The Decadent Cookbook (3 page)

Remove the membranes from a calf’s brains, fry them and mash with pepper. Mix with raw eggs, peppercorns, and minced meat. Then stuff the mixture into the squid, stitch up and cook in boiling water until the stuffing is firm.

Still hungry? Then it’s time for
fercula
or

Slice each testicle in two and sprinkle with pepper, nuts, finely chopped coriander and powdered fennel seed. Sew the halves together, wrap each one in a caul (i.e. the external membrane of a stomach) and fry them in olive oil and fish-pickle until brown. Then grill or roast in the oven.

Boil an ostrich [easier if you do it in pieces] and set aside. In a pan make a sauce of pepper, mint, roast cumin, celery seed, dates, honey, vinegar, sweet wine, fish-stock and olive oil. Bring to the boil and thicken with starch. Lay out the boiled ostrich pieces on a dish and pour the sauce over them. Alternatively, boil the ostrich in the sauce, adding some spelt.

Have the pig boned from the neck down so that it resembles a bag. Make a stuffing of minced chicken, thrushes, fig-peckers, pork, Lucanian sausages, dates, bulbs, snails, mallows, beetroot, celery, leeks, cabbage, coriander, peppercorns, walnuts, 15 eggs and stock with pepper sauce. Truss, sear and roast in the oven. When cooked, split open the back and serve with a sauce of pepper, rue, stock, wine, honey, and oil, thickened with starch.

Another dish for the intrepid. Flamingoes are not easy to find outside Africa, except in zoos. But guests will appreciate the effort, and you can do all sorts of exciting things with the plumage.

Pluck and gut a flamingo. Place in a pan with water, aniseed, salt and a little vinegar, and boil. When half cooked, add a bunch of chives and coriander leaves tied in a bundle. Towards the end of cooking, add some boiled wine to give it colour.

Take a pestle and mortar and grind up pepper, cumin, coriander, laser root, mint and rue. Add vinegar, dates and some of the cooking broth, then pour the lot into the pan. Thicken the sauce with starch, then serve.

You can use the same recipe for parrot.

Grind pepper, lovage, celery seed, parsley, mint, dried onion, fried sesame seeds and dates with a pestle and mortar. Pour in wine, honey, stock, olive oil, vinegar and boiled wine. Mix well.

A less spectacular dish, showing that the Romans could use everyday ingredients in interesting ways. The Latin name also makes a certain splash.

Make a stuffing for the thrushes as follows: grind pepper, laser and laurel berries, then add cumin and fish-pickle. Insert this through the bird’s throat then stitch up the hole. Stew the thrushes in oil and water seasoned with salt, aniseed and leeks.

The preparation of this dish calls for a strong stomach and a powerful pair of lungs. As few Decadents will be equipped with either of these, they may prefer to have the ‘emptying’ as well as the ‘bagging’ done by a butcher.

Have the animal boned from the neck down so that it resembles a bag. Empty the intestines by blowing into the head, forcing the contents out of the lower end; then wash them very carefully with water. Stuff the intestines with a mixture of your choosing. Sew up the body at the shoulder and roast in the oven, or boil in a basket lowered into a cauldron of salted water. Serve in a sauce made of milk, pepper, stock, wine and olive oil, thickened with starch.