The cook of the Pope, the one who was called the "Michelangelo of the kitchen"

I met the writer Ketty Magni thanks to dear Walter Calvi, winemaker in the land of OltrepÃ, that, knowing my passion for the history and traditions, has seen fit to segnalarmela.

At that time I was organizing an evening for charity, Women May. When I invited did not hesitate a moment to participate. I remember that we spent a few moments of the evening listening to the readings of his novels.

Today I want to present the last of his writings, "The cook of the Pope", a fascinating fresco on Italy rinaand worth a brief detour on one of its protagonists hidden, the one who was called by his contemporaries the "Michelangelo of the kitchen".

The cook of the pope happily combines the canon of historical fiction with the Italian culinary tradition.

Ketty Magni

The cook of the Pope

The book traces the history of Scappi, cuoco segchallenge, at the service of the Popes, in epoca rinascimentale. Dopo an apprenticeship in northern Italy, his career took place in thirty years old: still in Rome caput mundi, where the papacy is a court of sfrenatezze and chastity, is disputed by the cardinals and nobles, until Pius IV he wants with it and only if, how to cook secreted (ie private). In the dungeons of the Vatican remote kitchens will have the onerous task of serving even the inflexible Pius V. It, that had fed even the Emperor Charles V, will be sought by cardinals and prelates whenever there was to make a good impression at the table. But Bartholomew had a secret dream, l 'Opera, all his gastronomic knowledge deployed in the white pages. I realize posting it at seventy.

It is an anthology of recipes: sturgeon heads flushed with violets, liver of veal with a sauce of bitter oranges, pigeons fried with sugar and cinnamon, rice Lombard, cookies roman, pottaggi of fresh pork sausages croaker venetian bolognaise. In addition to the Italian regional recipes, Escape also welcomes foreign traditions: couscous Moorish Arabian origin, soup of milk Ungaresca, the wild boar stew German, the cock stuffed pigs oglia potrida to Spanish, eggs affrittellate French.

But Bartholomew had another dream, prohibited: the beautiful Claudia Column. He will feel sorry for her the intense flavor of an impossible love that in a stolen night of passion with the conventions of the times will give him a son who, for those same conventions, will never be his.