Coffee Connoisseur James Hoffmann Reviews a $20,000 Espresso Maker

It costs rough­ly $20,000, weighs near­ly 100 pounds, and looks like a high-end micro­scope. Hand­made in Switzer­land, the MANUMENT Leva Machine makes espres­so. How well does it make espres­so? How do the shots taste?: Accord­ing to cof­fee expert James Hoffmann–he’s the author of The World Atlas of Cof­feethe shots have a tex­ture that is “very enjoy­able.” The tex­ture is “silky, but­tery and soft.” That ver­dict is sand­wiched in the mid­dle of a 20-minute review of the machine, which you can watch above.

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Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Birth of Espres­so: The Sto­ry Behind the Cof­fee Shots That Fuel Mod­ern Life

Under­stand­ing Espres­so: A Six-Part Series Explain­ing What It Takes to Pull the Ide­al Shot

Cof­fee Col­lege: Every­thing You Want­ed to Know about Cof­fee Mak­ing in One Lec­ture

How to Make Cof­fee in the Bialet­ti Moka Pot: The “Ulti­mate Techique”

How to Make Medieval Mead: A 13th Century Recipe

Read a sto­ry set in the Mid­dle Ages, Beowulf or any­thing more recent­ly writ­ten, and you’re like­ly to run across a ref­er­ence to mead, which seems often to have been imbibed hearti­ly in halls ded­i­cat­ed to that very activ­i­ty. The same goes for medieval-themed plays, movies, and even video games. Take Assas­s­in’s Creed Val­hal­la, described by Max Miller, host of Youtube chan­nel Tast­ing His­to­ry, as “a his­to­ry-based game of, like, my favorite time peri­od — Sax­ons and Vikings, you know, fight­in’ it out — so I’m assum­ing that there’s going to be mead in there some­where.” He uploaded the video, below, in the fall of 2020, just before that game’s release, but accord­ing to the Assas­s­in’s Creed Wiki, he was right: there is, indeed, mead in there.

Per­haps throw­ing back a dig­i­tal horn of mead in a video game has its sat­is­fac­tions, but sure­ly it would only make us curi­ous to taste the real thing. Hence Miller’s episode project of “mak­ing medieval mead like a viking,” which requires only three basic ingre­di­ents: water, hon­ey, and ale dregs or dry ale yeast. (The set of required tools is a bit more com­plex, involv­ing sev­er­al dif­fer­ent ves­sels and, ide­al­ly, a “bub­bler” to let out the car­bon­a­tion.)

In it he con­sults a thir­teenth- or four­teenth-cen­tu­ry man­u­script (above) called the Trac­ta­tus de Mag­ne­tate et Oper­a­tionibus eius, which includes not just a let­ter on the work­ings of mag­nets — and “a uni­ver­si­ty hand­book on the the­o­ry of num­bers, pro­por­tions, and har­mo­ny” and “the sev­en signs of bad breed­ing; the sev­en signs of ele­gance” — but also “one of the old­est known sur­viv­ing Eng­lish mead recipes.”

“When you think of Sax­ons and Vikings, yes, you think of mead,” Miller says, “but mead actu­al­ly got its start way before that,” evi­denced in the alco­hol-and-hon­ey residue found on Chi­nese pot­tery dat­ing to 7000 BC and a writ­ten men­tion in the Indi­an Rigve­da. “I have tast­ed the sweet drink of life, know­ing that it inspires good thoughts and joy­ous expan­sive­ness to the extreme, that all the gods and all mor­tals seek it togeth­er,” says that sacred text. Even if Miller’s mead does­n’t make you feel like a god, it does have the virtue of requir­ing only a few days’ fer­men­ta­tion, as opposed to the tra­di­tion­al peri­od of months. Toward the video’s end, he men­tions hav­ing set one bot­tle aside to ripen fur­ther, and pos­si­bly to fea­ture in a lat­er episode. That was near­ly three years ago; today, Tast­ing His­to­ry fans can only spec­u­late as to what alco­holic Val­hal­la that brew has so far ascend­ed.

