbinol,
can not only prevent cancer, but even cause a decrease in tumorgrowth. Broccoli
is not unique in this, other kinds of cabbage also contain indole-3-carbinol.
The original recipe
The Italian recipe is from the facsimile
edition from 2002 of the Opera, from book III (recipes for fishdays
and Lent, leaf 153, recipe CCXXXVII). The English translation is taken from
de edition by T.Scully, page 363, recipe# 237. More on Lent can be found at the
medieval recipe for Fake Fish.
Per cuocere Broccoli asciutti.
PIglinosi li broccoli dal mese di Febraro per tutto Marzo netti delle
frondi, & habbiasi la parte piu tenera che non sia fiorita, & facciasi
bollir l'acqua con sale, & come i broccoli saranno accommodati in mazzuoli
ponganosi in quella acqua bollente, & non si faccia no troppo cuocere, ma
cauinosi, e sciolganosi, & ponganosi in piatti, & dapoi habbiasi oglio
bollente, e spargasi cosi caldo con la cocchiara sopra i broccoli,
giungendoui sugo di melangole, pepe, & un poco di quel brodo nel qual son
cotti, & seruanosi caldi, percioche altrimente non uagliono. Si può
soffriggere con ol'oglio uno spigolo d'aglio ammaccato per dare odore al
broccolo, & quando si uorranno conseruare per una o due hore, si poranno
in acqua fredda, & si lascieranno stare poi che saranno perlessati sin'a
tanto che si uorranno ricuocere. In questo modo si conserueranno i
broccoli uerdi,& non piglieranno tristo odore, & si seruiranno nel modo
sopradetto. |
To cook dry broccoli.
Get broccoli between February and the end of March, with its leaves
removed. Take the tenderest part of it that has not flowered. Boil salted
water. With the broccoli done up into little bunches, put it into that
boiling water. Do not overcook it but take it out and put it into dishes.
Then get boiling oil and drip it hot with a spoon over the broccoli,
adding oange juice, pepper and a little of the broth in which it was
cooked. Serve it hot because otherwise it is no good. You can also sauté a
crushed clove of garlic in the oil to flavour the broccoli.
Whenever you need to hold it back for an hour or two, put it into cold
water after it was parboiled and leave it there until you want to recook
it. Green broccoli is kept the same way and it will not take on a bad
smell. It is served in the above way. |
The modern adaptation of the recipe:
Printout
version
I do not think that dry broccoli is
the same as dried broccoli. The broccoli seems to come directly from the
kitchen garden. But what is the difference with green broccoli?
At least it is clear that Scappi's broccoli did not have the compact, bunched
shape that modern broccoli has. I ran across some tenderstem broccoli, imported
from Maroc (see picture on the left). According to
wikipedia this vegetable has been developed by a Japanese seed farm, from a
cross-over between broccoli and kai-lan
(Chinese broccoli). Another name for tenderstem broccoli is broccolini.
According to the original recipe a little of the cooking liquid must be poured
over the cooked broccoli. I think you can forget that. Just drain the broccoli
after cooking, you'll have enough cooking liquid anyway.
For 4 persons.
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List of ingredients:
500 gram (1 pound) broccoli
3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 crushed garlic clove
2 Tbsp. freshly squeezed orange juice
1 Tbsp. cooking liquid (optional)
black pepper, freshly ground, to taste
water and salt
Preparation in advance:
Separate the florets from the big stalk. You can peel the stalk, slice it, and
blanch it with the florets, or use it for making soup. If you can find
broccolini, use that. You'll only have to cut the ends off the stalks.
Place orange juice and garlic clove near at hand.
Preparation:
According to Bartolomeo, the broccoli can be blanched in advance and heated when
necessary. But it is better to blanch the vegetable just before serving in
salted water, just for a few minutes, to keep the broccoli firm. Drain and
continue at once.
Heat olive oil in a small skillet with the crushed garlic clove. Remove the
garlic after 30 seconds.
Arrange the broccoli or broccolini on a serving dish, sprinkle with hot olive
oil and orange juice. Grind pepper over it, and serve at once.
If ytou wish, you can blanch the broccoli in advance, and keep it in iced water
to preserve the bright green colour. Reheat in the microwave after draining the
broccoli.
To serve:
"Serve it hot because otherwise it is no good". So: serve straight
away.
Think of this dish as a 'warme salad'. You can serve it without problems in a
modern menu, as appetizer or side dish.
Extra: Broccoli and Apicius?
kl.jpg) |
In my research for the history of broccoli I
kept stumbling on sites declaring that Romans held broccoli in high esteem. To
illustrate this, many recount the amusing story of the only natural son of
emperor Tiberius, Drusus Minor (13 vC-23 nC), who loved broccoli so much that he
ate nothing but broccoli prepared to a recipe of Marcus Gavius Apicius, during a
whole month. It wasn't until his father forbade him to continue his broccoli diet
because of his smelly bright green urine, that he started eating normally again. Ít
didn't help him anyway, he was poisoned by his wife Livilla on instigation of
his rival Sejanus.
The strange thing is, not one of the sites mentioning the story of
broccoli-loving Drusus mention a source. They all parrot the same story after
each other. The only combination of Drusus, Apicius and cabbage to be found is a
story by Pliny the Elder, stating that Drusus actually hated cymia,
because Apicius hated it too (C. Plinius Secundus, Historia Naturalis boek
XIX, c.41). And Cymia, what is that? Not the flower buds, but young
shoots of the cabbage, growing from the stem. Not only give all those sites the
exact reverse of the story, but they even are sloppy with the definition of what
vegetable it was that Drusus loved/hated so much! All mention of
'cabagges' are translated to 'broccoli' by the broccoli-evangelists.
