Medieval Mardi Gras

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LINKS TO INGREDIENTS & EQUIPMENT**
Saffron
Long Pepper

LINKS TO SOURCES**

RECIPE
2 quarts (2 liters) Meat or Chicken Broth
Pinch of saffron threads
2 cups (200g) freshly grated Parmesan Cheese plus more for topping
½ cup (110g) Ricotta
10 oz (280g) pork belly
6 oz (170g) boiled or roasted chicken breast, shredded small
6 tablespoons chopped Herbs of your choice
½ teaspoon Black Pepper or long pepper
⅛ teaspoon Cloves
¼ teaspoon Ginger
A mixture of sweet spices (powder douce - sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, little ginger and clove)
2 1/2 cups (300g) Flour
3 eggs

1. the pork in water for 90 minutes or until it's very soft, then chop it small. Either mince, or mix in a food processor, the pork, chicken, parmesan, ricotta, herbs, and the spices (minus the sweet spice mixture). Mix until you have a paste. Set aside and make the pasta dough.

2. Put the flour on the countertop and create a well in the middle. Crack the eggs into the well and, using your hands, mix the eggs together. Then, just a little at a time, start incorporating the flour. Keep working it in until you have a paste come together. Then knead the dough for about 10 minutes until it’s nice and smooth. Set it aside and cover it with a bowl to rest for at least 20 minutes.

3. Once rested, take about a 5th of it and roll it out on a lightly floured surface. This can be done with a rolling pin or pasta roller. Either way, roll it out, then fold it in thirds like a letter, and roll it again. Repeat 4 or 5 times. Then begin to roll it out as thinly as possible.

4. Lay the strip of pasta out on a floured surface making sure not to get any flour on the topside. Then spoon about a teaspoon of filling in a row down the center of the pasta leaving about an inch and a half between them. Fold the pasta over the filling and gently press around each one to seal in the filling. Then cut out the ravioli making sure they’re well sealed and set them on a dish. Repeat with the next piece of pasta dough. Don't attempt to roll out all of the pasta at once or it will dry out and become hard to shape the ravioli.

5. Once the ravioli are formed, boil the chicken broth with the saffron for 5 minutes, then add 4-6 ravioli at a time and boil for about 4 minutes or until the pasta is to your liking. Place on a dish and top with parmesan and sprinkle with the sweet spice mixture.

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Subtitles: Jose Mendoza

PHOTO CREDITS

#tastinghistory #mardigras #pasta

[dzhellek]

The lowliest person gets to be king.
Kind of a back handed compliment.
"Whoever sucks the most come and get your crown."

[roxannebeaman]

Max, my dog’s name is Ginger.Every time you say Ginger her eyes go wide and she stares at the t.v.😂

[zenkakuji]

This may have been outlawed in Medieval Europe, but somebody forgot to tell the people in Köln (Cologne) Germany. Carnival begins on February 24th this year until March 2nd so you've got just enough time to get a plane ticket and grab your horns for the revelry! 🥳

[davidvanderwoude]

This series is a strong case that medieval food wasn’t the bland, mushy, unpleasant stuff people often imagine.

[hiyahandsome]

My Italian grandparents made ravioli stuffed with cheese, veal and spinach for every Xmas Day feast. Those were eaten as the pasta course after their wonderful antipasto and before the meat course with all the side dishes. It was a lengthy process to make enough ravioli to feed all our family, 15 hungry diners who looked forward to ravioli all year long. So we all pitched in to help under my uncle's supervision. Your making ravioli for Mardi Gras brought back happy memories, thanks, Max!

[lellab.]

Given they are boiled in broth and not in water, I think they were meant to be eaten with the broth itself. We have a lot of ravioli/tortellini/casoncelli we eat in broth, here in Italy. That's probably why they were a little dry.

[emilygillock]

DAAAAW The Mimikyu in the background looks adorable with his little Mardi Gras outfit!

[isobelcarroll]

Some times smaller ravioli is served in the broth, that would solve the dryness problem.

[lauraslittlelife]

Speaking of ravioli and lent — may I present to you the hilarious (but probably completely made up) origin story of German 'Maultaschen'?

In Southern Germany we have a dish called "Maultaschen" — they're essentially oversized ravioli (way bigger than 'half a chestnut' 😅). They're made by taking ground meat, mixing it with a generous amount of finely chopped herbs, and wrapping that mixture in pasta dough, giving the final product the appearance of... well, oversized ravioli.

