Spira & Spaerita

From Cato:

LXXXVI – About the placenta

Take two pounds of the finest wheat flour to make a base for the dough, and for the strips four pounds of flour and two pounds of prime alica and soak the alica in water. As soon as it is softened place it in a very clean working bowl and let it dry well; knead it well with the hands. When it is well worked, bit by bit add the four pounds of flour. From this make strips. Arrange these on a basket to dry. Do the same with each piece. Once kneaded, daub each all over with a cloth soaked in oil and daub the hearth where they will bake and the clay bell. After sprinkle the two pounds of [finest] flour with water while kneading it. Make from it a thin base. Put fourteen pounds of sheep's cheese, not too acid and very fresh, in water. While soaking it, change the water three times. Take it out bit by bit, press out the water with your hands; once drained put it in the bowl. When the cheese is well-dried, in the clean bowl knead it with your hands, breaking it up as much as you can. Then take a clean flour sifter, push the cheese through the sifter into the bowl. After put in four pounds of good honey and mix it well with the cheese.

After on a clean table, put a strip [of the base?] a foot wide with greased laurel leaves underneath; shape the placenta. Put a single strip down on the entire base, then smear the contents of the bowl on it, add the strips [in layers?] one by one, until all the cheese with honey is used up. On top put a single strip, after join it to the base neatly and put it on the hearth. First prepare the hearth, then put the placenta on it under the hot bell, cover this with hot coals and put them all around. See that it bakes slowly and well. Uncover it two or three times to check it. When it is baked, take it out and spread honey on it. This will be a half-modius placenta.

The above recipe (even with its possible variants) can be readily adapted for a modern kitchen. It is the basis for several that follow.

LXXVII – About the spira

Set out everything in the same proportions as for the placenta, except that you put the strips differently on the base: cover them well with honey; braid them then like a cord you put on the base, carefully putting simple strips in the interstices. For the rest proceed and bake as for the placenta.

LXXVIII – About the scriblita

Put on the mold strips sprinkled with cheese, like a placenta made without honey.

LXXXII – About the spaerita

Make the “spherical cake” like the spira, except that you use neither cheese nor honey, and the balls are large as a fist. Put them on the base, as thick as for the spira, and cook in the same way.