In the cookbooks of Apicius—a first-century cook and author who summarized all the culinary knowledge of his time in ten volumes—there is nothing to indicate that ham was served with melon. Dried and fresh figs are found in the cooking of desalted ham, but not to accompany it when serving it. Nor in the cookbooks Rustic of Columela, also from the 1st century, in which detailed instructions for salting and preserving pork legs are found, there are indications on how to serve them.
It is in Art of scission by D. Enrique de Villena, when it can be considered the first news of this fresh and summery combination. This work from 1423, on the handling of cutting instruments and ways of carving food, is also very useful for the information it includes on cooking dishes or ways of serving preparations, as in this case.
The author explains, on the one hand, in the chapter on vegetables and fruits, that melons are cut into slices with a small knife (the cañivete) lengthwise. The flesh of the melon is then cut into bite-sized pieces, so that they can be eaten in one go or two at most, and the skin of the fruit is separated from the bottom to the greenest part. So that diners could put the morsels the author speaks of in their mouths, he defines very well, with drawings in his own hand, what he calls “brocas”, which are nothing other than forks. Before the refined invention of forks, lords ate by piercing the morsels with the cañivete, as can be seen in the scene of a lord’s banquet in the Bayeux tapestry, from the 11th century.
The drill bits defined by Villena, which are commonly made of silver and gold, show that they were used at the table, not in the kitchen, and of two main types, with two and three points on one side, and the handle on both with a point for smaller bits, like the cañivete, still in use.
The most interesting part comes when Villena talks about the cut of the pig, because he says that when it is salted – the hams were then the most appreciated prey for salting – it should be cut into small pieces, with its fat when it has it, and very thin, “and many are made of it”, that is, as now, many small, thin slices. He ends his explanations about the cutting of salted pork and ham by saying that when it is served with pumpkins and melons, the cut should be as indicated above.
Melons were confused in their name because of their similarity to pumpkins, which at that time were oblong in shape, with green or whitish skin, sometimes striped, and white flesh. They were not the American pumpkins, mostly orange, which had not yet arrived. Those on this side of the Atlantic were never eaten raw, but rather in letuarios (fruit in syrup) or pickled.
Almost two hundred years later, Francisco Martínez Montiño at the beginning of his Art of cooking, pastry, biscuit making and confectionery (1611) includes a series of menus for banquets in the four seasons of the year. A meal for the month of Maybegins the list of dishes to be served in the first meal with Hams with the principlesto continue with other dishes and, after the third meal. Among the fruits that must be served are melons. The author indicates the same after the list of dishes that make up a Merienda, which begins with Roasted hams and, although it does not detail the fruits to be offered, it does say that “It is known that everything that is found at the time when the snack is made must be used.”, which confirms that melon can be included in its season.
The practical cookby an anonymous author from 1890 and published by Maxtor in 2010, includes in its First lunch of the month of August melon with ham, as well as sausages, omelette (it is not known if it was potato), butter and radishes and other foodstuffs.
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