MASSONIO Salvatore Archidipno, overo dell’insalata, e dell’uso di essa.

Vicaire, 577; Simon, Bibl. Gastronomica, 1023; Bitting, 315; Cagle, 1160; Notaker, 913; Krivatsy, 7547; Wellcome, 4118; B.I.N.G., 1266.

First edition, rare, of the first book entirely devoted to salad.

Anything that can be subsumed under the word ‘salad’ is described here in 68 chapters : truffles, asparagus, olives, fruit, basil, rosemary flowers, radishes, cabbage, beans, turnips, onions, and more ‘conventional’ salads with endives, haricots, and other vegetables all find mention. The common features of these recipes are salt, pepper, vinegar, and olive oil.

This work deals only with vegetarian foodstuffs, with one significant exception: the garum of the ancients, a fermented fish sauce the humanists tried to re-create. Massonio recommends some abundantly salted fish preserves, made of whole small fish, eg with oregano, wine, orange juice, or made of fish innards, especially roe. The first 14 chapters deal extensively with ingredients common to almost all salads, i.e. vinegar, olive oil (27 pages), and salt. The following chapters describe optional replacements of and additions to these condiments, such as fruit juice, garum, pepper, lemon, orange, and garlic. The main part of the book lists some 50 vegetable foodstuffs, and their preparation in a salad. The concluding chapters discuss the place of salad in a meal, its culinary and medical relation to other courses, and to wine.

“Renaissance Italians, intent as always on copying the ancients, served salads before and after the meal. But ambiguity of the ancients’ placement of salads sparked a debate on the proper place of time for them – a debate that continues today, though we have lost sight of its ancient origins… This debate relativized the position of the salad, and in time the Italians developed an alternative of their own: they made salads available throughout the meal Massonio noted in 1627: ‘Some salads that pass under the name of plain food are put on the table at the beginning of the meal and left there to the end, and acquire the name salad because of some condiment that stimulates the appetite even though the food does not have the power without the condiment” (Peterson, Acquired Taste p. 185).

Salvatore Massonio, born in the Mid-Italian town of Aquila, was a doctor, poet, and historian, and published a historical work on his home-town, two edifying religious books, and a book on baths and bathing in antiquity.

“It is in short a philosophical cookbook for salads—and the first of its kind dedicated solely, devoted entirely, to the salad. It must have been a revolutionary publication, and probably intended for the very wealthy, given that the vast majority of people in Europe didn’t have money for a book, and many couldn’t read, and lettuce and its makings were outside the standard diet for the working poor…Actually salad wasn’t limited to just greens in this book, and his quasi-vegetarian sentiment was tested by including cold salted meats, cold salted tongue, livers and such in the mix. But Massonio was definitely far ahead of anyone else at the time dealing with the benefits of the salad for both health reasons, as well as for making the salad not a meal in itself but an appetizer for something larger to come. In another great possible “first”, the wonderful Massonio seems to be the first to describe the use of garlic in a sauce” (Patak Science Books)

Small wormhole restored from pp. 377 onwards slightly touching text, small waterstain to upper third towards the end. Still a very good, and well margined copy.