By the way, the story of Drusus being poisoned
is true.
Whas there Roman broccoli? It seems there
was, but just like in Scappi's time, it looked more like the Brassica rapa var. Cymosa,
also known as
Cima di rapa or rapini (broccoli raab): thin stalks with
small leaves and loosely bunched flower buds (if any). Actually, tenderstem
broccoli is a lovely modern substitute for historical broccoli recipes.
Despite Drusus' aversion, most Romans thuoght
cabbage (all cabbages, not just broccoli) were invaluable for a good health, and
not just as nutrition. Cato describes the medicinal uses of cabbages in De agricola ('on
farming', second century BC), like the following way to prevent drunkenness:
before the party, eat as much vinegared raw cabbage as you can, and when about
to dine, eat five cabbage leaves, then you can drink as much as you want.
However, this is a fable.
Of all recipes in De re coquinaria
for cima and caulicules, five are for boiled cabbage (cauliculus)
that is closed enough to form a head (in one recipe the cabbage must be cut in
half). There is but one recipe for cimae, 'young greens' in the
translation of Grocock and Grainger. Let's pretend to be certain that these
young greens are some kind of broccoli, and you get the following recipe: (Apicius,
3.9.1 and 3.9.1a, edition Grocock and Grainger p.164):
Cimas: cuminum salem
uinum uetus et oleum.
si uoles, addes piper et ligusticum mentam rutam coriandrum folia coliclorum
liquamen uinum oleum. |
Young greens (or 'broccoli'): cumin,
salt, old wine and oil.
If you like, add pepper and lovage, mint,
rue, coriandre, cabbage leaves,
liquamen, wine, oil. |
Blanch broccoli or young cabbage leaves,
broccoli raab or whatever. Mix wine(vinegar) and oil, salt, and lightly toasted
cumin seeds (or use powdered cumin). The variation is for a sauce with
wine(vinegar), oil and liquamen (Roman fish sauce), chopped herbs and some
blanched cabbage leaves. To finish it off, the dish is sprinkled with black
pepper. Romans loved peppery dishes.
This simple recipe does not need a printout version.
Other Roman dishes: Bread,
Garum or Liquamen, Mussels with lovage sauce and cumin
sauce,
Omelette with asparagus, Omelette with quail,
Roman apricots.
Funny fact:
At first sight, this has nothing to do with vegetables: Albert Romolo Broccoli (1909-1996) is
known as the producer of all James Bond-films up to and including GoldenEye
(1995). According to his
obituary he is a descendant from an Italian family of horticulturists who
crossed cauliflower with rabe, thus creating the vegatble after which the family
was named. After reading the above, it will be clear that that is not true.
Ingredients
All descriptions of ingredients
Lovage -
Levisticum officinale. An umbelliferous plant (like wild celery and parsley)
that was popular in the classic Roman kitchen, and still used in the Middle
Ages. You can grow it in your garden. When flowering, it can grow as tall as 2
meters. The taste is rather overbearing, use it in small amounts. It is very
nice in stock.
Liquamen or garum - A clear liquid made
of small fermented fish with much salt and sometimes alsoe several kinds of
dried herbs. The Romans used liquamen or garum in the same way we use salt.
There is however a difference: salt dehydrates food, liquamen adds liquid to a
dish. It was produced in factories and sold in amforas. There were many
qualities of garum, from cheap to very expensive. Apicius would no doubt only
have used the very best quality. Nowadays in the Far East a kind of fish sauce
is still in use in much the same way as the Romans used garum. You can use these
sauces as a substitute for garum: Vietnamese nuoc-nam, or Thai nam-pla. You can
also try to make your own garum, as the Romans made it at home when they were
out of stock (recipe).
Rue - A little shrub (Ruta graveolens),
indigenous to Southern Europe. The odiferous plant has a strong, bitter taste.
The ancient Greeks and Romans loved rue, and it is still an ingredient in the
Italian drink Grappa Ruta. In modern cuisine rue has mostly dissappeared,
which is a pity. A few rue leaves in broth are very good. However, it is thought
to be an antaphrodisiac (quelches lust), and pregnant women must be
careful not to use too much of it, because it could also be abortive. But a leaf
or two won't do any harm.
Rue plants can be found at garden centers. It is quite decorative, a
semi-perennial with small yellow flowers that can be used to decorate any dish.
Bibliography
The editions below are in my
possession. Links refer to available editions.
All books mentioned on this site
Andrew Dalby, Cato: On Farming / De Agricultura . Prospect
Books, 1998.
 Alan Davidson,
The Oxford Companion to Food, Oxford University Press, 2006.
Christopher Grocock en Sally Grainger, Apicius. A critical edition with an
introduction and an English translation of the Latin recipe text Apicius Prospect Books, 2006.
Terence
Scully The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570): L'arte et prudenza d'un maestro
cuoco University of Toronto press, 2008.
Apicius,
De Re Coquinaria, Latin edition by Mary Ella Milham online
Bartolomeo Scappi, Opera. Facsimile edition online on the site of the
Universidad Complutense Madrid.
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