COCATRICE AND LAMPRAY HAY

Transcription

1 LATE FIFTEENTH-CENTURY RECIPES FROM CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE OXFORD An Edition, with Commentary, including Suggestions for Cooks Constance B. Hieatt PROSPECT BOOKS 2012

2 First published in 2012 by Prospect Books, Allaleigh House, Blackawton, Totnes, Devon TQ9 7DL. 2012, editorial matter, Constance B. Hieatt. The editor, Constance B. Hieatt, asserts her right to be iden tified as editor of this work in accordance with the Copy right, Designs & Patents Act No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holder. BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA: A catalogue entry of this book is available from the British Library. Typeset and designed by Lemuel Dix and Tom Jaine. The illustration on the title-page is by Doris Heins. The cover illustration is Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, It is from Ms. Bodl. 264 (fol. 73 v ), the Romance of Alexander, with miniatures illustrating legends of Alexander the Great by the Flemish illuminator Jehan de Grise and his workshop, ISBN Printed and bound by the Gutenberg Press, Malta.

3 Table of Contents Preface 9 Introduction 10 Bibliography of Works Cited 23 Cocatrice and Lampray Hay (Corpus Christi College MS F 291) 1. Cocatrice Chawdroun for Swan Lette Lardes Chyknes Farsed Macrel Farsed Caudel Ferre Ruschw of Fysch Ruschews of Flesch Petitone Chinche Annimels Farsed Pouderid Byf Lechid Lumbard Tartis Per muson Tartis Gyngile Crustade with Flesch Flawmpoynt Dareals Ʒelowe Rastone For to Kepe Pescoddis fro Midsomyr tyl Cristemess Kepyng of Venyson Lampray Hay 57 5

4 23. Pyk in Latymer Sawse Almounde Oystrys in Grave Tayles Soppis Dorre Blawmmager Tenches or Sooles or Plays in Cyve Morterews of Fysch Eles in Sorry Rappe Muskelys in Browet Creme of Almonds Boyled Furmente wyth Purpeys Blawnche Porre Oystres in Cyve Blandʒere Mayled Perry of Pesyn Frasyd, be þei Whyte or Grene Aturmyn is a Stondynge Potage Tenche or Breme in Brasy Tenches in egurdows Nowmblys of Porpeys Perys in Surrip Jussel for Lentyn Froys for Lenten of Thre Colours, Eche One Closyng on Oþir Eggs in Lentyn Tartis Crustade Dareals Flaumpoynt Perceyt Cawdel of Almandis Peris and Quyns Baken Fresh Lawmprey or Lawmprey Anantes Bakyn Breme Baken Capon and Beef Stuwed Venysoun in Broþʒ Ravyols 99 6

5 59. Jowtis Jussel Long Wortis Charlet Blanche Mortrews Browet Sarsenesse Cunninges in Grave Hennys in Cyve Bore in Pevered Bukenade Fyletis in Galentyn Garbage of Gyce in Mose Pygge in Sauge Pyg or Pygges Feet or Smale Chykenys in Egredous Traps in Surrip Gosnade Eyryn in Cokyr Blanke Fretour Clonnenonne Morterews Mawmone Blawmanger Bor in Comfeet Alesed Bef Powmedorres Capons in Connse Cabage Capoun in Urinele Two Cunnyngs of One Potage Morterews of Wylkys of Kelling Lechyd Lumbard Gely of Pyk, Tenche, or Perche Grwuel with Milk Let Lorry Eyren in Poche Tayles 140 7

6 95. Creme Boyle Jowtys Flawnys Crustade Appylmose 143 Supplement to the Concordance 145 Glossary and Cross-Index of Recipe Titles Used as Lemmas 173 8

7 Preface My primary debt as author of this edition is to the archivists of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, who made access to the manuscript possible for me and for my late colleague, Sharon Butler, over the considerable period of years it took for us to copy, and meditate on, the text. Dr Butler was no longer with us when I finally got to the stage of planning the edition, but her careful transcriptions were a great help to me. Another colleague who gave me valuable help is, again, Professor Brenda Hosington, of the Université de Montréal. As she has done before, she checked various sources in British libraries for me at a time when I found travel difficult; and Ellen Nodelman earned my deep gratitude for rescuing the text from a confused state in which it could not have printed correctly. Constance B. Hieatt December

