{Hermolaus}[1] <Janus Cornarius> enim haec Aeginetae verba super his ovis ἀναδεύθεντα ὠμά μετὰ γάρου καὶ οἴνου καὶ ἐλαίου, καὶ ἐν διπλόμασι συμμέτρως πηγνύμενα: Sic vertit: cruda cum garo, vinoque ac oleo subacta{.} <> (Albanus irrigata vertit, et diplomata inepte vasa aenea, testaceave) in duplici vase coquuntur, donec mediocriter condensentur. Ἀναδεύειν vero verbum compositum permixtionem, quae per totum fiat, praesertim in humido, vel liquido significare videtur. Hanc enim vim praepositio  ἀνὰ in compositione quandoque habet, nam et extra compositionem ultro citroque significat. Itaque ova cum oleo, et vino, ἀναδεδευμένα permixta, et agitata vertere licebit: ita ut tale fere hoc ferculum fuisse videatur, quale apud Germanos Ornithologus ius quoddam esse tradit, cui vulgo a vino calido nomen: ait tamen densius esse, neque ova integra permanere, sed frangi, et agitari.

For Janus Cornarius is translating in this way the following words anadeúthenta ømá metà gárou kaì oínou kaì elaíou, kaì en diplómasi summétrøs pëgnúmena of Paul of Aegina about these eggs: raw, beaten with fish sauce and with wine and oil (Alban Thorer translates with irrigated, and he silly translates the diplomata - twofold container vases for bain-marie - with bronze or earthenware vases) they are cooked in a double vase until moderately hardened. In truth the composed verb anadeúein - to dampen, to water - seems to mean a blending carried on throughout the whole, especially in a damp or liquid matter. For sometimes in a composed word the preposition anà has this meaning, for outside a composed word also means beyond and on this side. Therefore it will be allowed to translate the eggs anadedeuména with oil and wine into mixed and beaten: so much so that it would seem that this course was practically equivalent to a certain broth that the Ornithologist reports as present among Germans, which is named from warm wine in common language: however he says that it is more thick and that the eggs don’t remain intact, but that they are scrambled and shaken.

Qui itaque exaphetà, et pnicta eadem putant, toto errant caelo, inter quos Hermolaus est, vir alioquin nullis non praeferendus, qui deinde dum pnicta interpretatur, quae in aquam calidam mittuntur, immergunturque cum garo, etc. quoque perperam scripsit, ut ex Galeni, et Aeginetae verbis iam recitatis facile percipitur. Nec Caelius quoque rem acu tetigit, pnicta Galeno vocari existimans, quod praefocari videantur, dum certo genere coquuntur, etc. Nam et hic verbi ἀναδεύειν vim non animadvertit. Germani, teste Ornithologo[2], huiusmodi genus cocturae appellant Verdempffen, hoc est, ut Germanus quidam mihi exposuit, suffocare, quoniam vase operto, et incluso intus vapore veluti suffocari videatur, quod intus coquitur: unde etiam inquit, non inepte ova pnicta Germanice dixeris Verdempffte eyer, hoc est ova suffocata. Nobis ut opinor, recte affogata dici queant. Quod ad bonitatem ovorum pnictorum attinet, Galenus[3] ea elixis (hepht<h>is[4], id est duris) et assis meliora esse scripsit. Equidem videntur pnicta tanquam in diplomate cocta, cum sapidiora esse, idque condimentorum quoque ratione, tum magis lenire, ac mitigare, quam quae in vase statim igni imposito parantur: nam haec facilius empyreuma[5] aliquod trahunt.

Therefore those people thinking that exaphetá and pnictá eggs are the same thing, they make a big mistake, among whom there is Ermolao, a man in other respects we have to place before everybody, who therefore when translating as pnictá the eggs placed in hot water and immersed along with fish sauce, etc., he also wrote wrongly, as we can easily infer from the just quoted words of Galen and Paul of Aegina. Nor Lodovico Ricchieri touched on a sore point, thinking that pnictá eggs are so called by Galen since it seems that they are suffocated when cooked in a certain way, etc. In fact he also doesn’t realize the meaning of the verb anadeúein. The Germans, as the Ornithologist says, call this kind of cooking verdempffen, that is, as a German explained to me, to suffocate, since what is cooked inside a covered pot, and with the steam held inside, almost seems to be suffocated: hence, he still adds, in German you could rightly call pnictà eggs as verdempffte Eyer, that is, smothered eggs. In my opinion, by us, Italians, they could rightly be called affogate, poached. As far as tastiness of poached eggs is concerned, Galen wrote that they are better than the boiled (hephthá, that is, hard-boiled) and roasted ones. Really poached eggs seem to be cooked as in a bain-marie, and being more tasty, and this because of seasonings too, they have more lenitive and refreshing power than those prepared in a pot suddenly placed on fire: for these eggs more easily bring along some residue.

Sorbilia ova ῥοφητά Graeci dicunt: at quae et haec sint, non satis inter authores convenit, vel ob synonymorum copiam non convenire apparet. Galenus[6] quem sequi placet, ova ῥοφητά vocari asserit, quae dum coquuntur, excalfiunt tantummodo. Haec alias quoque liquida appellantur: non enim, ut Caelius, et Hermolaus putant liquida cum tremulis, et mollibus eadem sunt. Mollibus enim panis intingi solet, liquida, hoc est, excalfacta per se tantum ebibuntur, unde nobis vulgo ova da bere dicuntur, solentque paulo ante prandium ditioribus exhiberi cum modico salis. Ita et Brasavolus recte sorbilia interpretatur, quae coctura sua vix coepere condensari. His, inquit, non utimur, nisi cum ova sint recentissima, ut naturalem adhuc Gallinae calorem fervent: et revera nisi unius diei ova sint, sequenti die eiusmodi coctionem vix admittunt.

