If you get to the bottom of this and think “hmm, yes, a fine piece indeed,” then you likely have friends of similar good taste who may enjoy it as well. In which case please share and let’s get to 200 subscribers together, hand in hand, forks in mouths, lips on lips (what?).
Welcome also to the six newcomers since our last outing, you’re in for a feast…
It’s 1529, we’re in Ferrara, it’s a wedding between two of the big dog dynasties of the day and gastronomically speaking; it’s about to go down.
We’re talking five courses, and within each course 15 micro-courses. We’re going to see stuffed whole goats, roast birds, fried lobster, steamed turbots and plenty of that prized Ferrara eel - still a local delight to this day. If we are to eat every single item presented to us, by the end of the night we will have consumed 18 portions of 11 different fish, 8 whole birds, 15 small pastries and pies, numerous sausages, meats, and salads.
But these old school geezers knew that throwing a banquet was about much more than killing your guests with glutton. Entertainment enters not only through the mouth, but the eyes and the ears, and to accommodate these senses there will be life-size statues sculpted entirely from sugar, musical performances and whole plays written by the day’s leading poet.
And while you feel entertained, deep down… deep, deep down… you know that this is about more than the Duke of Ferrara trying to tickle your stomach. He’s trying to impress upon you. He’s trying to impose upon you. This is about power.
As any half decent history teacher will have drilled into you; whenever we look at a moment in the past, we would be ignoramus to the extremis if we ignore the context. The context that surrounds you in 1529? Plague, Italy’s powerful dynasties collapsing in the face of greater European states, more plague, Rome being sacked and its cardinals hung by their balls and nuns being exchanged over games of dice, a bit more plague, the surrender of Naples to France, a dash of famine, and you get the gist. Then here’s little old Ferrara with this fuck off feast. He’s letting y’all know that you got 99 problems, but a Duke ain’t one.
Hit me.
But why Ferrara? Why 1529, now?
Well, I was reminded of the dynamics of this particular feast as I organised my own dinner party last Friday.
And like the professional historians we now are (does last Friday count as history?), we shall not dive straight into the moment, but explore the context.
It’s 2021, we’re in Peckham, it’s the first dinner party for our NCT cohort since the babies were born and gastronomically speaking; it’s about to go down.
Or at least it has to. The world has changed since 1529, heck since 1979 even, and the modern dad has a new role; earn them cheques, change them nappies, and make them meals. I’m about to be surrounded by 5 new mums each who will be weighing me up to their respective modern husbands and I’ve got to deliver the goods. Everyone needs to know who the duke of NCT is.
Now how to approach dinner party menu design is a whole post in itself, but here are some key things one should always factor in:
The season and what goodness you can get your mits on
How easy it will be to cook while also shmoozing with guests over one of your famous margaritas
How desperate you are to impress these people
Putting the current variables into the above algorithm, I ended up with:
Pumpkin risotto (seasonality!)
Slow roasted duck (You can’t overcook a slow-roast so its foolproof for shmoozing over them margaritas)
Poached pears and cream (from how to fuck a pear)
And as good as the risotto may have been, and despite all that has been mentioned, remember that there is ultimately only one measure for how good your dinner party has been, and that is how pissed everyone got. At about 3AM one mum stole into my sleeping baby’s room, woke him up and danced with him about the house, so I think we can conclude it was quite the success.
But the context! The context! Amid our gluttony, it escaped us again. We shone our torch on the Duke and his show of power, yet we did so without considering it against the period’s overwhelming destitution among the peasantry. Shame on us.
To them the quantities of food were utterly offensive, and it is easy to brush the Duke off as cruel and ostentatious. However the astute politician knows that a celebration for the gentry has to trickle down. The servants would take away the many remains and distribute it all across their families, and what was a spectacular feast for the rich became a series of micro feasts for the poor.
In my own story, I find myself at once the bourgeois and the pauper (or maybe solely the bourgeois; only the most bourgeois of bourgeoisie could write a sentence like that). In the last month I have come to realise that having a mortgage and paying for nursery is actually fairly expensive, and so my household finances become the crumbling Italy against which our feast is set.