You can find the text of the medieval recipe below:

//ffor to make mede. Tak .i. galoun of fyne hony and to
þat .4. galouns of water and hete þat water til it be as
lengh þanne dis­solue þe hony in þe water. thanne set hem
ouer þe fier & let hem boyle and ever scomme it as longe as
any filthe rysith þer on. and þanne tak it doun of þe fier
and let it kole in oþer ves­selle til it be as kold as melk
whan it komith from þe koow. than tak drestis
of þe fynest ale or elles berme and kast in to þe water
& þe hony. and stere al wel to gedre but ferst loke er
þu put þy berme in. that þe water with þe hony be put
in a fayr stonde & þanne put in þy berme or elles þi
drestis for þat is best & stere wel to gedre/ and ley straw
or elles cloth­is a bowte þe ves­sel & a boue gif þe wedir
be kolde and so let it stande .3. dayes & .3. nygth­is gif
þe wedir be kold And gif it be hoot wedir .i. day and
.1. nyght is a nogh at þe fulle But ever after .i. hour or
.2. at þe moste a say þer of and gif þu wilt have it swete
tak it þe sonere from þe drestis & gif þu wilt have it scharpe
let it stand þe lenger þer with. Thanne draw it from
þe drestis as cler as þu may in to an oþer ves­sel clene & let
it stonde .1. nyght or .2. & þanne draw it in to an
oþer clene ves­sel & serve it forth // And gif þu wilt
make mede eglyn. tak sauge .ysope. ros­maryne. Egre-
moyne./ sax­e­frage. betayne./ cen­to­rye. lunarie/ hert-
is tonge./ Tyme./ maru­bi­um album. herbe jon./ of eche of
an hand­ful gif þu make .12. galouns and gif þu mak lesse
tak þe less of her­bis. and to .4. galouns of þi mater .i. galoun of
drestis.

Relat­ed con­tent:

How to Make Ancient Mesopotami­an Beer: See the 4,000-Year-Old Brew­ing Method Put to the Test

5,000-Year-Old Chi­nese Beer Recipe Gets Recre­at­ed by Stan­ford Stu­dents

Bars, Beer & Wine in Ancient Rome: An Intro­duc­tion to Roman Nightlife and Spir­its

Dis­cov­er the Old­est Beer Recipe in His­to­ry From Ancient Sume­ria, 1800 B.C.

An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Medieval Tav­erns: Learn the His­to­ry of These Rough-and-Tum­ble Ances­tors of the Mod­ern Pub

Beer Archae­ol­o­gy: Yes, It’s a Thing

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Vin Mariani, the 19th-Century Cocaine-Infused Wine, Imbibed and Endorsed by Presidents, Popes & Writers

In the nev­erend­ing quest to ele­vate them­selves above the fray, today’s mixol­o­gists — for­mer­ly known as bar­tenders — are putting a mod­ern spin on obscure cock­tail recipes, and res­ur­rect­ing anachro­nis­tic spir­its like mahia, Char­treuse, Usque­baugh, and absinthe.

Might we see a return of Vin Mar­i­ani, a Belle Époque ‘ton­ic wine’ that was hit with such august per­son­ages as Queen Vic­to­ria, Ulysses S. Grant, Alexan­der Dumas and Emile Zola?

Prob­a­bly not.

It’s got coca in it, known for its psy­choac­tive alka­loid, cocaine.

Cor­si­can chemist Ange­lo Mar­i­ani came up with the restora­tive bev­er­age, for­mal­ly known as Vin Tonique Mar­i­ani à la Coca de Per­oum, in 1863, inspired by physi­cian and anthro­pol­o­gist Pao­lo Man­tegaz­za who served as his own guinea pig after observ­ing native use of coca leaves while on a trip to South Amer­i­ca:

I sneered at the poor mor­tals con­demned to live in this val­ley of tears while I, car­ried on the wings of two leaves of coca, went fly­ing through the spaces of 77,438 words, each more splen­did than the one before…An hour lat­er, I was suf­fi­cient­ly calm to write these words in a steady hand: God is unjust because he made man inca­pable of sus­tain­ing the effect of coca all life long. I would rather have a life span of ten years with coca than one of 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 000 cen­turies with­out coca.

Mar­i­ani iden­ti­fied an untapped oppor­tu­ni­ty and added ground coca leaves to Bor­deaux, at a ratio of 6 mil­ligrams of coca to one ounce of wine.

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, the result­ing con­coc­tion not only took the edge off, it was accord­ed a num­ber of health­ful ben­e­fits in an age where gen­er­al cure-alls were high­ly prized.

