Antonio CarluccioArguably the best cookery program on TV this season is Antonio Carluccio’s investigation of Bartolomeo Scappi the famed 16th Century chef; declared by many as the world’s first celebrity chef.

Scappi was the chef to many popes and published the Opera Dell’Arte del Cucinare a cookbook detailing 1000 recipes. This contained the first known picture of a fork, declared parmesan to be the best cheese on earth and noted that “the liver of [a] domestic goose raised by the Jews is of extreme size and weighs [between] two and three pounds”, indicating that Jews of the time were practicing the overfeeding needed to produce foie gras.

Antonio delves into recipes that are more than 500 years old, cooking eel in Venice, porcini mushrooms in Lombardy, and stuffing a suckling pig in Rome, where he ends his journey with a banquet fit for a pope.

Recipes recreated include Riso alla lombarda (Lombardy-style rice), Torta di funghi (Wild mushroom tart), Sarde in saor (Venetian-style sardines), Pomi sdegnosi (‘Disdainful apples’, a sixteenth century recipe for baked aubergines) and Ravioli con polpo di cappone (Ravioli made with capon breast).

Carluccio and the Renaissance Cookbook is on BBC2, 8pm on Thursday 27th December.