Experimental Cooking-Recipe #2

Balled Mustard for Trips

Naples, Late 15th Century, Bühler MS B19 Pierpont Morgan Library, New York,

Reprinted in The Neapolitan Recipe Collection, Cuoco Napoletano Terence Scully, U of Michigan Press, 2000

The following is ©University of Michigan, 2000

123. Balled Mustard for Trips.

Get mustard seed and, when it has steeped a day, grind it up with a handful of raisins, cloves, cinnamon and a little pepper, and with this paste form balls, small or as large as a walnut; then set them to dry on a board; when dry, you can take them with you when you go riding; to distemper them, use verjuice or must or wine or vinegar.

123. This recipe for dried balls of enriched mustard allow a glimpse of Italian travelling customs in the mid-fifteenth century. The recipe permits a variety of liquids to be used to moisten the balls when the time comes to eat them, in all likelihood because the traveller is not apt to be able to lay his or her hands on any particular one of them. Both Riva and the Arte coquinaria (and the Honesta volupate, Recipe VIII,15) drop pepper from the mustard mixture--pepper seeming to be a spice to which their common source was not overly partial. Rather than specify "walnut-sized" balls, the latter collections describe round balls and cubes of "any size you like" into which the mustard paste be formed.

The preceding two paragraphs are Terence Scully's translation and notes on the recipe and are Copyright, University of Michigan, used under Fair Use for research and teaching.

I chose this recipe since there are a few options to try. In preparation there is the choice of yellow or brown mustard seeds, steeping liquid-water, wine or vinegar. Then you have the choice of distempering, or remoistening, liquid.

June 11, 2007 update:

Based on Mr. Scully's notes entered above I got out my copy of Jeremy Parzen's translation of The Art of Cooking by The Eminent Maestro Martino of Como, which is where Platina got the recipes he used in Honeste volupate. There is a very similar recipe "Mustard that can be Carried on Horesback. That recipe says "charlock" which the Mr. Parzen notes is Sinapis arvensis, or wild mustard, also known as lapsana. Now I have a specific type of mustard seed to try to find.

Though it may not be particularly easy. Sinapis arvensis is also known as Brassica kaber. The most common seeds available are Yellow Mustard, Brassica hirta and Brown Mustard, Brassica juncea, both of which are Asian in origin.

June 15, 2007

It turns out that Sinapis arvensis is the common wild mustard that grows wild all over the area. Some of the people in the Darach herbal guild have quite a bit on their property and when they are ready for harvest I can go gather however much I need.

But in order to have some ready for Caid's Festival of the Rose in August I got some brown mustard seeds at the local ethinc market at $2.29 for 17oz. The copy of the Cuoco Napoletano that I have has the original Italian and says "mostarde" not charlock. Since charlock is a European plant not Asian I feel comfortable in using it.

June 18, 2007

I need to get 12 small identical bowls for when I do the display and taste comparison. I figure that making the balls tomorrow will give them plenty of time to be ready for Festival of the Rose on Aug. 8.

June 19, 2007

I ran the batches through the food processor. A mortar and pestle would have been nice but I don't have one big enough and grinding all that by hand with the nerve issues would have been bad. I used 3/4 of a cup of raisins, 3/4 T of black peppercorns, 3/4 T of ground cinnamon and 1 t of whole cloves. I ran the food processor until the mixture could be rolled into balls. I'll do that later today or tomorrow, for now they are back in their steeping containers.

The seeds soaked in water looked most like a stone ground mustard after their time in the processor. The top layer had also started to sprout. The red wine and red wine vinegar batches were much darker, probably because of the color of the steeping liquid. In order to try to make the mixture more paste like I drained most of the liquid from the red wine vinegar seeds, I had to add it back in since the food processor was just tossing the seeds around otherwise. The vinegar batch had the sharp smell of fresh mustard, the other two let more of the smells of the other ingredients come through.

When I roll the paste into balls I'll lay them out on to parchment paper to dry.

Afternoon update: I rolled 15 1T balls and set them on parchment paper to dry out. Now the trick is to find someplace to put them where they won't get disturbed too much. They won't fit in the countertop convection oven since the pan I used is too wide and the other pans I could switch them too are too deep. I've got a small kitchen so I don't really have much counter space.

June 27, 2007

The mustard balls have dried out and will be put into plastic containers until Festival of the Rose on Aug. 18. I'm going to go to someplace like Smart&Final to get matching bowls for the display. I figure I'll need 12-15. There were three steeping liquids, 3-4 distempering liquids plus I made enough of each for people to sample the original before drying out.

I'm also going to bring printouts of the page plus the original cookbooks.

-------------------------------------

Copyright 2007-Steve Montgomery, some parts additionally Copyright 2000 University of Michigan.

All photographs, articles, and graphics on this website are protected by copyright laws and may not be duplicated without permission.