The rec­om­mend­ed dosage for adults was two or three glass­es a day, before or after meals. For kids, the amount could be divid­ed in two.

Reign­ing mas­ters of graph­ic design were enlist­ed to pro­mote the mir­a­cle elixir.

Jules Chéret leaned into its ener­gy boost­ing effects by depict­ing a come­ly young woman clad in skimpy, sheer yel­low replen­ish­ing her glass mid-leap, while Alphonse Mucha went dark, claim­ing that “the mum­mies them­selves stand up and walk after drink­ing Vin Mar­i­ani.”

While we’re on the sub­ject of corpse revivers, 21st-cen­tu­ry mixol­o­gists will please note that a cock­tail of Vin Mar­i­ani, ver­mouth and bit­ters, served with a twist, was a par­tic­u­lar­ly pop­u­lar prepa­ra­tion, espe­cial­ly across the Atlantic, where Vin Mar­i­ani was export­ed in a more potent ver­sion con­tain­ing 7.2 mil­ligrams of coca.

Ange­lo Mariani’s inno­va­tions were not lim­it­ed to the chem­istry of alco­holic com­pounds.

He was also a mar­ket­ing genius, who cur­ried celebri­ty favor by send­ing a com­pli­men­ta­ry case of Vin Mar­i­ani to dozens of famous names, along with a hum­ble request for an endorse­ment and pho­to, should the con­tents prove pleas­ing.

These acco­lades were col­lect­ed and repur­posed as adver­tise­ments that assured ador­ing fans and fol­low­ers of the product’s qual­i­ty.

Sarah Bern­hardt con­ferred super­star sta­tus on the drink, and not so sub­tly shored up her own, grand­ly pro­nounc­ing the blend the “King of Ton­ics, Ton­ic of Kings:”

I have been delight­ed to find Vin Mar­i­ani in all the large cities of the Unit­ed States, and it has, as always, large­ly helped to give me that strength so nec­es­sary in the per­for­mance of the ardu­ous duties which I have imposed upon myself. I nev­er fail to praise its virtues to all my friends and I hearti­ly con­grat­u­late upon the suc­cess which you so well deserve. 

Pope Leo XIII not only car­ried “a per­son­al hip flask” of the stuff to “for­ti­fy him­self in those moments when prayer was insuf­fi­cient,” he invent­ed and award­ed a Vat­i­can gold medal to Vin Mar­i­ani “in recog­ni­tion of ben­e­fits received.”

Mar­i­ani even­tu­al­ly pack­aged the glow­ing endorse­ments he’d been squir­rel­ing away as Por­traits from Album Mar­i­ani. It’s a com­pendi­um of famous artists, writ­ers, actors, and musi­cians of the day, some remem­bered, most­ly not…

Com­pos­er John Philip Sousa:

When worn out after a long rehearsal or a per­for­mance, I find noth­ing so help­ful as a glass of Vin Mar­i­ani. To brain work­ers and those who expend a great deal of ner­vous force, it is invalu­able.

Opera singer Lil­lian Blau­velt:

Vin Mar­i­ani is the great­est of all ton­ic stim­u­lants for the voice and sys­tem. Dur­ing my pro­fes­sion­al career, I have nev­er been with­out it.

Illus­tra­tor Albert Robi­da:

At last! At last! It has been dis­cov­ered — they hold it, that cel­e­brat­ed microbe so long sought after — the microbe of microbes that kills all oth­er microbes. It is the great, the won­der­ful, the incom­pa­ra­ble microbe of health! It is, it is Vin Mar­i­ani!

(We sus­pect Robi­da penned his entry after swal­low­ing more than a few glass­es… or he was of a mis­chie­vous nature and would’ve fit right in with the Sur­re­al­ists, the Futur­ists, Fluxus, or any oth­er move­ment that jabbed at the bour­geoisie with hyper­bole and humor.

Mar­i­ani used the album to pub­lish the Philadel­phia Med­ical Times’ defense of celebri­ty endorse­ments:

The array of notable names is a strong one. Too strong in stand­ing, as well as in num­bers, to allow of the charge of inter­est­ed motives.

Mar­i­ani also includ­ed an excerpt from the New York Med­ical Jour­nal, denounc­ing the unscrupu­lous man­u­fac­tur­ers of “rival prepa­ra­tions of coca” who pirat­ed Vin Mariani’s glow­ing reviews, “crafti­ly mak­ing those records appear to apply to their own prepa­ra­tions.”

