Corni da caccia - Wordsmith.org

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I just went to another Lenten concert, and this week the "specialty of the day" was a pair of corni da caccia (which I hope the program spelled correctly as corno da caccia singular and that I guessed that corni is the plural). I had not been familiar with this instrument. If I had been listening to a recording without knowing what they were, I'd have said they were French horns playing high notes. Here is a picture of one:
image

The program said that they are hunting horns, and further that these two (played by a U of L faculty member and a graduate student) were the only pair in the United States. Frankly, I find this a little hard to believe. Are they really that rare? I can say they certainly were not a matched pair: one was obviously older, with a burnished-but-dull well, brass color; the other was bright-and-shiny new, nearly a white-metallic color.

FTR, there were also a French horn, a Fluegelhorn, a violin, and an organ.

Did they play Leopold Mozart's Jagdsinfonie or "Sinfonia da Caccia for 4 horns and Strings "? I read that it calls for shotguns and barking dogs, making the piece especially suited to performance in Kentucky...

shotguns and barking dogs This was in a church, Sirrah! Have you no sense of propriety?! Shotguns and barking dogs are for concert-hall performances only.

sheesh, J, shotguns and churches traditionally go together like husband and wife! :]

Sounds a fun concert. Friday night I'm going to hear all the early Beethoven cello & piano sonatas; I'll think of all the music-lovers amongst you.

I'd much rather go hear Billy Cobham.

> Billy Cobham

me, too!

Jackie, I guess the hunting horn has evolved! The one illustrated in your link looks more complicated than I had expected, more like a French horn. Then I checked out one of the ads below the string, and they showed more expensive versions of the lightweight and not very melodious horn I use in Christmas and New Year's decorations, a simple
belled-at-the-end loop with a mouthpiece.
Wow! I have a decoration that is a replica of an instrument with a name that sounds like a recipe!

an instrument with a name that sounds like a recipe!

Chili con corni da caccia

Cut game (venison, pheasant, boar) into chunks and brown in a stew pot. Add onions, garlic, tomatoes, oregano, chili peppers (minced) and salt with a little red wine and simmer a long time. Serve by pouring into the big end of a French horn.

how much salt? and how much is a "little" red wine? oh, and how long is a long time?

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an instrument with a name that sounds like a recipe!

Chili con corni da caccia

Cut game (venison, pheasant, boar) into chunks and brown in a stew pot. Add onions, garlic, tomatoes, oregano, chili peppers (minced) and salt with a little red wine and simmer a long time. Serve by pouring into the big end of a French horn.

If you are expecting a large crowd, add a rabbit, but be warned that there are people who do not appreciate hare in their stew.

You guise be nice to Fr. Steve. He's had a hard time dealing with heathen recipes that call for getting some ingredients out of bottles or cans. I have it on good authority that his recipe for key lime pie requires one to actually go to Key West to gather the limes. And the next instruction: Lay 3 eggs.

i too thought of a recipe, (chichen cacciatore) (hunter's chicken 0r chicken hunters's style depending on who has translated it)

i always think of Julia Child when i think of chicken cacciatore, who quipped 'what fine hunters they were, not only did they catch meat for the stew, but they came home with fresh herbs and pockets full of mushrooms, too!'

Fr steve your recipe lacks mushrooms! (not that mushrooms are a favorite food of mine, but cacciatore, be it chicken or rabbit, or what ever meat, calls for mushrooms!)

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Fr steve your recipe lacks mushrooms! (not that mushrooms are a favorite food of mine, but cacciatore, be it chicken or rabbit, or what ever meat, calls for mushrooms!)

Yeah! It's fungible!

insel, c'mere a minute--I have something for you. OH, you made me laugh out loud!

BTW - it may be several corni, but I do believe it's one "cornu." As in -copia.

Corno in Italian; cornu in Latin; horn in English.

I have it on good authority that his recipe for key lime pie requires one to actually go to Key West to gather the limes.

Most of the key limes we get on this side of the country come from either Mexico or Central America.

I do have a wee bias in favour of fresh over bottled or tinned. This Christmastide, I made blood orange and pomegranate sorbet for a party of about fifty persons. Getting the juice out of the blood oranges was no problem. I have a lovely chrome bartender's citrus squeezer that looks like a prop in a 40's movie set in a cocktail lounge. Getting the juice out of the pomegranates was a great challenge. I ended up cutting them in half and then using a wooden device, like a reamer, with a pointy end and sort of serrated sides, shaped a bit like a long skinny handgrenade. I then smushed up the seeds and juice with a potato masher, strained it through a chinois and made sorbet. Perhaps one of the reasons I remember the process so well is that my sweet bride is still finding the occasional stain of pomegranate juice on some distant wall in the kitchen. It was everywhere!

wooden device, like a reamer, with a pointy end and sort of serrated sides

Called a "muddler," and also a barman's implement.

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Fr steve your recipe lacks mushrooms! (not that mushrooms are a favorite food of mine, but cacciatore, be it chicken or rabbit, or what ever meat, calls for mushrooms!)

Yeah! It's fungible!

ROTFL!

You, too . . . uh, gal.