8 Introduction This manuscript, which can be dated to the last quarter of the fifteenth century, is thus described in Coxe s catalogue of Oxford college manuscripts, 1 Vol. II, p. 127: Codex, partim membranaceus et partim chartaceus, in 4to minimo, ff. 123, sec. xv. 1. A curious collection of recipes in cookery, ninety-five in number, with a list of content prefixed. fol A book of miscellaneous receipts in medicine, cookery S.J. Ogilvie-Thomson firmly assigns the manuscript itself to the fifteenth century and says, Provenance unknown. The dialect of the greater part of the MS (ff. 3 53, 55 v 68) is Norfolk. 2 The second section is messy, casual, and probably sixteenth century; mostly medical, with a few confections such as gingerbread here and there. The table of contents for section 1 actually begins on fol. 1 v listing the end of the contents, nos ; titles of 1 24 appear on 2 r and on 2 v. Recipes are numbered in the table of contents; and there is also numbering at the top of many of the pages of the actual recipe section, discussed below as a key to what is, or is not, missing from the collection. The recipes themselves begin on fol. 3 r and end at the top of fol. 68 r. The table of contents is in a different, less formal, hand; the ink here is dim, 1. H. O. Coxe, Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum qui in collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus hodie adservantur (Oxford, 1852). 2. The Index of Middle English Prose, Handlist viii. A Handlist of MSS Containing M.E. Prose in Oxford College Libraries (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1991), pp

9 INTRODUCTION and the pages are worn and stained and not as legible as the recipe pages. The writing on fols. 53 v 55 r is different from the rest of the recipe section: presumably a second scribe took over temporarily. The order of the recipes is quite eccentric. There are clumps of more-orless related recipes, two of which are signalled by subheadings ( Baken Mete for the pastries in recipes and Baken Mete for Lentyn for those in 48 51), and a good many others not so heralded, ranging from two recipes for preserving foods for later use (20 21) to a long section of Lenten dishes in But there is no discernable overall rationale and no resemblance to the order of any other collection. It is, in fact, rather contrary to custom: most collections with a clear order start with the simpler pottages and save the elaborate concoctions known as subtleties for later, often at or near the end, but this one begins with a very spectacular subtlety : Cocatrice, representing the fabulous beast better known nowadays as a basilisk. Nor do the recipes themselves show any sign of a relationship to any other collection or collections, although they are mostly recipes which were well known in the period and had many exemplars elsewhere. This seems to be, unlike any other collection of the fifteenth century, a collection with no identifiable source(s), although it must have had at least one, as indicated by the reference in the first recipe to a preceding one. It is one which is notable for the degree to which directions are often spelled out; 47, Eggs in Lent, for example, is much more detailed than any other recipe I have seen for this dish: but so, if to a lesser extent, are most of the other wellknown dishes here. This feature would appear to mark the collection as a very late one. I have noted elsewhere 3 a tendency of later medieval English recipes to spell out procedures at greater and greater length and to add and/or vary ingredients (p. 9). An instance here is the third recipe, Lette Lardes, which represents a very popular dish in this period: the Concordance of English Recipes Thirteenth Through Fifteenth Centuries 4 lists nineteen recipes under the 3. In Constance B. Hieatt and Sharon Butler, eds., Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century (Including the Forme of Cury). London: EETS s.s. 8, Oxford University Press, 1985, pp Constance B. Hieatt and Terry Nutter, with Johnna H. Holloway (Tempe, Arizona: ACMRS, 2006). 11

10 lemma Lete Lardes, and A Gathering of Medieval English Recipes 5 lists two more in its continuation of the Concordance. I have not tried to count the length of every example here: some represent a simpler version which does not call for dyeing the dish in three different colours and would naturally be a bit shorter. The earliest version of the three-colours recipe is that which appears in the fourteenth-century Forme of Cury, which has about 155 words. Two later examples, are, surprisingly, a bit shorter: that of An Ordinance of Pottage 6 and the Noble boke of cokery, 7 which is directly derived from the former collection, but two of the later recipes which occur in Thomas Austin s Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books 8 run to slightly over 200 words. The Corpus Christi recipe is the longest, at almost 250 words. However, in some cases even these extensive details are somewhat mystifying. For example, the recipe for Rissoles of Fish (7), which contains no fish, gives such confused directions for stuffing the pastry and cutting it up that no amount of emendation would make it really clear; it has to be explained in a following Commentary. Also, there is quite often an obvious confusion of the order of steps, as in the fifth recipe, Stuffed Mackeral, when we are told to colour the almond milk after we have been told to pour it into a platter and put the roasted fish on it. In many cases, such confused order suggests the tone of a cook voicing afterthoughts along the lines of Oh, I forgot to tell you to Consider, for example, recipe 82, for Alesed beef. 9 After directing us to stuff slices of beef with a mixture of parsley, hyssop, savory, onions, and beef suet, seasoned with pepper, cinnamon and salt, then roll them up and roast them on a spit, the recipe continues, Sette a pot with swete broþ on þe fyr. Mynce oinʒouns & dates & tak reyseynges of coraunce & cast þerto also stounyd maces or clows & canel. Tak fygges; grende hem in a morter with crustes of bread; drawe hem up with wyn or goode ale; cast þis draught into the pot & saffroun qwan þe pot seþ. Cast þerto þes lechys 5. Ed. Hieatt (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2008). 6. Ed. Hieatt (London: Prospect Books, 1988). 7. A facsimile of Pynson s 1500 edition, the best full text of this collection, is forthcoming; Mrs Napier s 1882 edition is incomplete because it was based on a manuscript missing quite a few pages. 8. London: EETS o.s. 91, 1888, repr Beef Birds : this is the dish given the lemma Alows of Beef in the Concordance. 12

