From: [j--k] at [purr.demon.co.uk] (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: rec.drugs.cannabis,rec.food.historic
Subject: 15th century cooking-with-cannabis-seed recipes
Date: 28 Jan 1996 00:48:39 GMT

[ note crossposting to rec.drugs.cannabis
  and rec.food.historic when following up ]

This is from Johanna Maria van Winter: "The Use of Cannabis in Two Cookery
Books of the Fifteenth Century", in _Food in Perspective: Proceedings of the
Third International Conference on Ethnological Food Research (1977)_, ed.
Alexander Fenton and Trefor M Owen, pub. John Donald, Edinburgh, 1981.  The
cookbook is by Bartolomeo de'Sacchi detto il Platina: _De honesta voluptate
et valitudine_ (Rome, 1475, and Friuli, 1480).  Platina ripped off the recipes
from Maestro Martino of Como's _Libro de arte coquinaria_ (ed. E. Faccioli:
_Arte della Cucina_, Milano, 1966).

Before rushing off to try them, note that Platina says they all make you feel
sick to your stomach and the last one makes you go blind, though it isn't
clear if he actually tried any of them himself.  Volunteers?... the last one
(hempseed and almond porridge with sugar, salt and pepper, poured over layers
of fried croutons and topped with sweet spices), might make for an interesting
food photograph; if anyone local cares to make it (nb - they all take a
shitload of seed) I'll be round with my medium-format view camera to document
it for one of the hemp archives...

Since van Winter's translation is presumably copyright, here's Platina's
original text.  I don't recall anything in the rec.drugs.cannabis charter
that prohibits postings in mediaeval Latin.

  Cibarium canabinum
  ==================

  Cibarium canabinum pro duodecim convivis hoc modo facito: libram canabis
  bene munditam diu coquito, donec scindant.  Coctam et una cum libra
  amygdalarum addito; etiam excavato pane in mortario tunsam iure macro
  dissolvito, transagitoque in cacabum per cribrum setaceum, ad focum deinde
  positum cochleari crebo agitato.  Postremo vero ubi prope cocturam fuerit,
  selibram sacchari semiunciam gingiberis, parum croci cum aqua rosacea
  indito.  Coctum et in scutellis divisum, aromatibus dulcioribus conspargito.
  Hoc ego baricocolis Senensium persimile puto; ex multis enim probabilibus
  rebus improbabibile edulium est factum.  Nam et difficulter concoquitur, et
  fastidium et dolorem fecit.


  In Canabim
  ==========

  Semen canabinum per diem et noctem in aqua sinito; quod in summo natabit,
  ut vanum abiicito.  Hoc cum amygdalis bene mundis contundito.  Tunsum cum
  iure pisorum dissolvito, sacchari modicum et aque rosacee addito.
  Concoquitoque simul omnia bene miscendo ad octavam hore.  De hoc cibo male
  sentit Cassius Emina, quo nihil (ut idem asserit) potest esse insalubrius.


  Offa Canabina
  =============

  Semen canabinum ita coctum ut iam corticem discissam ostendat, in mortario
  cum amygdalis mundis bene teres, tritum dissolves in aqua recenti
  transferesque in cacabum per setaceum excretorium.  Efferveat parum cum
  modico salis et sacchari necesse est.  Addendum et piper si id quoque
  placet.  Ebuliat iterum parumper necesse est.  Bucellas panis parum tostas
  preparabis; indesque hoc cibarium in patinas, bucellas ipsas tamquam
  tabulata quedam extendes.  Tris aut quatuor ordines ex his facies.  Aromata
  postremo dulcia presertim parumper super asperges.  Fugiendum hoc penitus
  est.  Nam et male alit, et fastidium concitat, et dolorem in stomacho in
  intestinis generat, atque oculos hebetat.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Campin                 [j--k] at [purr.demon.co.uk]        [j--k] at [tardis.ed.ac.uk]
T/L, 2 Haddington Place, Edinburgh EH7 4AE, Scotland       (+44) 131 556 5272 
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