Apicius de re Coquinaria by Thomas Oboe Lee Piano, Vocal - Digital Sheet Music

SKU: A0.1228302

Program note.

I am a foodie. I love all kinds of food. I especially relish the experience of trying new dishes found at cutting-edge restaurants. But I am also a fan of traditional cooking at a local trattoria or bistro. I also love to cook in my own kitchen, for family and friends. I used to make Chinese food, but after spending a year in Italy as a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome, 1986-87, I became a convert to Italian cuisine. These days I basically only cook Italian. My "teachers" are Marcella Hazan, Lidia Bastianich, and the ubiquitous 60-Minute Gourmet author, Pierre Franey.

So when I recently came upon this ancient cookbook, "De re coquinaria" by Marcus Gavius Apicius, AD 14-37, I immediately thought I would set the recipes from the book into a song cycle for tenor and piano.

There are ten chapters in the book. But there is a dispute as to whether Books IX and X were written by someone else other than Apicius. With that in mind, I am only setting recipes from the first eight books, or chapters.

I. Epimeles - The Diligent Cook - Fine spiced wine
II. Sarcoptes - The Butcher - Brain sausage
III. Cepuros - The Gardener - For digestion and inflammation
IV. Pandectes - Miscellanea - Smelt pie or sprat custard
V. Ospreon - Legumes - Peas, supreme style
VI. Aeropetes - The Fowl - Crane or duck with turnips
VII. Polyteles - The Sumptuous - Roasting, plain
VIII. Tetrapus - The Quadruped - Stuffed boiled suckling pig.