Else­where in the album, med­ical author­i­ties tout Vin Mariani’s suc­cess in com­bat­ting such mal­adies as headaches, heart strain, brain exhaus­tion, spasms, la grippe, laryn­geal afflic­tions, influen­za, inor­di­nate irri­tabil­i­ty and wor­ry.

They fail to men­tion that it could get you much high­er than vins ordi­naires, defined, for pur­pos­es of this post, as “wines lack­ing in coca.”

The psy­choac­tive prop­er­ties of coca def­i­nite­ly received a boost from the alco­hol, a col­li­sion that gave rise to a third chem­i­cal com­pound, cocaeth­yl­ene, a long-last­ing intox­i­cant that pro­duces intense eupho­ria, along with a height­ened risk of car­diotox­i­c­i­ty and sud­den death.

…some dead celebri­ties could like­ly tell us a thing or two about it.

Mariani’s for­tunes began to turn ear­ly in the 20th cen­tu­ry, owing to the Pure Food and Drug Act, the grow­ing tem­per­ance move­ment, and increased pub­lic aware­ness of the dan­gers of cocaine.

We may nev­er see a Vin Mar­i­ani cock­tail on the menu at Death & Co, Licor­ería Liman­tour, or Par­adiso, but the Drug Enforce­ment Administration’s Muse­um keeps a bot­tle on hand.

Relat­ed Con­tent

Coca-Cola Was Orig­i­nal­ly Sold as an Intel­lec­tu­al Stim­u­lant & Med­i­cine: The Unlike­ly Sto­ry of the Icon­ic Soft Drink’s Inven­tion

How a Young Sig­mund Freud Researched & Got Addict­ed to Cocaine, the New “Mir­a­cle Drug,” in 1894

The Cof­fee Pot That Fueled Hon­oré de Balzac’s Cof­fee Addic­tion

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

The Oldest Restaurant in the World: How Madrid’s Sobrino de Botín Has Kept the Oven Hot Since 1725

“We lunched up-stairs at Bot­in’s,” writes Ernest Hem­ing­way near the end of The Sun Also Ris­es (1926). “It is one of the best restau­rants in the world. We had roast suck­ling pig and drank rio­ja alta.” You can do the very same thing today, a cen­tu­ry after the peri­od of that nov­el — and indeed, you also could’ve done it two cen­turies before the peri­od of that nov­el, for Bot­in’s was estab­lished in 1725, and now stands as the old­est restau­rant in con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion. Found­ed as Casa Botín by a French­man named Jean Botin, it passed in 1753 into the hands of one of his nephews, who re-chris­tened it Sobri­no de Botín. What­ev­er the place has been called over this whole time, its oven has nev­er once gone cold.

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“It is our jew­el, our crown jew­el,” Botín’s deputy man­ag­er Javier Sanchéz Álvarez says of that oven in the Great Big Sto­ry video above. “It needs to keep hot at night and be ready to roast in the morn­ing.” What it has to roast is, of course, the restau­ran­t’s sig­na­ture cochinil­lo, or suck­ling pig, about which you can learn more from the Food Insid­er video just above.

“It’s exact­ly the same recipe and tra­di­tion,” says Sanchéz Álvarez. “Absolute­ly every­thing is done in the exact same way as in the old days,” down to the appli­ca­tion of the spices, but­ter, wine, and salt to the raw pork before it enters the his­toric oven bel­ly-up. “It’s very impor­tant that the skin of the cochinil­lo is very crunchy,” he adds. “If the skin isn’t crunchy, it’s not good.”

Need­less to say, Botín is poor­ly placed to win the favor of the world’s veg­e­tar­i­ans. But it does robust busi­ness nev­er­the­less, hav­ing pulled through the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic (with, at the very least, its oven still lit), and more recent­ly received a vis­it from super­star food vlog­ger Mark Wiens. Its endur­ing suc­cess sure­ly owes to its more-than-proven abil­i­ty to deliv­er on a sim­ple promise: “We will serve you a hearty suck­ling pick with some good pota­toes and a serv­ing of good Span­ish ham,” as Sanchéz Álvarez puts it. Work­ing at the restau­rant for more than 40 of its 298 years has made it “like home to me,” he says, employ­ing the com­mon Span­ish expres­sion of feel­ing como un pez en el agua — though, giv­en the nature of Botín’s menu, a more ter­res­tri­al metaphor is sure­ly in order.

