--- title: Author Crystal King's Blog - Tasting Life Twice | Scappi description: Scappi | Author Crystal King muses on life, history, writing and food. --- # Tasting Life Twice Author Crystal King muses on life, history, writing and food. Browse by All Blog Books italy ancient rome Italian History Recipe Writing When in Rome food Feast of Sorrow fun historical fiction Bartolomeo Scappi Viva Italia! The Chef's Secret reading history Apicius Italian Language Renaissance 52 books Boston Cinquecento Publishing italian recipes grub street renaissance recipe roman video Ancient Roman Food Colosseum Culinary Delights books set in italy renaissance italy Ancient history YouTube authors cooking fiction music 52 books in a year Author Book Christmas Language Learning Maine Poetry Pope Roman Forum Scappi The Renaissance Venice Writer Writers Resources fantasy learning Italian travel writers Anne Rice Art Book Clubs Christmas carol Christopher Castellani Circus Maximus Florence Gillian Flynn Greek Harry Potter Honey Italiano Italo Calvino Latin Literary agent Marcus Aurelius Marcus Gavius Apicius Muse and the Marketplace Pantheon Papal conclave Pope Benedict XVI Research Roman Empire Sardinia Sistine Chapel Turkey Ursula K- Le Guin Vestal Virgin Wine ancient recipes architecture baking beauty blogging book recommendation book review christmas gift cibo cookies crystal king gelato giveaway holiday ice cream interview italian cooking literary literature middle ages new year's resolution rejection renaissance Italian food recipe roma rome sci-fi shopping social media special event summer television xmas 100 favorite books 1950s 1960s 1970s 2016 2017 320 AD 3D Achilles Aelia Agostino Chigi Alice Alina Reyes All This Talk of Love Amanda Palmer Amaryah Orenstein Anais Nin Ancient Greece Ancient Roman architecture Andrea Bocelli Anita Shreve Anjali Mitter Duva Anne Carson Anne Rampling Antonio Latini Arch of Constantine Arts Artusi Astrology Augustus Author Life BBC BDSM Baldassare Peruzzi Baroque Bell-ringer Bells Benvenuto Cellini Black tea BlogHer Bloggers Bologna Boodles Byki Cake Catholic Church Cellini Charles Dicken Chuck Palahniuk Clark Frasier Colleen McCullough Cologne Colum McCann Concord Cook Cookbook Corsica Cosimo de Medici Critical & Creative Thinking Dante Dante Alighieri David Bowie David Wishart De Re Coquinaria Doge's Palace Dormouse Durham Cathedral E-L- James Earth Egypt Eleonora Galasso Emily Browning England English language Ernest Hemingway Erotic literature Etsy Faint Promise of Rain Fifty Shades of Grey Fight Club Flamingo tongue snail Forum Forvo France Francesa Michielin GO Literary George Orwell Germany Gone Girl Gone Girl (novel) Google Translate Got Milk Grasso Grub Grub Street Muse Gunter Grass Hairstyle Harvard Harvard University Henry David Thoreau Henry VII of England Hunger Games Independence Day International Space Station Isabella Dalla Ragione Italian American Italian food J-R-R- Tolkien James Wood Jane Austen Janet Fitch Julius III July Justin Rowe Karl Lagerfeld Katie Caldesi Kennebunkport Maine Kessler Twins Keurig Kindle Deal Kit Harington Kurt Vonnegut L'Amore Esiste La Cucina Leicester Leonardo Da Vinci Linguistics Livia Lucca ## Posts about Scappi: ![Turkey with Pomegranate Sauce: A Renaissance Recipe](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/poms.jpg) [Recipe](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/recipe) [Scappi](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/scappi) [Bartolomeo Scappi](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/bartolomeo-scappi) [Turkey](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/turkey) [renaissance recipe](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/renaissance-recipe) [renaissance italy](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/renaissance-italy) [renaissance Italian food recipe](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/renaissance-italian-food-recipe) **Turkey, a Delicacy 500 Years Ago** The first turkey recipes appear in the Italian cookbook in *L'Opera di Bartolomeo Scappi *(who happens to be the protagonist in my novel, *The Chef's Secret*). Turkeys found their way to Italy during the Renaissance, but it wasn’t until the latter half of the century that they were deemed suitable for eating. As you might know, turkeys are a bird native to the Americas and were prized by the ancient Aztecs and Native Americans alike. Christopher Columbus noted the bird when he first came to America, but it wasn't until around 1519 when Spanish and Italian explorers first brought turkeys to Europe. Initially they were regarded as a beautiful and strange oddity, and many nobles kept them as pets or gave them to others as extravagant gifts. They were loved for their unique look, with artists depicting them in sculpture and paintings. The sculpture you see here, by Italian sculptor Giambologna, is from 1560, of the prized pet of Cosimo di Medici. The Italians called them *gallo d'India* (or birds of India) because of general [geographical confusion  ](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/columbus-confusion-about-the-new-world-140132422/)by early explorers. Eventually, however, turkeys became even more loved for their delicious and unusual flavor.   ![Scappi's Braised Beef - An Interpretation of a Renaissance Recipe](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Chefs%20Secret/market%20beasts.jpg) [Recipe](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/recipe) [italy](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/italy) [Scappi](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/scappi) [Bartolomeo Scappi](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/bartolomeo-scappi) [beef](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/beef) [Cinquecento](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/cinquecento) [Culinary Delights](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/culinary-delights) [food](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/food) [Italian History](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/italian-history) [Renaissance](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/renaissance) Renaissance chef (and character in my second novel), [Bartolomeo Scappi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolomeo_Scappi), wrote a cookbook that was released in 1570 and was one of the most reprinted cookbooks over the next two hundred years. One of the most wonderful things about his cookbook, [The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi](http://amzn.to/NAee5j), is that it is still very accessible today. There are exceptions, for example, modern audiences would not be interested in some of the meats (hedgehog or blackbird anyone?), and many of the items are not readily available or, like his feathered peacock, are too elaborate too make. Fortunately, many of his recipes are are still pretty easy to figure out. Like this one for braised beef: ![The Renaissance Papal Conclave: What Did They Eat?](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/sstne.jpg) [Pope Benedict XVI](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/pope-benedict-xvi) [Scappi](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/scappi) [Swiss Guard](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/swiss-guard) [Bartolomeo Scappi](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/bartolomeo-scappi) [Blog](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/blog) [Catholic Church](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/catholic-church) [cibo](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/cibo) [Cinquecento](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/cinquecento) [conclave](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/conclave) [food](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/food) [Italian History](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/italian-history) [Julius III](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/julius-iii) [Papal conclave](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/papal-conclave) [Pope](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/pope) [Pope Benedict](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/pope-benedict) [pope resigns](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/pope-resigns) [Renaissance](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/renaissance) [scandal](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/scandal) [Sistine Chapel](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/sistine-chapel) [Western Schism](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/western-schism) The last month has been a month of massive tumult for the Catholic Church. For the first time in 400 years a Pope is resigning. There have only been [five Popes to resign](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_resignation) and all of them resigned under great duress, or in the case of [Gregory XII](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_XII), he did it to end the [Western Schism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Schism). This is the first Pope to cite "health" problems as a reason to resign and the first to revise rules regarding the convening of the Papal conclave so that it can be convened sooner than in the past (usually they have to wait 15 days).  I have a bunch of my own speculations about that, but there are a million other places that the woes of the Church can be debated. ![](https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=1481231558851356&ev=PageView&noscript=1)