Idem alibi[1] cibaria alba, seu leucophaga, delicatissima ex pectore Capi parare docet: Cibarium album, inquit, quod aptius Leucophagum dicetur, hoc modo pro duodecim convivis condies: Amygdalarum libras duas per noctem aqua maceratas, ac depilatas in mortario bene tundes, inspergendo [350] modicum aquae, ne oleum faciant. Deinde Capi pectus exossatum in eodem mortario conteres, indesque excavatum panem, agresta prius, aut iure macro remollitum. Zinziberis praeterea unciam, ac saccari selibram addes, miscebisque omnia simul, mixtaque per excretorium farinaceum in ollam mundam transmittes. Efferveat deinde in carbonibus lento igne facies, cochlearique saepe agitabis, ne seriae adhereat. Coctum ubi fuerit, aquae rosaceae uncias tres infundes. Ad mensam, aut in patinis ubi caro fuerit, aut seorsum, aut minoribus mittes. Quod si in Capos fundere institueris, quo lautius videatur, mali Punici grana superinspergito.

Still Platina elsewhere is telling how to prepare with the breast of the capon white foods, or leucophaga, very delicate. He says: For twelve table companions you will season in the following way a white food which more properly should be called leucophagum: Crush up well in a mortar two pounds [around 700 g] of almonds steeped in water during the night and peeled, sprinkling upon a little water so that they don’t give off oil. Then you will crush in the same mortar boned breast of capon, and will add some bread without crumb previously softened with agresta or a thin broth. Furthermore you will add an ounce [27.28 g] of ginger and a half-pound [163.72 g] of sugar, and will mix all together, and passing the mixture through a flour sieve you will move it to a clean pot. Then you will do so that it gets to boil on a slow heat on charcoals and will often stir with a spoon so that it doesn't stick to the pot. When cooked you will add three ounces [around 75 g] of rose water. You will send it to table either in the plates where formerly the meat was, or separately, or in smaller containers. But if you planned to pour it on capons, sprinkle pomegranate seeds upon so that the whole seems more refined.

Idem subsequenti capite cibarium album Catellonicum ex pectore Capi describit, hoc modo: Farinam optimi risi cum duabus metretis[2] lactis caprini in cacabo ad ignem ponito, procul flamma, ne {cibum} <fumum>[3] concipiat. Pectus deinde Capi eodem die mortui, ac semicocti in quaedam quasi subtilissima fila dividito, inditaque in mortario duobus eo amplius, tribus ictibus, {pastillo} <pistillo> contundito. Ubi lac dimidium horae efferbuerit, hoc idem pectus in fila redactum cum libra saccari indes, effervereque horas quatuor patieris, agitando semper condituram cochleari, cui haerebit, ut terebinthina, ubi decoctum fuerit. Aquam postremo rosaceam, ut in superiore infundes, patinasque facies. Nec erit ab re si saccari aliquid {inspergas} <insperges>[4]: nulli enim cibariorum, ut aiunt, {saccarum} <saccaron> adversatur.

He still in next chapter describes as follows a Catalan white food gotten from the breast of the capon: Place flour of very good rice on fire with two metretae [around 18 l] of goat milk into a pot away from flame so that doesn't get smoke. Then divide in very thin strips the breast of a capon dead in the same day and half-cooked, and after you placed them in a mortar strike them two or even better three times with a pestle. When milk has boiled a half hour, add this shredded breast with a pound [327.45 g] of sugar and wait patiently that it boils four hours, mixing all the time the seasoning with a spoon, to which it will cling like resin of terebinth when cooking is done. Finally as in previous recipe add rose water and make course dishes. And it will be appropriate to sprinkle some sugar upon: for, as they say, there is no food which sugar doesn’t fit.

Cibarium croceum ex eodem[5]: Pro duodecim, inquit, convivis libram amygdalarum cum membranulis tundes, his Capi elixi, aut cuiusvis bonae alitis pectus, ovorum vitella quatuor, saccari selibram, Cinnami, Zinziberis parum, croci plusculum contraria addes, ac iure pingui, ac agresta dissolves. Dissoluta in cacabum per setaceum excretorium infundes, facitoque procul flamma in carbonibus efferveant, agitando semper cochleari. Ad horam ebulliant necesse est. Sunt qui inter ebullendum duas uncias liquaminis, aut butyri recentis indant. Patinis aromata insperges. Alit hoc, etsi tarde concoquitur, obesat, venerem ciet, hepaticis, et cardiacis prodest.

Still from his treatise a saffron dish. He says: For twelve table companions crush a pound [327.45 g] of almonds with their skins, you will add the breast of a boiled capon or of any good bird, four egg yolks, a half-pound [163.72 g] of sugar, little cinnamon and ginger, on the contrary a little more saffron, and dissolve with fat broth and agresta. After they have been dissolved pass them in a pot using a horsehair sieve, and do so that they are boiling on charcoals away from flame always stirring with a spoon. They have to boil for about a hour. Some people add two ounces [around 50 g] of fish sauce or fresh butter while boiling. You will sprinkle spices on dishes. This dish is nourishing, although is hardly digested, fattens, is aphrodisiac, is good for liver and heart sick people.

