Continuing the list of roast recipes from Franz de Rontzier begun yesterday, here is the section on pork. Note the author makes no distinction between domestic pig and wild boar. The two were much more similar then than they are now.
Of roasts of wild and domestic pigs
Pork is parboiled and trimmed before it is roasted
I. You roast pork on a spit. Then you fry onions in butter, add pepper and vinegar, serve that over the roast and sprinkle it with salt.
2. Item you sprinkle roast pork with sugar and salt and serve it.
3. Item when it is done, you boil mustard, dripping, and vinegar together etc.
4. Item your fry diced apples in dripping. When they are done, add vinegar, small raisins, pounded ginger and pepper. Pour it over the pork roast and serve etc.
5. Item you stick the pork roast on a spit and roast it. Then you boil wine vinegar, pounded nutmeg, pepper, and sage together. You pour it over the roast, sprinkle it with sage, and serve it.
The comparative brevity and less detail may suggest that pork had less status than beef, which makes sense in cattle-rich Northern Germany. Pork did not become the quintessential German meat until modern times. Still, we can get some useful information and recipe ideas here.
First, we learn that pork must be parboiled and trimmed before roasting, but does not require larding. Presumably it was rich enough on its own. Second, pork seems to go with sauces. Only recipe #3 does not produce a serving sauce. I am especially fond by the onion sauce in #1 which has a long history and can be very delicious indeed. The apple sauce in #4 is a variation on a long-standing favourite that many Śouth German recipes call a gescherb or ziseindel. #2 seems to basically produce diluted, meaty mustard which, while probably not bad, seems a little superfluous and #5 seems to be quite unbalanced with sage flavour. Still, I would try them all.
Franz de Rontzier, head cook to the bishop of Halberstadt and duke of Braunschweig, published his encyclopaedic Kunstbuch von mancherley Essen in 1598. He clearly looks to Marx Rumpolt’s New Kochbuch as the new gold standard, but fails to match it in engaging style or depth. He is thus overshadowed by the twin peaks of Marx Rumpolt and Anna Wecker. What makes his work interesting is the way in which he systematically lists versions of a class of dishes, illustrating the breadth or a court cook’s repertoire. He is also more modernly fashionable than Rumpolt. Looking to France rather than Italy and Spain for inspiration, and some of the dishes he first describes may be genuine innovations.