11 INTRODUCTION rostyd er þu put in þi lycour, and boyle it togeder. This takes us back to the beginning of the recipe, but leaves just when the meat is to be put in somewhat questionable. More significantly, an unusually large number of the recipes here give exact quantities for at least some of the ingredients: for example, 1 lb fruit, ¼ almonds for 8 dishes. This aspect of the collection is what makes it really remarkable: very few other medieval English culinary collections give any such measurements. I have noted only three which ever do, and none of them to anywhere near such an extent. These are: BL MS Arundel 334, 10 and six corresponding recipes in the Noble boke of cokery which come from that source; at least one recipe in the Liber Cure Cocorum, 11 also reproduced in the Noble boke of cokery ; and three recipes in Bodleian MS e. Mus The last-named source is the only one in which the quantities given are extensive enough to be really meaningful. For example, the recipe there for Leche Lumbarde calls for a half-pennyworth of pepper, half that quantity of sanders, and half a loaf of grated bread to a quart of clarified honey. The one Liber Cure Cocorum recipe reproduced in the Noble boke of cokery is far less helpful: in a Chicken Compost, one is to use a pint of honey, but there is no indication of what the quantities are of the chicken or other ingredients. The Noble boke of cokery recipes from Arundel 334 vary in helpfulness; some similarly give the quantity for only one or two of several ingredients, some give more illuminating guidance. Here, we often have proportions which will really assist modern analysis. Recipe 44, for pears in syrup, calls for 40 pears, ½ quart honey and a potel (two quarts) of ale for 20 dishes, plus an ounce each of pepper and cinnamon. It does not specify quantity or weight for other ingredients, which include minced dates, currants, and mace probably because the quantities were negligible and/or variable according to the cook s taste. However, even if only partial, these notations may be of significant help in the ongoing debate about how highly spiced medieval dishes were likely 10. Edited (but incorrectly labelled 344) in A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household (London, 1790), and by Richard Warner, Antiquitates Culinariae: Tracts on Culinary Affairs of the Old English [repli cating the incorrect label] (London, 1791; facs. London: Prospect Books, 1981). 11. BL MS Sloane 1986, ed. R. Morris (London, 1862). 12. Printed in A Gathering of Medieval English Recipes: cf. note 5 above. 13

12 to be: the quantities for this particular dish would work out to something between a quarter and half teaspoonful of pepper and cinnamon per pear. That would make the pears notably spicy, especially if they were small, and medieval fruits were likely to be smaller than those we raise today. Most modern recipes for pears in a spiced syrup call for such a quantity of cinnamon for three (or more) pears, not one. No modern recipe I have seen calls for pepper, although some call for additional spices. On the other hand, however, the spices in recipe 56, capon braised with beef, are very modest in amount: for 12 capons and 12 good-sized pieces of beef loin, cooked in over a gallon of ale or wine, we are told to use a quarter-ounce each of pepper and cinnamon, which amounts to less than a tablespoon of each seasoning to this considerable quantity of meat and liquid. Other seasonings are also called for, but in similarly small amounts. Evidently, then, some dishes were a lot more spicy than others. The elaboration of these recipes is one of the indications that they emanate from a very well-to-do establishment, as is the fact that almost all of them include various seasonings including spices, even the simplest of dishes. For example, a recipe for dried (split, apparently) peas (39) calls for onions, parsley, honey, saffron, and pepper, as well as a bread thickening. However, the seasonings in more than half the dishes here are standard and repetitive: pepper, cinnamon, saffron and salt in almost everything, with only a few other seasonings, of which mace, ginger and sugar are the only ones which appear with any frequency. But another noteworthy feature is a very wide use of figs, especially in fish dishes, often ground and apparently as a thickener, and a general proliferation of sweetness. Dates and honey appear constantly, as do other sweet ingre dients. One striking instance is the use of ground figs as well as dates and currants in the sauce for a Beef Alows dish, Alesed Beef (recipe 82), as noted above. And the figs are apparently a conspicuous feature here, since the quantity of these alone is noted: half a pound for 8 servings. Other fifteenthcentury versions of this popular dish do not normally call for a sauce at all. The features of this recipe collection discussed so far mark it as exhibiting all the tendencies of late fifteenth-century recipes to an extreme degree: no other elaborates its recipes to such great length, or gives so many exact measurements of ingredients, or goes further in sweetening its meat and fish recipes with dried fruits and other sweeteners, although some go 14