via Men­tal Floss

Relat­ed con­tent:

Free Doc­u­men­taries from Spain Let You Watch the Tra­di­tion­al Mak­ing of Wine, Cheese, Chur­ros, Hon­ey & More

The Incred­i­ble Engi­neer­ing of Anto­nio Gaudí’s Sagra­da Famil­ia, the World’s Old­est Con­struc­tion Project

The Span­ish Earth: Ernest Hemingway’s 1937 Film on The Span­ish Civ­il War

His­toric Spain in Time Lapse Film

A Vis­it to the World’s Old­est Hotel, Japan’s Nishiya­ma Onsen Keiunkan, Estab­lished in 705 AD

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Death-Cap Mushrooms are Terrifying and Unstoppable: A Wild Animation

Mush­rooms are just­ly cel­e­brat­ed as vir­tu­ous mul­ti­taskers.

They’re food, teach­ers, movie stars, design inspi­ra­tion

…and some, as any­one who’s spent time play­ing or watch­ing The Last of Us can read­i­ly attest, are killers.

Hope­ful­ly we’ve got some time before civ­i­liza­tion is con­quered by zom­bie cordy­ceps.

For now, the ones to watch out for are amani­ta phal­loide, aka death cap mush­rooms.

The pow­er­ful ama­tox­in they har­bor is behind 90 per­cent of mush­room-relat­ed fatal­i­ties world­wide. It caus­es severe liv­er dam­age, lead­ing to bleed­ing dis­or­ders, brain swelling, and mul­ti-organ fail­ure in those who sur­vive. 

A death cap took the life of a three-year-old in British Colum­bia who mis­took one for a tasty straw mush­room on a for­ag­ing expe­di­tion with his fam­i­ly near their apart­ment com­plex. 

In Mel­bourne, a pot pie that test­ed pos­i­tive for death caps result­ed in the deaths of three adults, and sent a fourth to the hos­pi­tal in crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

As the ani­ma­tors feast on mush­rooms’ lim­it­less visu­al appeal in the above episode of The Atlantic’s Life Up Close series, author Craig Childs deliv­ers some sober­ing news:

We did it to our­selves. Humans are the ones who’ve enabled death caps to spread so far beyond their native habi­tats in Scan­di­navia and parts of north­ern Europe, where the poi­so­nous fun­gi feed on the root tips of decid­u­ous trees, spring­ing up around their hosts in tidy fairy rings.

When oth­er coun­tries import these trees to beau­ti­fy their city streets, the death caps, whose frag­ile spores are inca­pable of trav­el­ing long dis­tances when left to their own devices, tag along.

They have sprout­ed in the Pacif­ic North­west near import­ed sweet chest­nuts, beech­es, horn­beams, lin­dens, red oaks, and Eng­lish oaks, and oth­er host species.

As bio­chemist Paul Kroeger, cofounder of the Van­cou­ver Myco­log­i­cal Soci­ety, explained in a 2019 arti­cle Childs penned for the Atlantic, the inva­sive death caps aren’t pop­ping up in deeply wood­ed areas. 

Rather, they are set­tling into urban neigh­bor­hoods, fre­quent­ly in the grass strips bor­der­ing side­walks. When Childs accom­pa­nied Krueger on his rounds, the first of two dozen death caps dis­cov­ered that day were found in front of a house fes­tooned with Hal­loween dec­o­ra­tions. 

Now that they have estab­lished them­selves, the death caps can­not be roust­ed. No longer mere tourists, they’ve been seen mak­ing the jump to native oaks in Cal­i­for­nia and West­ern Cana­da.

Childs also notes that death caps are no longer a North Amer­i­can prob­lem:

They have spread world­wide where for­eign trees have been intro­duced into land­scap­ing and forestry prac­tices: North and South Amer­i­ca, New Zealand, Aus­tralia, South and East Africa, and Mada­gas­car. In Can­ber­ra, Aus­tralia, in 2012, an expe­ri­enced Chi­nese-born chef and his assis­tant pre­pared a New Year’s Eve din­ner that includ­ed, unbe­knownst to them, local­ly gath­ered death caps. Both died with­in two days, wait­ing for liv­er trans­plants; a guest at the din­ner also fell ill, but sur­vived after a suc­cess­ful trans­plant.

