L’impronta contadina sull’alta cucina del basso Medioevo italiano

This paper surveys the cookbooks and the descriptions of banquets and daily meals in chronicles, letters and account registers, in order to understand the relationship between rural food and the Italian haute cuisine of the XIV and the XV centuries. Rural products were despised by the common sense and by the dietetics’ thought, but they were part of the daily meals of the elites, and they were at the basis of some gourmet dishes described in cookbooks. In exclusive banquets, however, the presence of rural food was very limited, and its place within the structure of the meal was just liminal.