Lean White Dish

Translation of a 16th century Italian Recipe.

From Christoforo di Messisbugo, Banchetti composizioni di vivande e apparecchio generale (Lucio Spineda, Venice, 1610)

p83v A fare dieci piatti di mangiar bianco da magro. (To make ten plates of lean white dish.)

Take three pounds of well skinned and ground Ambrosine almonds, and then grind them with the kitchen mill with milk of these almonds, and like its [?]¹, and put over the fire a tripod with a good pewter fire pot with one pound of rice flour, and one pound of fine sugar, and you cuzzo², or ground basefish, and passed through the sieve, and make all these things boil together for half an hour stirring well continuously with a wooden spatula, and when this dish is cooked, put in a little rose water, and lift it from the fire, and serve it where it will be, putting over [it] fine sugar.

2. Possibly tuzzo? Again, this word is somewhat obscured in the facsimile. It's a type of fish though, as this is a lean day dish and the alternative he mentions next is also a fish.