Kitchen expenditures (1823-1827)

ASUPg, Collegio Pio, Vacchette spese di cucina, registro n.4 (Kitchen registries, register n. 4)

Carboard bound paper register with parchment spine

The so-called “vacchetta” (which roughly translates to “small cow”, an oblong-shaped register traditionally bound in cow leather) is one of the Collegio’s four kitchen expenditure registries that specifically takes into account the expenditures during the 1810-1827 period.

For the first time, we find some sort of daily menu that also shows food combinations for lunches, dinners and breakfasts. Among the numerous kinds of food we can find several types of fish: salted codfish, cuttlefish, codfish, anchovies, South-European roach, caviar, salmon, eel, common carp, pike. Fish, either fresh or salted, was typically consumed during the almost one hundred days of “vigilia” (the days of “fasting” that precede a festivity in the liturgical year), when eating meat was strictly prohibited by religious authorities.

Although there is no lack of reference to the purchase of sea fish, the most commonly-consumed variety was sweet-water fish, either fished in the Tiber River or in the Trasimeno Lake, for a long time one of the most important sources of food for Perugia’s territory.

The documents dated March 3 and following refer to Lent menus with codfish, anchovies, caviar and South-European roach. South-European roach was the most common kind of fish consumed at the Collegio but also within the city of Perugia, so much so that it is mentioned by Franco Sacchetti (XIV Century) in one of his Trecentonovelle (Three-hundred novels): Buffalmacco the painter, pressured by the citizens of Perugia for being late in finishing the painting of the effigy of Saint Herculanus, mocked them by portraying the Saint crowned, not by the traditional halo of sainthood, but instead by a garland of gigantic South-European roaches.

By analyzing the documents it is possible to infer that South-European roach was usually fried or marinated and often served with chards. In the register, caviar is also mentioned: it could be either a local product, such as carp or pike eggs, also called the “caviar of the Trasimeno”, or sturgeon eggs from the Po River, consumed since the XVI Century.

In conclusion, a curiosity: on the page dated March 1, a Monday, during the Carnival period, the register shows one of the most appreciated recipes in the Umbrian tradition: cardoons with parmesan cheese (“gobbi alla parmigiana”).