The Greeks call sucking eggs rhophëtá: but among the authors it is not sufficiently agreed upon what also these are, or it is evident that they don’t reach an agreement because of the abundance of synonyms. Galen, whom I intend to follow, affirms that are called rhophëtá the eggs which barely warm up while cooked. These are otherwise also said liquid: for, as Lodovico Ricchieri and Ermolao Barbaro are thinking, liquid eggs are not the same as trembling and soft ones. In soft eggs bread is usually dipped, liquid eggs, that is, heated, are only drunk alone, hence in common language we call them da bere, sucking eggs, and are usually served to more moneyed people with very little salt few before a lunch. So also Antonio Brasavola correctly interprets as sucking eggs those which through cooking barely started to grow hard. He says: we don't use them except when the eggs are so recent that they are still warm because of the natural heat of the hen: and in truth unless they are one-day-old eggs, on the following day they hardly accept that they are cooked in this way.

Cum itaque paulo magis coquuntur, ut e putamine educta tremere videantur, Graecis τρομητά, id est, tremula, Dioscoridi[7] aliquando ἁπαλά dicuntur, Corn. Celso mollia, nonnullis recentioribus etiam tenera, et tenella. Sin duritiem aliquam acceperint ἑφθά et ἑψηθέντα absolute Galeno, et Simeoni Sethi non simpliciter elixa vocantur, quemadmodum quae omnino induruerint σκληρά, hoc est, dura, etiamsi Galenus quandoque epht<h>a, et dura pro eisdem sumere videatur. Haec nos ova paschalia vulgo dicimus, quod in die {paschatis} <Paschatis> in templum sacerdoti benedicenda offerantur. Atque hi fere sunt elixorum ovorum coctionis modi, quae omnia generaliter ἀυγοκούλικα[8] Simeon Sethi nominavit, ea inquam omnia, sive parum sive multum, modo in aqua cocta forent.

And when cooked a little more, so that we can see them to tremble when freed from shell, by Greeks are called tromëtá, that is trembling, and sometimes hapalá by Dioscorides, soft by Cornelius Celsus, by some more recent authors also tender and wee tender. If they acquired a little bit of consistence without mincing words are called hephthá and hepsëthénta - boiled - by Galen and Simeon Sethi, and not simply cooked, just as those which became quite hard they call them sklërá, that is hard-boiled, although sometimes Galen seems to mean as equivalent both boiled and hard-boiled. Usually we call paschal these eggs, since on Easter day they are offered to the priest in the church to be blessed. And these are practically the cooking manners of boiled eggs, which all-inclusive Simeon Sethi called augokoúlika, and I would say that they are all the eggs cooked both a little and a lot only in water.

De quorum omnium, antequam ad alias coctiones procedamus, salubritate parum dicendum est. Ovum sorbile, inquit Galenus[9], cibus est levissimus. Et rursus[10], boni succi est non calefacit, vires potest reficere acervatim: antiquitus sumebatur cum garo, lenit gutturis asper{r}itates: Et Celsus[11], Ovum sorbile, inquit, boni succi est, pituitam crassiorem facit, imbecilli<ssi>mae materiae est (id est minimum alit, ut durum validissime) ovum molle, vel sorbile: eadem minime inflant. Brasavolus tradit multos sese vidisse, qui ex sorbili<b>us ovis molliorem ventrem habuere, et nonnullos, qui uno etiam exhausto, quinquies, vel sexies deiicerent. Haec olim pro matutino erant ientaculo, et gustula vocabantur, ut ex Apuleio[12] colligere est, dum ait.<:> Nunc etiam cogitas (alloquitur Gallinam), ut video, gustulum praeparare, quo gustulo nihil, me iudice, est iucundius, et nullus alius cibus, qui alat, neque oneret, simulque vini usum, et cibi praebeat.

Before we proceed to other kinds of cooking it is worthwhile to say a little something about the healthy characteristics of any kind of cooked egg. Galen says: The sucking egg is a very light food. And again: It has a good taste, it doesn't heat, it can restore strengths in heaps: in past times it was drunk with fish sauce, it relieves throat irritations. And Celsus says: The sucking egg has a good taste, it fattens the catarrh, a soft or sucking egg is composed by material entirely destitute of energies (that is, it nourishes very little, while the hard-boiled one is nourishing a lot): soft or sucking eggs give very little swelling of belly. Antonio Brasavola reports that he observed a lot of persons who got from sucking eggs a looser bowel, and some persons who had five or six discharges of diarrhea in swallowing only just one. Once they were used as morning breakfast and were called tastes, as it is possible to infer from Apuleius when he says: Now, as I can see, you also think (he speaks to the hen) to prepare a taste, and in my opinion nothing is more pleasant than such a taste, and no other food is existing which is able to nourish without burdening, and able to give at the same time the benefit of wine and food.

Mollia sorbilibus plus nutriunt, dura plus mollibus, Dioscoride, Galenoque testibus. Haec idem Galenus, et Symeon Sethi ad nutriendum omnium praestantissima esse volunt, et Celsus[13] tanquam stomacho apta commendat.

Soft eggs nourish more than sucking eggs, hard eggs more than soft, as Dioscorides and Galen testify. Both Galen and Simeon Sethi think that soft eggs are by far over all other eggs from a nourishing point of view, and Celsus recommends them as suited for stomach.