As I mentioned, these oversized ravioli are most commonly known as "Maultaschen" today, however, in Swabian German, one of the regional dialects, they're also referred to as "Herrgottsbscheißerle", which literally translates to "little deceivers of God".
The origin story behind that name is quite funny: According to folklore, Maultaschen were invented by medieval monks who were trying to find a workaround for the ban on meat during lent. By grinding the meat into a fine paste, using herbs to dye said paste green, and wrapping the resulting mixture in pasta dough, they were trying to conceal the fact that they were eating meat from the eyes of the Lord — thus deceiving Him (or at the very least attempting to do so). 😅

This origin story is probably completely fabricated but I quite like the idea of it being true — I mean, you've got to admire that level of ingenuity, right?! 😄

[chefmdecamp]

A couple things to consider, if you found yourself lacking for a sauce, would be that these might be assumed to be served with some of the broth (perhaps just as much would come out if they were pulled out with a large ladle), as "ravioli in brodo" is a super, super traditional dish, and if you were to grate fresh parmigiano reggiano onto the hot brodo/broth and ravioli it would add the fat to dish that you wished for, as the oils from some of that freshly grated cheese would quickly incorporate into the broth as the cheese melted.

[GaldirEonai]

The paternoster timing method isn't found in modern _cookbooks_ much, but it's still very much in use among older generations or those who have recipes inherited from them.

[alicetwain]

In Italian, a short amount of time is still called "un paternoster" and an even shorter time is "un fiat" (voluntas tua). In modern day Italy, meat filled ravioli are usually served as a soup in the broth they have been boiled in. I would suggest trying these as a soup too because that wonderful broth with saffron seems a bit wasted if you don't eat it. Anyhow, if you drain them you need to also add butter (not oil, unsalted butter!) And your pasta dough was just on point!

[uncledubpowermetal]

As a Catholic and a cook, I really like two Pater Nosters as a cooking measurement lol implementing IMMEDIATELY

[Mtonazzi]

A member of my reenactment group studied medieval music at college (she's now an orchestra director) and she taught us the Pater Noster as gregorian chant. It takes about 1 minute to sing, so cooking for 2 minutes was about right, rather than 4 minutes.

[angelodiavolo]

Is crazy to believe that's pretty much exactly how my grandma used to make ravioli every Sunday. We Italians can really stick up to a recipe 😍

[flyingninja]

I find Italian cooking before tomatoes, to be quite fascinating. Supposedly carrots were used in spaghetti sauce, before tomato sauce.

[kato]

In some areas of Alemannia in southwest Germany the "fasting night" before Ash Wednesday is still celebrated in public as described in the history section from 06:15 on - with traditional wood masks and costumes, often horned, some as specific animals. There are specific roles that are played which were first documented around the time this recipe is from, although most of the current costume styles are from the 16th and 17th centuries.
It's interestingly also the same area where localized ravioli-style pasta in Germany - to some extent made much the same way as in this recipe - come from.

[inkaraingod]

To preface: I love the show and this episode is no exception. But I was so full of hope when you told a story about carnival in Nürnberg, Germany, but when you tell me that New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro were the ones to keep the tradition alive? I cannot let that stand!

The great (german) tradition of Weiberfastnacht is alive and well, just as street carnival and plays, dances and so on. German carnival may have had a short hiatus thanks to Napoleon, but it never really stopped and there are tons of traditions that are kept alive from that time and before. My favourite one, Weiberfastnacht, dating back to before Napoleon when nuns dressed up as men and washerwomen decided they would turn the world on its head by storming city hall to take control from the men - Weiberfastnacht, one of the first fights for equality between men and women ;-)

[marmotarchivist]

I love that you used “The Ricotta Eaters” 6:36, it is one of the paintings that I still clearly remember from my visit in the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon.
Concerning the festivities in Paris, I doubt that the interdiction by the Council of Basel would have had much influence. Unless, the local officials really used force, people usually just continued with their traditions. And there authorities were loath to forbid them, because that would make them unpopular, so they mostly let it slide, unless there was just an extraordinary amount of debauchery or violence.
And in Switzerland, as in many other European countries, there are some continuous Carneval traditions, e.g. in the catholic Lucerne and ironically also in Basel, which became a reformed (swiss protestant) city, but not even the reformation could stop Carneval or Fasnacht as it is called there.
And the wild men tradition is really fascinating to me. They are most prevalent in alpine regions, some appear during Careval season, some are part of the Saint Nicolas traditions in early December and in the mountain valley were I grew up, which is also a reformed rather than catholic region, we don't have a Carneval, but we have the Ubersitz festivities, which start on Christmas Day at midnight and last till New Year’s Eve. There are masked people that march in the streets, ringing big cowbells and playing the drums. In the past only unmarried men were allowed to do this and they chased or spooked unmarried women. There is the Schnabelgeiss, a creature half-goat half-bird that snatches the hats of the spectators with its long beak. Some of the masked men wear old, traditional womens clothes and some wear natural costumes, like the wild men, made out of pine branches, moss, bark and chamois pelts.
And I recomend you google "Wilder Mann Charles Frégers" for some pretty pictures of European wild men.

[scaevolaludens]

huh, im realizing "carne levare" makes a lot of sense as in northern sardinian it's Carrasegare from "carnem secare", to cut meat