"Pease porridge in the pot nine days old" fairly well summarizes the technique of stew preparation in Shakespeare's day. A thick soup would have been left cooking for days at a time, with new vegetables, stock, and bits of leftover meat continually added. This Italian version contains rich duck meat, a delicious and unusual addition to pea soup.
Ingredients
Serves 8 to 10
Step 1
Cook the bacon in a large saucepan over medium heat for 7 to 10 minutes, or until crisp. Remove the bacon from the pan, cut into small pieces, and set aside. Add the onion to the pan and cook for 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Add the stock, peas, bacon pieces, and 2 cups of water, and simmer for 1 hour, skimming away any impurities that rise to the top. Add the pepper, salt, and aniseed and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat, stir in the parsley and duck, and serve immediately.
Original recipe from The Accomplisht Cook, 1660:
Step 2
Boil green pease with some strong broth, and interlarded bacon cut into slices; the pease being boiled, put to them some chopped parsley, pepper, anniseed, and strain some of the pease to thicken the broth; give it a walm [warm it] and serve it on sippets, with boiled chickens, pigeons, kids, or lambs-heads, mutton, duck, mallard, or any poultry. Sometimes for variety you may thicken the broth with eggs.
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