Cuisine at the time of Frederick II

The luxury that characterized the banquets of Emperor Frederick II of Swabia was associated - as the surviving evidence attests - with the attention in careful food preparation, following the dietary precepts of the time, reflected in the Regimen Sanitatis of the ancient Salerno Medical tradition. In December 1239, in preparation for the General Colloquium of Foggia the following April (during which the sovereign would present the Novae Constitutiones), Frederick ordered the sending of large quantities of foodstuffs and animals to the Capitanata: a thousand cows, five hundred rams, chickens , ducks and geese in large numbers, two hundred "good hams" from Abruzzo, one hundred barrels of Sicilian wine and six hundred wheels of cheese. Furthermore, the chef Berardo was tasked with preparing «askipecia» to season the good fish «de Resina», or from Lake Lesina. «Askipecia» (or Scapece) is a sweet and sour vinegar-based condiment that is still widespread today. The recipe, together with many others still in use, such as vermicelli (tria) alla Genovese, is found in the Liber de coquina, written in Latin, which, although dating back to the end of the 13th century, attests to the food uses of Frederick's time , for instance recalling a green cabbage dish that the emperor really liked.
These recipe books allow us to discover the cuisine of Frederick’s court, which made use of local products, but was also open to eastern tastes and "international" suggestions coming from the regions of France.