For­agers should pro­ceed with extreme cau­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Beau­ti­ful­ly Illus­trat­ed Atlas of Mush­rooms: Edi­ble, Sus­pect and Poi­so­nous (1827)

A Stun­ning, Hand-Illus­trat­ed Book of Mush­rooms Drawn by an Over­looked 19th Cen­tu­ry Female Sci­en­tist

Alger­ian Cave Paint­ings Sug­gest Humans Did Mag­ic Mush­rooms 9,000 Years Ago

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

A Creative List of Meat Carving Terms from the Middle Ages: “Splaye that Breme,” “Splatte that Pyke” & More

A less­er adver­tised joy of work­ing in food ser­vice is achiev­ing com­mand of the slang:

Mon­key dish…

Deuces and four tops…

Fire, flash, kill… 

As you may have noticed, we here at Open Cul­ture have an insa­tiable hunger for vin­tage lin­go and it doesn’t get much more vin­tage than The Boke of Kervyn­ge (The Book of Carv­ing).

This 1508 man­u­al was pub­lished for the ben­e­fit of young noble­men who’d been placed in afflu­ent house­holds, to learn the ropes of high soci­ety by serv­ing the sov­er­eigns.

Few fam­i­lies could afford to serve meat, let alone whole ani­mals, so under­stand­ably, the pre­sen­ta­tion and carv­ing of these pre­cious entrees was not a thing to be under­tak­en light­ly.

The influ­en­tial Lon­don-based pub­lish­er Wynkyn de Worde com­piled step-by-step instruc­tions for get­ting dif­fer­ent types of meat, game and fish from kitchen to plate, as well as what to serve on sea­son­al menus and spe­cial occa­sions like East­er and the Feast of St. John the Bap­tist.

The book opens with the list of “good­ly ter­mes” above, essen­tial vocab for any young man eager to prove his skills around the car­cass of a deer, goose, or lob­ster.

There’s noth­ing here for veg­e­tar­i­ans, obvi­ous­ly. And some 21st-cen­tu­ry car­ni­vores may find them­selves blanch­ing a bit at the thought of tear­ing into a heron or por­poise.

If, how­ev­er, you’re a medieval lad tasked with “dis­fig­ur­ing” a pea­cock, close­ly observed by an entire din­ing table of la crème de la crème, The Boke of Kervyn­ge is a life­saver.

(It also con­tains some invalu­able tips for meet­ing expec­ta­tions should you find your­self in the posi­tion of chaum­ber­layne, Mar­shall or ush­er.)

In any event, let’s spice up our vocab­u­lary while res­cu­ing some aged culi­nary terms from obscu­ri­ty.

Don’t be sur­prised if they work their way into an episode of The Bear next sea­son, though you should also feel free to use them metaphor­i­cal­ly.

And don’t lose heart if some of the terms are a bit befud­dling to mod­ern ears. Lists of Note’s Shaun Ush­er has tak­en a stab at truf­fling up some mod­ern trans­la­tions for a few of the less famil­iar sound­ing words, wise­ly refrain­ing from haz­ard­ing a guess as to the mean­ing of “fruche that chekyn”.

(It’s not the “chekyn” part giv­ing us pause…)

