Neapolitan Macaroni

Translation of a 16th century Italian Recipe.

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

p52v-r A fare dieci piatti di Maccheroni alla Nopoletana. (To make ten plates of Neapolitan macaroni.)

Take eight pounds of the best flour, and the soft part of a large bread soaked in rose water, and four fresh eggs, and four ounces of sugar, and mix them well together, and make your pasta, kneading it well for a while, then don't make your sheet too big but thin, and cut it into long, straight lines, and make the amount that you would. Then cook it in boiling fatty broth, and spread it onto the plate, or over capon, or duck, or else with sugar, and cinnamon under and over, and for lean days you cook it with water without butter, and with fresh butter, as you like.