Eodem item libro[6] esitium ex carne praescribens, Sunt etiam, inquit, qui pectus Capi tunsi non incommode addant. Id vero esitium tale est: Pro decem convivis libram abdominis porcini, aut vitulini bene elixato, coctam, ac concisam cum selibra casei veteris, pauco etiam et pingui addito, cumque herbis odoriferis bene concisis, pipere, zinzibere, {caryophillo} <caryophyllo> misceto. Haec omnia farina bene subacta, ac in tenuissimum folium redacta ad castaneae magnitudinem involvito, involuta in iure pingui, ac croceo decoquito. Parum cocturae requirunt. In patinas traducta caseo trito, et aromatibus dulcioribus aspergito{,}<.> Fieri, et hoc edulium ex pectore Phasiani, Perdicis, aliarumve altilium potest.

Likewise again in 7^th book when prescribing a course made from flesh he says: Rightly some people add also the breast of a crushed capon. And this course is as follows: For ten table companions boil fairly a pound [327.45 g] of pork or veal belly, and when cooked and torn asunder add it to half-pound of ripe cheese and add little fat too, and mix with thin cut aromatic herbs, pepper, ginger and cloves. Wrap all these ingredients to the size of a chestnut using well kneaded flour rolled out into very thin sheet of pastry, cook the roulades in fat broth with saffron. They require little cooking. After you placed them in a plate sprinkle with grated cheese and rather sweet spices. Also this course can be made from breast of pheasant, partridge or other bred birds.

Describit denique esitium ex pelle Caporum. Capum ubi elixaveris, pellem circumquaque abscindes, et eam maxime, qua collum integitur. Concisam, ac in frusta divisam rursum in iure pingui per semihoram decoques, addito croco, quo coloratius fiat: in patinam translatum aromatibus, et caseo trito consperges. Baltasar Stendelius scriptor Magiricae Germanicus docet, quomodo pastillus e Capo fiat, de quo ante[7] egimus. Apicius[8] in minutal Apicianum testiculos Caponum adijcit, Gallis nimirum, dum castrantur exemptos.

Finally he describes a course made from skin of capon. After you boiled a capon cut off its skin all around and especially that covering its neck. After you cut it into strips cook it again for half a hour in fat broth adding saffron so that this becomes more colored: after you moved it to a dish sprinkle with spices and grated cheese. Balthasar Staindl, the German writer on cookery, tells how a pie of capon can be arranged, of which I have previously spoken. Apicius puts in the fricassee à la Apicius the testicles of the capons, obviously removed from roosters when castrated.

USUS IN MEDICINA.

USE IN MEDICINE

Sunt qui tanquam ex Dioscoride, aliisque authoribus medicas facultates Capo attribuant, quas illi Gallinaceo ascripserant, obscuri nempe authores, quos per linguae Latinae imperitiam pro Gallinaceo Capum interpretari diximus[9]. Et quamvis eiusmodi vires Capus quodammodo subministrare possit, tamen ad victus rationem idoneam tantummodo vulgo a medicis tum caro, tum ius eius in quocunque ferme morborum genere, maxime in quibus virium ratio habenda est, praescribitur: medici enim quotiescunque deiectas vires aegrotantium excitare volunt, medicamentum dant, quod ex carnibus Caporum, et Perdicum conficitur. Sunt qui, inter quos est Aloysius Mundella doctissimus inter neotericos[10] medicus facile corrumpi dicant, si aliquo notabili tempore moretur, neque ita aegrotos alere, sed is vel id de extreme laborantibus, qui carnem hanc masticare nequeunt, dixerit, vel sibi ipsi adversatur, ut qui scribat, se aegroto cuidam maligno laboranti morbo, cum iam signa concoctionis apparerent, modo Turdum, modo unum, aut alterum ovi vitellum, modo Caponis carnem contusam concessisse potius, quam vituli. {Item} <Idem>[11] describens historiam iuvenis cuiusdam biliosi febricitantis continue a se curati. Victus ratio, inquit, fuit caro Caponis iuvenis per diem ante mactati cum seminibus melonum contusa, necnon panis in eiusdem iure optime incoctus ad virium, (quae debiles in eo valde erant) robur conservandum.

Some people attribute to the capon healing properties drawing them for example from Dioscorides and other authors who attributed them to the rooster, really not too much known authors, and I said that because of a scanty knowledge of Latin language they translate capon instead of rooster. And although the capon is somehow able to supply such properties, however both its flesh and broth are usually prescribed by physicians as only suitable for food almost in whatever kind of illness, especially for those in which we have to take into account the energies: for whenever physicians want to stir up the fall of strength of sick persons they prescribe a medicine made from flesh of capon and partridge. Some people, among whom Luigi Mondella, in the midst of neoterics - moderns - a very skilled physician, think that this flesh is easily corrupted if it grows old for a rather long time, and that so it doesn't supply food to sick persons, but Mondella would have said this regarding those people who are quite exhausted and who are not able to chew this flesh, or he contradicts himself when writing that he allowed a patient suffering from an incurable disease now a thrush, now one or two egg yolks, now minced flesh of capon rather than of veal, since the signs of the marasmus were by now appearing. Still Mondella, when describing the clinical course of a jaundiced youth with continuous fever he had treated, says: The base of the feeding has been flesh of young capon killed the day before minced with melon seeds, as well as bread overcooked in the broth of the same capon with the purpose of preserving the vigor of the strength (which in such sick person was very enfeebled).