Hi Everybody,
If you are still having trouble with what I mean by the writing style we are supposed to be working with, below I've posted Lida and Elisabeth's articles. They are both good examples of the style I'm looking for - though try not to exaggerate the humor/wit/raciness
too much.
Lida's article:Diet: Holy deprivation is out: starting from 1470, MODERATE STOUTNESS is in!
Eating right has never been so easy: find your temperature type, learn what foods are right for you, preserve your self-image, and keep your fertility and desire under control! It’s all here, with recipes that even the looniest servants can make! (Bonus: read on for instant Asparagus Aphrodisiac)
CELEBRATE THE END OF THE DARK AGES! Wenches, starving yourself is not the way to repent. It’s a new time period of rebirth and beauty, where curvy is the new skinny. Want to be Botticelli’s muse but don’t know how? Read on for tips that will make you look like Venus: a voluptuous balance between fat and lean.
STEP 1: Are you hot or cold?
As we know, the world consists of four genders: male, female, neuter, and immature. Women have naturally colder and moister complexions, but there are those of us who vary. Exercise has never had much to do with weight, but recent studies show that if you have a hot complexion exercise will make you thinner, while those of you with cold complexions possess more warmed, nourished systems and should exercise as little as possible.
WARNING: Bathing or using frications (rubbings) too often can be hazardous to your health! The heat diffuses our natural body moisture and dehydrates us!
STEP 2: Conquer chlorosis!
According to Bulleyn, women have been eating pepper and other dry foods, thinking it will make them paler and thinner—“Although pepper be good to them that use it well, yet unto artificial women that have more beastliness then beauty and cannot be content with their natural complexions.” This causes what is commonly refered to as “greensickness” or “chlorosis.” It will make your breath stink, your body weak, and even kill you. The cure? Marriage, sex, or a balance in the temperature of your food. Read on.
STEP 3: Balance is key
Balance your temperature and body weight by eating foods that echo your mood! Sugar has never been so tempting… your stomach is actually able to digest what you desire more easily, so go ahead and help yourself to those pastries and doughnuts.
BUT REMEMBER: just as an average weight is ideal, moderation is key. Sugar is a condiment, not a food, so it can throw your temperature off balance. How to correct it? Eat “opposites”-- i.e. cold, moist foods when you feel hot and dry.
From Bartolomeo Scappi (1570): Partridges on a spit
“They are able to be served, after being roasted and cut up, with capers, sugar, and cinnamon on top, or with slices of small very acid lemons and sugar on top.
To stew any sort of capon and domestic fowl. After having been stuffed, they may be put in a stewing pot with a pound of ham cut in slices, half an ounce of whole cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, saffron, a half-pint of white wine, a tumbler of pale verjuice, and four ounces altogether of dry plums and sour cherries, and four ounces of raisins. Now put in enough water to cover the capon and cook with the vessel closed and sealed so that no vapor may escape. When it is cooked, serve with the mixture over it.”
STEP 4: Purge those peasant foods!
We know who we are, and it’s such a shame to allow even healthy foods to tarnish our reputations. For those of you in the aristocracy, lucky you. It’s not likely that you’ll be mistaken for common rabble, so you can skip this section. It’s you gentlewomen who need to worry. In what is known as “Carnivorous Europe,” choosing your meat is key. Eat only fresh meat and avoid salted meats such as sausage, which is best left to “rustical stomachs” to digest. When it comes to vegetables, which have little nutritional value, avoid those that grow close to the ground, especially beans and lentils, peanuts, squash and turnips, which are all eaten by laborers.
WARNING: Fruits grow far from the soil, but digestion comes first. Avoid peaches and other laxative fruits.
Last but not least, what defines good bread? It’s a balance of coarse and fine: no mixed flour, but not too white and fluffy.
SEX SECTION: Before and after pregnancy
We all know about the direct connection between sexual appetite and nutrition and how men and women contribute equally to their offspring—however, this doesn’t mean you and your husband can eat the same things!