Ter­mes of a keruer —Terms of a carv­er

Breke that dere — break that deer

lesche y brawne — leach the brawn

rere that goose — rear that goose

lyft that swanne — lift that swan

sauce that capon — sauce that capon

spoyle that henne — spoil that hen

fruche that chekyn — ? that chick­en

vnbrace that malarde — unbrace that mal­lard

vnlace that cony — unlace that coney

dys­mem­bre that heron — dis­mem­ber that heron

dys­playe that crane — dis­play that crane

dys­fygure that pecocke —dis­fig­ure that pea­cock

vnioynt that byt­ture — unjoint that bit­tern

vntache that curlewe — untack that curlew

alaye that fesande — allay that pheas­ant

wyn­ge that partryche — wing that par­tridge

wyn­ge that quayle — wing that quail

mynce that plouer — mince that plover

thye that pegy­on — thigh that pigeon

bor­der that pasty — bor­der that pasty

thye all man­er of small byrdes — thigh all man­ner of small birds

tym­bre that fyre — tim­ber that fire

tyere that egge — tear that egg

chyne that samon — chine that salmon

stryn­ge that lam­praye — string that lam­prey

splat­te that pyke — splat that pike

sauce that playce — sauce that plaice

sauce that tenche — sauce that tench

splaye that breme — splay that bream

syde that had­docke — side that had­dock

tuske that bar­bell — tusk that bar­bel

culpon that troute — culpon that trout

fynne that cheuen — fin that cheven

trassene that ele — ? that eel

traunche that stur­gy­on — tranche that stur­geon

vnder­traunche yt pur­pos — under­tranch that por­poise

tayme that crabbe — tame that crab

barbe that lop­ster — barb that lob­ster

Here endeth the good­ly ter­mes.

Peruse a dig­i­tal copy of the sole sur­viv­ing copy of the first edi­tion of the Boke of Kervyn­ge here.

Via Lists of Note

Relat­ed Con­tent 

What Did Peo­ple Eat in Medieval Times? A Video Series and New Cook­book Explain

A 13th-Cen­tu­ry Cook­book Fea­tur­ing 475 Recipes from Moor­ish Spain Gets Pub­lished in a New Trans­lat­ed Edi­tion

A List of 1,065 Medieval Dog Names: Nose­wise, Gar­lik, Have­g­ood­day & More

Tast­ing His­to­ry: A Hit YouTube Series Shows How to Cook the Foods of Ancient Greece & Rome, Medieval Europe, and Oth­er Places & Peri­ods

Ernest Hemingway’s Favorite Ham­burg­er Recipe

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

How to Make the 2000-Year-Old “Pizza” Discovered on a Pompeii Fresco

Just last month, we fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture the dis­cov­ery of a Pom­pei­ian fres­co pur­port­ed to depict an ancient ances­tor of piz­za. For most of us piz­za-lov­ing mil­lions — nay, bil­lions — around the world, this was a notable curios­i­ty but for Max Miller, it was clear­ly a chal­lenge. As the cre­ator of the hit Youtube chan­nel Tast­ing His­to­ry, each of whose episodes involves faith­ful re-cre­ation of dish­es from eras past, he could­n’t pos­si­bly have ignored this devel­op­ment. But it also pos­es even stiffer dif­fi­cul­ties than most of his culi­nary projects, pro­vid­ing him not a recipe to work with but a pic­ture, and not a par­tic­u­lar­ly detailed pic­ture at that.

The fres­co’s genre is xenia, which, Miller explains in the video above, “comes from the Greek word that referred to a sort of social con­tract between hosts and guests.” The ancient Roman archi­tect Vit­ru­vius (he whose work inspired Leonar­do’s Vit­ru­vian Man) described how the Greeks, after becom­ing wealthy, “began pro­vid­ing din­ing rooms, cham­bers, and store­rooms of pro­vi­sions for their guests.”

The food and drink they brought out for their din­ner par­ties became the sub­ject of xenia art­works like this fres­co from Pom­peii, which hap­pens to include a famil­iar-look­ing round bread. What’s more, “some schol­ars have sug­gest­ed that one of the ingre­di­ents that prob­a­bly is on this bread is sort of piz­za-like, inso­far as it is a kind of spread­able cheese.”

The qual­i­ty of that ingre­di­ent, called more­tum, seem­ing­ly makes or breaks this ancient piz­za, and so Miller spends most of the video explain­ing its prepa­ra­tion, draw­ing details from a poem attrib­uted to Vir­gil. Those fol­low­ing along in their own kitchens will need to gath­er a cou­ple heads of gar­lic, large hand­fuls of pars­ley and cilantro, a small hand­ful of rue, and ten ounces of white cheese. When you’ve made the more­tum, you can bake the Roman bread, loaves of which were pre­served by the explo­sion of Mount Vesu­vius, then spread on the more­tum and “top it with things like white cheese, dates, pome­gran­ates, or what­ev­er else you saw in the fres­co.” Miller notes that actu­al Pom­pei­ians prob­a­bly would­n’t have sliced the final prod­uct, but rather picked off and eat­en its top­pings one-by-one before get­ting around to the bread: a piz­za con­sump­tion method prac­ticed by more than a few of us mod­erns, at least in child­hood.

