Renaissance snackfood

Nikweikel said:

I'm blocking on the strangest thing.

The setting is 1508, Florence, Italy. The protagonist is a fashionable woman. She's just survived a murder attempt and hasn't eaten or slept in more than a day. She's strong and in good spirits but just a bit weary. Her husband has brought her to the "secretary of defense" for protection, and his men offer her something to eat.

But what would they offer her? Obviously not a sausage, a chicken leg, or a bowl of stew, it would awkward to slurp up broth in a room full of men. Fruit, or wine and biscotti are probably not enough. Some form of tapas? Like figs stuffed with cheese maybe?

I'll probably just ditch the whole idea and have her eat on the way over, but I feel I'm missing an opportunity.

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Sweetmeats.

But to be honest 'snack foods' is a phenomenon that starts in the 1970s.

Nikweikel said:

I'm blocking on the strangest thing.

The setting is 1508, Florence, Italy. The protagonist is a fashionable woman. She's just survived a murder attempt and hasn't eaten or slept in more than a day. She's strong and in good spirits but just a bit weary. Her husband has brought her to the "secretary of defense" for protection, and his men offer her something to eat.

But what would they offer her? Obviously not a sausage, a chicken leg, or a bowl of stew, it would awkward to slurp up broth in a room full of men. Fruit, or wine and biscotti are probably not enough. Some form of tapas? Like figs stuffed with cheese maybe?

I'll probably just ditch the whole idea and have her eat on the way over, but I feel I'm missing an opportunity.

Click to expand...

Nuts, candied or otherwise, maybe? Something like meat and cheese wrapped together might work well, too, or just cheese and bread. It's true snacking wasn't a thing, but the "secretary of defense" would likely offer a light repast as a courtesy, especially if she's been traveling.

Bread and cheese are always possible. Add some olives and/or fruit if you like, and some wine as well.

Nuts, dates, figs, olives perhaps. How far back does tapenade on small bread slices go? Italy isn't in my research bin, so I don't know if they had a fear of raw fruit and vegetables like the British did back in that day. But maybe a small plate of cut up fruit and veggies? An antipasto?

I'd look instead for foods that were considered restorative, since she's been through so much. Wine, broth, maybe even strong spirits, and I wouldn't worry about the social niceties of having her offered non-finger-food at such a moment.

Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Olives, nuts, bread and cheese, a posset., wine.

Fruits and vegetables will depend on the time of year. Nothing with tomatoes; they might have been available, but not much used as food, as they were still considered unhealthy to eat.

I think meat pies are more a northern foodstuff, but perhaps cheese stuffed pies would have been available.

I agree that supplying a small repast to a traveler (especially a noble one) would have been a standard courtesy. I don't think you don't need to worry about whether it's finger food or not.

I think lamb, pork and goose were the most common meats available at that time. Not chicken. Not sure about beef.

Ah! What about gnocchis? (Not sure if the spelling is right.)

Hope that helps.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Oop! Chicken would have been available too.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

Unimportant said:

The meat would depend on the time of year (e.g, pork in winter, lamb in spring).

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Of course, if it's Lent, she would only be served fish (well, meat-wise, anyway)...the same for Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, all year round.

The notion of "snack food" or "finger food" as we think of it did not exist in Florence in 1508 -- if food was in question and you were not a beggar or a vagabond living on scraps, the options were either a meal or nothing. People didn't eat their way through the day the way a lot of us do now. Given the context, the "secretary of defense"'s people would certainly offer the lady a meal. Depending on the hour, the day and the season, it might be a light meal (say, an omelette, a bowl of broth with cheese, a salad, or a grilled fish) or it might be something considerably more substantial. There would definitely be wine and bread too.

There were quite a few popular cookbooks written in Florence around the time of your story -- cooking, and food, and related issues of medicine and philosophy, were all topics of great interest to the literate public as well as to cooking professionals. Some Google-fu can probably turn up some translations to give you an idea what people were actually eating there.

BTW - if your lady is in fact a fashionable woman, she's used to eating in front of servants & other people all the time. No awkwardness about it.

This is an example from England, but Up and Down Stairs by Jeremy Musson (which I currently have in front of me) quotes a 15th century source that seems to suggest that a guest would have bread, beer and wine sent to his chamber if he arrived in the middle of a meal. So I suppose bread and wine would have been considered a sort of substitute meal or 'snack' in England at the time, anyway.