Servizio di credenza (preserved condiment from the buffet)
Mostarda of Lombard Fruits
PreservingReconstruction🍯 🍋 🌶️moyen30 min over 4 days (maceration)
Fruits (pears, quinces, apples) candied in a sweet syrup powerfully perfumed with mustard essence: a preserve that is sweet, tart, and biting, and lasts for months.
Why this dish? During his long Milanese years, Leonardo frequented the Lombard table, where fruits were preserved in a syrup spiked with mustard to keep them from season to season. A tangy and pungent condiment that accompanied cheeses and herb dishes — ideal for a vegetarian.
Fruits last only a season, but the wise know how to keep them. Here is how they do it in Lombardy: one candies pears and quinces in a syrup, then mixes in the pungent soul of mustard, which stings the nose as much as the palate. I keep a pot in the cellar; a spoonful on fresh cheese, and the sweet, the sour, and the biting vie for the tongue. Nothing is wasted, you see: that is all the wisdom of nature, which never throws anything away.
Ingredients
- •Firm fruits (pears, quinces, apples) — what the orchard gives (base)
- •Sugar or honey — in generous portions (preservation and sweetness)
- •Mustard seeds — according to desired strength (signature pungency)
- •White wine or agresto — a little (acidity)
How it was made : Mostarda (from *mustum ardens*, 'burning must') takes its name from grape must and mustard. It was both a preservation technique and a condiment: candying fruits in sugar or honey protected them for months in an age without refrigeration. The mostarda of Cremona, in Lombardy, remains famous today.
Sources : Bartolomeo Scappi, Opera dell'arte del cucinare, 1570 · Culinary tradition of Cremona (mostarda di Cremona)