Book of Days Tales

On this date in 1808 Ludwig van Beethoven held a mammoth concert at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. The program consisted entirely of pieces by Beethoven, which he conducted, and featured the premieres of his Fifth Symphony, Sixth Symphony, and Choral Fantasy (with Beethoven at the piano). The concert was over four hours long and was quite the event in a number of ways.  The concert was designed as a benefit to provide Beethoven with money to live on. He had been struggling financially for years.  Many musicians found comfortable lives with wealthy patrons, but not all.  Even Mozart, who had many patrons over his life, had financial troubles and did not die a rich man despite his enormous output of work.  This was a mere 17 years before Beethoven’s concert.  Beethoven might have had more patrons were it not for the fact that he refused to ingratiate himself with the rich and famous.  Rather, he quite willfully shunned and embarrassed them even though they sought him out.  He was definitely a celebrity in his day, but a difficult one.

Beethoven’s friend and biographer, Ferdinand Ries, notes:

One day we were dining at the Swan; the waiter brought him the wrong dish. Beethoven had scarcely said a few choice words about it, which the waiter had answered perhaps not quite so politely as he should, when Beethoven laid hold of the dish (it was so-called “Lugenbratel” {a type of Roast beef} with lots of sauce) and flung it at the waiter’s head. The poor fellow still had on his arms a large number of plates containing various dishes (a dexterity which Viennese waiters possess to a high degree) and could do nothing to help himself; the sauce ran down his face. He and Beethoven shouted and cursed at each other, while all the other guests laughed out loud. Finally Beethoven began laughing at the sight of the waiter, who lapped up with his tongue the sauce that was running down his face, tried to go on hurling insults, but had to go on lapping instead, pulling the most ludicrous faces the while, a picture worthy of Hogarth.

Ries also reports that in general Beethoven favored fish over meat and was partial to pollock and potatoes. But his favorite dish of all time was macaroni and cheese.  At first this may strike you as incongruous, but baked macaroni (or pasta) and cheese has a very long history going back at least to the 14^th century.  The famous medieval French cookbook, The Forme of Cury, gives the following:

Take and make a thynne foyle of dowh and kerve it on peces, and cast hem on boillyng water & seeþ it wele. take chese and grate it and butter cast bynethen and above as losyns. and serue forth.

[Take and make a thin layer of dough and cut it in pieces and put them in boiling water and boil it well. Take cheese and grate it and butter placed beneath and above in layers and serve it forth]

This would be rather like a layered pasta, butter, and cheese casserole, and is the basis for most recipes since.  The only main variation is to make a cheese béchamel instead of simply butter and cheese.  Ries specifically notes that Beethoven liked his pasta with Italian cheese, which could mean Parmesan. Beethoven’s dish would have been oven baked.

I am not sure what else to say except make mac and cheese today.  I don’t see one recipe as being much different from another. I would, however, recommend that you do it properly, that is cook the macaroni to almost al dente, mix it with a rich cheese béchamel, and bake it in an earthenware casserole uncovered until the top is crusty and golden.

Perhaps I should also add that Beethoven preferred expensive Hungarian red wines with his meals.