Professor Butter Beard and Leonardo’s “Engineering Recipes”
“Just as food eaten without appetite is a tedious nourishment, so does study without zeal damage the memory by not assimilating what it absorbs.” – Leonardo da Vinci
All my cookbooks look like used copies of freshman American History textbooks, with faded yellow highlighting, notes covering the margins, cross-outs and additions, tri-folded corner tips, and butter, oil and coffee stains everywhere. The pages are a history in themselves – the story of a recipe as initially presented and then re-envisioned by yours truly, and subsequently revised over and over again. And then there are my baking notebooks, some over forty years old, filled with baking dreams that emerged with the sunrise and blossomed into purple roses within the Professor Butter Beard repertoire.
I know I am in excellent company when I take out my grandmother’s recipe books, magazine cutouts and card collections and read her handwritten notes including, “Really needs another dash of salt,” or “Try with lard,” or “What was Cordie thinking?” At last count, I think I have documented seven “variations” of her Peanut Butter Cookies – which I have already reinterpreted at least six more times.
In my baker’s mind, I imagine tracing this passion of written study and revision back to the Master himself. Like adopting the troublesome curly forelock of Alexander the Great to legitimize your role as emperor, I elevate my culinary notations (usually pre-coffee) to the magnificence of Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci and his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a variety of subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, engineering, flight and light.
“But before we go any further,” wrote Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1787, “we must say a little more about Leonardo’s personality and talents. The many gifts that Nature bestowed upon him concentrated themselves primarily in his eye. He did not rely simply upon the inner impulses of his innate, inestimable talent; he permitted no arbitrary random stroke of the brush. Everything had to be deliberate and considered. From the pure proportions to which he devoted so much research, to the strangest monsters that he compiled out of contradictory figures, everything had to be both natural and rational.”
Like a baking recipe.
The “Codex Atlanticus” – so called because of its enormous size, was an album originally compiled in the 16th century and comprising over a thousand sheets of Leonardo’s studies relating to engineering, machinery and science. Many of these sheets, which have since been removed from their original binding, carry drawings on both sides. Historians believe that the majority of Leonardo’s bound manuscripts, which contain not only writings, but also large numbers of drawings, deal with technical and scientific subjects. Altogether, these works today make up well over half of all the works on papers surviving from Leonardo’s hand.
Leonardo, at least in certain phases of his life, was just as keen to sell himself as an engineer as to recommend his services as an artist. He was well-known and appreciated in his own lifetime chiefly as an extremely accomplished artist. His engineering drawings, or at least those still extant, for the most part take the form of cursory sketches, accompanied by detailed explanations. When art historians in the 19th century finally decided to take a fresh look at Leonardo’s studies on engineering and science, they found themselves presented with the enormous task of transcribing the Master’s handwriting (in reverse) and attempting to make sense of his sometimes idiosyncratic use of language.
This challenge is further complicated by his frequent tendency to be working on quite a few different ideas at the same time, and he often found it difficult to draw hard and fast lines between his various fields of interest. Yet, through them all, one can observe a sense of hope for humanity’s improvement, and even a hint of anticipation for industrialization. For example, there are visions of devices for incising files, designs for rolling mills, wool-spinning machines, rope manufacturing, and improvements for the simple task of winding a spring.
Leonardo himself wrote, “Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.” That thought comforts me as I revise my Italian olive oil cake for the umpteenth time. The pears at this morning’s farmer’s market announced themselves first within a breeze that danced through the stalls, filled with the seductive aroma of the almost over-ripe fruit. I had just spent a few extra dollars the previous morning when purchasing baking staples, somehow anticipating the delicious potential of combining the ultimate autumnal fruit, toasted almonds, and early winter citrus with the comfort of Italy’s best olive oil. And, yes, I filled my current notebook page with another swirl of hand-written notations, accidental drips of oil and a decorative splash of iced coffee.
One further note – This month, “Leonardo da Vinci” a new, two-part, four-hour documentary directed by Ken Burns, his daughter Sarah Burns and her husband David McMahon will air November 18 and 19, on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS App. The film, which explores the life and work of the 15th century master, is Burns’s first non-American subject. According to the available press release, it looks at how the artist influenced and inspired future generations, and it finds in his soaring imagination and profound intellect the foundation for a conversation we are still having today: what is our relationship with nature and what does it mean to be human.
I can’t wait!
Pear and Almond Olive Oil Cake
One 9” Springform Cake
1 large Anjou or Bosc pear
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup of your best olive oil
2/3 cup almond flour (I use Bob’s Red Mill)
1/3 cup whole milk
1 Tbsp orange (2 clementines) zest (and juice)
1 tsp vanilla paste
½ tsp almond extract
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp fine sea salt
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
½ cup almond slices
Confectioner’s sugar to garnish
1) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and spray a 9” springform pan with cooking spray, line with parchment, and spray again.
2) In a medium bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt and grated nutmeg.
3) In a standing mixer, whisk the eggs together on high until uniform in color and foamy, about 1 minute. Reduce the mixer to medium and add the sugar in a slow stream. Increase the speed and beat until thick and pale. Reduce the speed again and add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Add the almond flour, milk, orange zest and extracts, beating at medium speed until evenly combined.
4) Remove the bowl from the mixer and fold in the dry mixture. Pour the batter into the prepared springform pan.
5) Cut the pear in half, core each half and cut off the base and stem. Slice the pear halves into 1/8” slices. Fan the slices, 4 or 5 slices in a group, and place on top of the batter. Squeeze orange juice over the fanned slices. Sprinkle the almond slices over any exposed batter.
6) Bake for 45-50 minutes until the wooden skewer comes out with a few moist crumbs. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes, before removing the side of the springform.
7) Before serving, lightly dust the top of the cake with confectioner’s sugar.