Relat­ed con­tent:

A New­ly Dis­cov­ered Fres­co in Pom­peii Reveals a Pre­cur­sor to Piz­za

His­tor­i­cal Ital­ian Cook­ing: How to Make Ancient Roman & Medieval Ital­ian Dish­es

The First Piz­za Ordered by Com­put­er, 1974

A Culi­nary Videos Series Shows Every Con­ceiv­able Way to Cook Eggs, Pota­toes, Piz­za, Bacon & More

A Tour of All the Piz­za Styles You Can Eat in the Unit­ed States (and the His­to­ry Behind Your Favorite Slices)

Tast­ing His­to­ry: A Hit YouTube Series Shows How to Cook the Foods of Ancient Greece & Rome, Medieval Europe, and Oth­er Places & Peri­ods

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

How Olive Oil Was Made in Ancient Rome in the Middle Ages (Plus in Modern Times)

If you think cannabis pos­sess­es a broad range of appli­ca­tions, olive oil is going to blow your mind!

Humans have been hip to this mir­a­cle elixir since approx­i­mate­ly 2500 BCE, when Mediter­ranean dwellers used it as lamp fuel and to anoint roy­al­ty, war­riors, and oth­er VIPs. (Not for noth­ing does “mes­si­ah” trans­late to “the anoint­ed one”…)

Its culi­nary appli­ca­tions entered the mix between the 5th and 4th cen­turies BCE.

Even amur­ca, the bit­ter tast­ing, foul smelling liq­uid byprod­uct of the oil press­ing process had numer­ous things to rec­om­mend it, as least as far as the ancient Romans were con­cerned. They used it as a fer­til­iz­er, a pes­ti­cide, a floor plas­ter, a sealant for jars, a fire accel­er­ant, moth repel­lent, axel grease, a sur­face var­nish, a nutri­tion­al sup­ple­ment for live­stock, and a rem­e­dy for skin dis­eases and infec­tions.

It’s also a seri­ous pol­lu­tant, so good on them for divert­ing it from the land­fill.

Meth­ods for extract­ing this prac­ti­cal, nutri­tion­al pow­er­house from the olive fruit have evolved over time.

Bronze Age fres­coes and ancient papyri doc­u­ment the ear­li­est approach.

The Romans and Greeks took things up a notch with mechan­i­cal press­es, such as the repli­ca at the Bib­li­cal His­to­ry Cen­ter, above.

In an episode of his Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Unchart­ed series, chef Gor­don Ram­say trav­eled to Moroc­co to take a turn at one of the man­u­al­ly-turned stone grind­ing wheels that were the Mid­dle Ages’ con­tri­bu­tion to the his­to­ry of olive oil, dis­cov­er­ing in the process that such “bloody hard work” is bet­ter accom­plished by an ass.

His labors were reward­ed with a taste of olive oil straight from the press - oh my lord, that is beau­ti­ful! I’ve heard of extra vir­gin but this is gonna be extra-extra vir­gin!

Insid­er Food tracks olive oil to the 21st cen­tu­ry, where pro­duc­tion is under­way at a mill in Monop­o­li in the south­ern Ital­ian region of Puglia, an area where olive trees out­num­ber humans, 15 to 1.

Puglia’s 1,000-plus mills sup­ply 40% of the country’s olive oil pro­duc­tion, and 12% world­wide.

Con­tem­po­rary olive oil mak­ers obtain a tra­di­tion­al qual­i­ty prod­uct by split­ting the dif­fer­ence between the ancient and the mod­ern, with con­vey­or belts fer­ry­ing the fruit to a vat where machine-dri­ven gran­ite wheels crush them to a pulp.

It’s less pic­turesque, but also more effi­cient and hygien­ic than pre-Indus­tri­al meth­ods, thanks, in part, to rub­ber gloves and stain­less steel.

Grad­ing oil accord­ing to its puri­ty is also a mod­ern inno­va­tion, pro­vid­ing con­sumers a han­dle qual­i­ty, taste and health attrib­ut­es.

Learn more about the his­to­ry of olive oil here, then get cookin’!

Relat­ed Con­tent

Vis­it Monte Tes­tac­cio, the Ancient Roman Hill Made of 50 Mil­lion Crushed Olive Oil Jugs

3,000-Year-Old Olive Tree on the Greek Island of Crete Still Pro­duces Olives Today

Cook Real Recipes from Ancient Rome: Ostrich Ragoût, Roast Wild Boar, Nut Tarts & More

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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