While he should eat subtle and nourishing food such as chicken, eggs, bread and wine beforehand, these foods are solely remedies for men.
When it comes to aphrodisiacs, you should avoid foods commonly eaten hot, such as celery, as they diminish milk production. Because we are naturally cold, weak, and less active, we should eat cold, moist foods.
However, you can have fun cooking up aphrodisiacs for your husband: garlic, leeks, capers, chickpeas, quail, pine nuts, mint, nasturtium, eggs, parsnips, salt fish, oysters, asparagus, milk, saffron and cloves are all options. Salacious foods will stimulate appetite and desire. Eat cold foods like lettuce and cucumbers to extinguish lust.
“I’m pregnant. What should I do?”
TRUMP TERRAPHAGY: the common craving to eat charcoal, chalk and clay. Terraphagy is due to extreme imbalance of humidity within the body, and can be corrected by eating sorrel.
PREVENT MISCARRIAGE: eat sour foods like pickles and gooseberries.
AVOID: alcohol and laxative foods, especially apricots.
Also from Scappi (1570): Asparagus soup with meat broth
This combines asparagus with gooseberries and Eastern spices—ideal for both you and your husband to enjoy together.
“Take some cultivated asparagus in season. Take the most tender part of your cultivated asparagus and without blanching put it directly into meat broth with some strips of ham. At the end of the cooking time add herbs beaten with a little pepper, cinnamon, saffron, whole gooseberries or verjuice, and serve hot in the broth. And if you want to mix the asparagus with eggs, cheese, and common spices, cook in the broth only until half done. Then pound the asparagus with a knife and finish cooking in fatty broth, adding gooseberries and verjuice.”
Now that you know what to do, the possibilities are endless! Whether you’re entertaining or eating at a banquet, you know which foods to avoid and which ones to embrace. Savor the Renaissance—it only lasts till 1650.
Elisabeth's article:Lucrezia’s Illicit Child—Is it her chamberlain’s? Her brother’s? The Pope’s?
Lucrezia, Lucrezia, Lucreazia. What have you gotten yourself into now? With all the controversy surrounding Giovanni, Lucrezia’s child of three years, we have to wonder—who is the father? We can be sure of one fact: Lucrezia had an affair with someone, and it is likely to have been an incestuous relationship. Scandalous.
Lucrezia has always been openly used as a bargaining chip by her father, married off most recently to Giovanni Sforza. Giovanni was a nervous, unenthused sort twice Lucrezia's age. It is no wonder Lucrezia was unhappy with her marriage. While her divorce with Giovanni was being finalized, it is known that Lucrezia spent her days at a convent. The only communication she had during this time was through her young chamberlain Perotto. However, it is possible that she used Perotto as more than just a messenger. Six months later, even though it was blatantly obvious that Lucrezia had a pup in the oven, she participated in a ceremony in which Vatican judges attested that she was intacta, that is, a virgin.
Now, we all assumed three years ago that Lucrezia’s child was made through indecent relations with Perotto. However, recent events have changed our initial assumptions. Pope Alexander VI just recently put out two papal bulls in an attempt to legitimize the child. Alexander declared the baby infans Romanus, the child of Rome, and declared him the offspring of Cesare and an unknown woman (yeah right). Following this first papal bull, his second acknowledged that the child was the son of the pope himself, even though the pope would have been sixty-seven at the time of the child's conception.
These many attempts to legitimize the child lead us to the conclusion that he must be the child of Lucrezia and Alexander, or of Lucrezia and Cesare. Insider reports tell us that Lucrezia insisted on the two papal bulls because she didn't know which of her two lovers, her father or her brother, had actually fathered the child. Still, there is the possibility that the child is the offspring of Lucrezia’s indiscretion with Perotto. On the whole, all we can do is hope for his sake that the child has not inherited his mother’s unquenchable thirst for copulation.
