NAPLES YELLOW - Oxbow Books

Maiolica scodella, made
in Northern Italy (Castel
Durante), probably
painted by Nicola da
Urbino, c.1533–8. This
bowl is decorated with
typical childbirth scenes
and would have held
nourishing soup for the
new mother. The lid
shows both the birth and
an astrologer divining the
child’s future. A second
scene at the bottom of
the bowl, which depicts
the newborn baby, would
have been revealed when
the bowl was emptied.
V&A: C.2258&A–1910
84 COOKERY
CHICKEN SOUP
To make a tasty broth of capons
SOME CONSIDER THIS BROTH TO BE MARVELLOUS FOR CONVALESCENTS,
but I have made it to order for physicians many times. Take
a capon chopped in pieces as above [as small as possible,
rinsing once to remove any blood, cover with water and
boil], simmer gently in a pan until you have removed all the
scum that rises to the surface. With an earthenware lid over
the pan, leave to simmer for one hour with a thin slice of
prosciutto […] which adds taste to the broth and satisfi es the
listless. Remove the prosciutto […] and add an eighth of an
ounce of cinnamon. Let it reduce by more than half its original
volume, strain through a sieve and make a minestra from
this broth, as it is more suitable for minestre and
little fi ne broths than to give as a drink.
Capons are ‘more nutritious than all other foods […] generate perfect blood
and balance all the humours’, according to Castor Durante, Il Tesoro della sanità
(The Treasury of Health) (1585). The recipe above comes from the fi nal part of
Bartolomeo Scappi’s famous cookbook (see p.87), which deals with foods for
‘convalescents’. This broth was generally considered by physicians like Ulisse
Aldrovandi to be the ideal food to ‘rally the sinking strength of their patients’,
above all for the elderly, the feverish and women in pregnancy and childbirth.
So when the wife of Miho Bunic, a Dubrovnik nobleman, aged 36, contracted
fever after having twins (one of which died instantly after birth), her expert
physician, Amatus Lusitanus, prescribed capon broth and other invigorating
foods (porridge and watermelon seeds). Leonardo Fioravanti (see p.73) in
his Compendio dei secreti naturali (Compendium of Natural Secrets) (Venice, 1564)
supplied a recipe for this broth, ‘called brodo consumato in Rome, sorcicco in
Naples and consumato in Venice’, along with others for highly nutritious ‘little
fi ne broths’ (with eggs, parsley or other herbs) for the sick. He called for sugar
to be added, which Scappi similarly included in his fi rst and longer recipe for
brodo consumato (intended as a drink). Walther Hermann Ryff, the prolifi c author
of books of secrets for ‘the common man’, also provided a recipe for chicken
soup in his Kochbüch für die Krancken (Cookbook for the Sick) (Frankfurt, 1545), for
Germany’s leading publisher, Christian Egenolff.
Special maiolica wares for childbirth (including maiolica and wooden bowls for
these broths) were commonly given as gifts in Renaissance Italy. Illustrated
here from the Piccolpasso manuscript (see p.23) is one example, a fi ve-piece
stacking set, comprising a salt cellar, bowl, trencher, bowl on a high foot and
its lid, ‘a thing of no small ingenuity’. These sets (and simpler ones of just a
bowl plus lid) were referred to as ‘scodella da impagliata’ (childbirth bowls).
Other reviving superfoods given to women before and after birth included
zabaglione, with recipes in both Scappi and La Commare (The Midwife) (Venice,
1596) by the Roman physician Scipione Mercurio. In England, new mothers
were given posset – warm milk curdled with ale, spiced and often thickened
with eggs – and the V&A has several specially designed two-handled posset pots
(in the British Galleries). In Italy, following childbirth, friends and relatives
brought refreshments on specially painted wooden trays (deschi da parto),
generally special treats purchased from apothecaries, such as comfi ts – sugarcoated
aniseed or coriander seeds.
COOKERY
Stacked bowl set for
pregnant women from
Cipriano Piccolpasso,
I tre libri dell’arte del
vasaio (Castel Durante,
1556–9), manuscript.
V&A/NAL:
MSL/1861/7446, f.11r
85