Upcoming Papers

At this time I am not scheduled to present or publish any new papers. Watch this space for information as it becomes available.

Previous Papers

Renaissance Society of America

This paper was presented at the annual conference for the Renaissance Society of America in San Francisco in March, 2006. Although it is only tangentially related to this project. It will hopefully give us a greater understanding of cookery during the time of Martino. Here is the abstract for the paper.  Look for publication details soon.

The Hidden Recipes of Bartolemeo Sacchi:

An exploration of the recipes in the first five books of De Honesta Voluptate

By David S.Walddon 

In the first printed work on food products and cookery De Honesta Voluptate et Valetudine (1475, Venice) by Bartolomeo Sacchi, also known as Platina, the last five sections of the work are filled with hundreds of recipes from the mid-15th century. These recipes were recorded by Platina from a slightly older manuscript composed by Maestro Martino de Como. Martino’s recipes have been studied and commented upon in depth in many papers and at many symposiums. So have the medical and humoral theory, agricultural advice and general commentary on food products, which make up the first five sections of De Honesta. But scattered among Platina’s writings in the first part of his book are culinary recipes that have not been studied nearly as extensively. This paper identifies and examines these recipes, classifies them as to use and explores the many interesting details they reveal about food and food-ways in the late 15th century Italy.

Petits Propos Culinaires 76

This paper is not related to “Cooking Martino”, except that it focuses on Italian food history. This paper was written for Petits Propos Culinaires 76 which was published in August of 2004. Eden and I spent over two years cataloging the data for this paper. Information regarding subscriptions to PPC, as well as backorders, can be obtained by contacting Prospect Books. 

Drunkards, Belly, Gods and Servants of the Paunch:

Food References in Florio’s translation of the Decameron.

By Eden Rain & David S. Walddon

This paper is a summary of a project cataloguing food references from Florio’s seventh-century translation of The Decameron. The resulting data has been broken down into various categories: Food and Drink, Food-related Objects, Food-related Actions, etc. Clearly this is only a brief summation of the 1,632 food references found in Florio’s translation of The Decameron.

Although the journal article is not on line we have provided a database which contains the full collection of references. We hope it will be of value to other food historians. You can view this in an interactive format that lets you pivot the data if you are running Microsoft XP as well as in a static format if you are using various other operating systems. Also available is a numeric summary of the data.

Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery

Two papers I prepared for the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery which are related to this project. Neither paper is available on-line, but you can order the entire symposium papers through Prospect Books or just my papers through The Madrone Culinary Guild where they have been re-published in The Feudal Gourmet Series.

This is the second paper I prepared for the Oxford Symposium 2001. The topic that year was “The Meal”. Unfortunately I was not able to give the second paper at the symposium. My flight to Britain was the morning of Sept. 12th, 2001. After the Sept. 11th tragedy we tried to get to Europe for almost a week and then finally gave up. The paper was included in the 2001 proceedings titled “The Meal”. Some of the other authors included in the symposium papers are Ken Albala, Harlan Walker, Barbara Santich, Gillian Riley, and Eden Rain. Here is the abstract for my paper.

From Menu, to Recipe, to Meal: a Renaissance Wedding Banquet

By David S. Walddon

This paper explores the wedding banquet of Giovanni Giacomo Trivulitio and Beatrice di Avolos d' Aquino. It then extends the menu by pairing recipes from the Martino corpus with the descriptions from the menu. These recipes are followed by a modern redaction. All sources are translated out of the original Italian and into “modern” English.  This progression from menu, to recipe, to meal gives the reader a glimpse of social ritual and food customs of Renaissance Italy.

This was the first paper I gave at the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery was in 1997. Each year the conference topic changes. In 1997 the topic was fish. This paper was presented under my previous name, David S. McDonald. Oxford 1997 was an amazing experience. I met new friends, learned tons and realized a dream of writing about my passion. Some of the other authors included in the symposium papers are Alan Davidson, Constance B. Hieatt, Andrew Smith, Ken Albala, Harlan Walker, Harold McGee, Gillian Riley, and Charles Perry. Below is a brief introduction to this paper which is included in the proceedings “Fish: Food From the Waters”.

Pesce Cane: a fish recipe from the Martino Manuscript

By David S. Walddon

Fish, as a food staple during the Italian Renaissance, should not be underestimated. The Italian peninsula, surrounded by the sea and heavily influenced by Church dietary restrictions, took full advantage of this food from the water.

Abundance of a particular food can influence a cuisine for generations. With the Adriatic, Tyrrhenian, Ionian and Mediterranean Seas to draw from, Italians have utilized seafood in their cooking for centuries. The Church also made a mark on the cuisine of Italy. The many fast days imposed by the Church forbade consumption of all animals which lived on the land. Often these restrictions were extended to animal products such as eggs, butter, cheese, and milk. For most of the year fast days included Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Adding the forty days of fasting required by Lent brought the count to approximately 175 days. With almost fifty percent of the year designated to the fast and an abundant natural source, fish played a vital role in the diet of the Italian Renaissance.

This importance is reflected in the manuscript Libro de Arte Coquinaria, a cooking treatise attributed to Maestro Martino de Como, cook to the Patriarch of Aquileia. Of the 266 recipes included in the manuscript sixty-nine (thirty percent) are fish recipes. All but five of the fish recipes are located in the last chapter "Capitolo sexto p cocer ogni pesce". The recipes of this chapter vary from the simple instructions for preparing "Vno Varolo grosso", "Orata", "Palamita", "Triglie", and "Merluzo", to more complex instructions for preparing "Trutte grosse", "Tenche", "Lampreda", and "Calamari".

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