I break the bank on the finest of the finest in a mad display of keeping up with the Joneses, yet am then also left with the remains; rare treats like bits of duck, brown cream gravy, heritage potatoes and other bits of gold-dust to fall upon and brighten up next week’s living.
What follows is not a recipe but a series of non-recipes, ideas even, and a diary of how to thrive off the dregs of a banquet.
The Duck
I roast one duck each year. The rarity of this event motivates me to treat that duck as if it were a gift from the gods. I spend two weeks dreaming of it, two days salt brining it, and one day obsessively patting it dry to ensure that fabled crispy skin. Yet no matter how good the main event, it’s the aftermath that pleases me most…
Saturday Lunch: Refried Potatoes in Gravy
If it’s been a good dinner party then on this day you are suitably hungover. Fat is the cure, so I scrape the bottom of the roasting pan, grab last night’s potatoes that were roasted under the duck, and refry them to create double-ducky godly goodness. I top them with leftover cream gravy and marvel at the kind of lunch you would only have in the wake of such a great affair.
Sunday Lunch: Spaghetti with duck giblet bolognese
My cream gravy is a “signature sauce,” and perhaps a newsletter for another day. A part of it involves making a stock with the duck giblets (always buy birds that come with all the extras). Now, don’t chuck these bits away after! Instead chop them up, add them to a soffrito (discussed in this post on lentils) with a good splosh of wine and a little leftover giblet stock and let it all bubble together slowly for a quarter hour or so. Toss through hot spaghetti with a nob of butter and enjoy a “spag bol” worthy of the Renaissance.
Monday Brekka: Apple and blueberry sauce with porridge and cream
Good gamey birds like acidic fruity bits, and Friday’s duck was served with apple and blueberry sauce. The leftovers of which I use liberally on porridges, and since there’s still some cream, I substitute it for milk and feel like I’m having crumble every day for breakfast.
Tuesday Dinner: Return of the Pumpkin Risotto
For pumpkin risotto, you must roast the pumpkin (to coax out all its sweetness) and then mash the flesh. I have some sensational Veronese delicata squash, pre-roasted and mashed from Friday’s outing, and it’s good enough to eat out the tub with a spoon. Yet there is now stock from the duck carcass, and a little leftover 24 month seasoned parmesan so it would be foolish to deny the rerun of the risotto. I don’t like to faff here; toast the rice dry in a pan, add wine, add stock ladle by ladle until it’s al dente, add the pumpkin, take off heat and stir in butter and cheese, leave with lid on to rest for a minute or two, and loosen with more stock if necessary.
Wednesday quick lunch: Duck Noodle Soup
It’s the dish you’ve surely been calling for all along, what else is there to do with duck stock and leftover roast duck? I put a spoonful each of chilli oil, soy, and duck fat at the bottom of each bowl, add boiled noodles, top up with duck broth and crown with leftover meat. Some garnishes would be nice, but I don’t have any and am committed to not spending an extra penny on food this week.
Wednesday dinner: Pumpkin Soup
I am impressed at how far this pumpkin mash is getting us; a blob here or there is more than enough to liven up a risotto or soup. To that end, let’s boil some potatoes in the leftover stock (you don’t need much here, just enough to cover the slices), blend to a puree, add in the mash with a dash of nutmeg and black pepper and finish with cream.
Thursday Dinner: Jacket potatoes with cream gravy
We’re almost at the end of the week and we’re going full circle, potatoes and gravy again. You’re probably wondering if any of this food can still be safe to eat, it’s a good question, and one I don’t have answers for. I grab a hunk of red cabbage that’s been knocking at the back of fridge for who knows how long, braise it with vinegar, apples and sugar and the very last splosh of stock. Jacket potatoes then go in the oven with some quartered onions, and top it all with cream gravy. This makes the least attractive photo, but maybe my favourite meal of them all.
I have never seen a week's dishes from one dinner before. In this and other ways you are really onto something. And I recieved a history lesson too. Marvellous.