Beet ravioli

Translation of a 16th century Italian Recipe.

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

p57v/r A far Rauuioli da grasso, e da magro, per piatti dieci. (To make ravioli, for fat and lean days, for ten plates.)

Take well-washed and beaten beets, and put them in a bowl with six pounds of good grated cheese, and two pounds of fresh butter, and twenty eggs, and an ounce of pepper, and half an ounce of ginger, and and ounce of cinnamon, and two grated breads passed through a sieve, and half a pound of raisins, and mix these all together, and then have half a pound of flour spread over a table, and with the said mixture make your ravioli large and small as you would like, and then put them to cook in water, and if it is a lean day, with butter, and a little saffron in the water, and cook it slowly so you don't tear them. Then spread them with good cheese grated over, and if you would like on a meat day you can cook them in good broth with saffron, and raisins in the paste, and when they are cooked take cheese, sugar and cinnamon mixed together, when you would like to serve put them in the plates with cheese under and over, and when you would like variety then make them without beets but with a little fresh cheese.