13 INTRODUCTION almost as far in the latter respect. 13 The Corpus Christi collection can be described as the ultimate fifteenth-century cookery book: it carries all the tendencies of recipe writing of its period about as far as they can go. That does not mean that these recipes show the characteristics of sixteenth-century recipes rather than of their medieval predecessors. The writers of the following century did not continue those tendencies which had become so noticeable in the last two centuries of the Middle Ages. Recipes of the following three centuries frequently specified quantities of ingredients, but not usually as helpfully as the Corpus Christi collection; Martha Washington s Booke of Cookery, an eighteenth-century compendium of recipes from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, has very few specifications of quantities in the cookery section, although rather more in the Booke of Sweetmeats which completes the manuscript. 14 Recipes headed by a convenient list of ingredients giving exact quantities did not appear until well into the nineteenth century. In the US, this change is usually credited to Fannie Farmer, whose Boston Cookery-School Cookbook first appeared in Recipe writers of the sixteenth century still tended to use rather more sweet ingredients in meat or fish dishes than we would use today, although not as many as their fifteenth-century predecessors; but in the matter of elaborating recipes, they generally went in the other direction and produced simpler, shorter versions when they were passing on recipes of medieval origin. However, the recipe for Chauden for Swan found in the Corpus Christi collection, where it is number 2, runs to over 150 words. Such a recipe occurs in both A Booke of Cookrye 15 and Gervase Markham s The English Housewife, 16 both of which run to about 80 words. The recipe for Caudle in the Corpus Christi collection, number 6, is given 125 words; that in Thomas Dawson s The Good Housewife s Jewell 17 has only 36. The Corpus Christi recipe for blancmanger (number 28) has 13. A noteworthy example is the collection of eleven recipes for the feast of St. Lawrence in Bodleian MS e. Mus. 52 (see notes 5 and 12 above). 14. Ed. Karen Hess (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981). 15. Ed. A.W., London, 1581; facsimile, Amsterdam and Norwood, N.J., Ed. Michael R. Best (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1986); originally published Ed. A.B., London: Southover Press, 1996; originally published 1596,

14 192 words; the sixteenth-century versions are much changed, resembling a modern blancmange rather than its medieval ancestor, but the wordage is still reduced: 129 words in A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye 18 and one of the three in The Good Housewife s Jewell contains only 37. This, then, is an extreme example of a fifteenth-century cookery book, not one showing features typical of the sixteenth-century. As such, it exhibits a lot of unusual, and sometimes baffling, vocabulary. For example, many recipes calling for pork, and at least one for veal, tell us to use a bypece of the meat, a word not to be found in the MED, the A-ND, the OED, or Cotgrave, under any spelling I could think of. It must mean a secondary cut of the meat, not one of the prime cuts normally used for roasting (or alternatively, in the case of a ham, smoking), to go by the analogy of such words as bypath and byway : but I could find no example of it among the many rather obscure by- words listed in the OED. I suspect we have lost a possibly useful word in bypiece. Other problems may arise from the scribe s hand or his miscopying: a phrase in the very first recipe for cocatrice appears to be rufpyn of the calf : but even if I have misread the first peculiar word, the phrase is baffling since at this point the subject is apparently a cock, not a calf. This editor saw no alternative but to emend to the ruff [a word appearing a few lines later] of the cock, although what kind of ruff a cock plucked for cooking would have is another question. 19 A few of the titles are puzzling. Some which look reasonable do not turn out to be so, such as the fishless Rissoles of Fish mentioned above. A remarkable example is Lampray Hay, recipe 22, which has nothing to do with either lampreys or hay. Others show no detectable relationship to any other word or recipe, such as Clonnennone, or Clanenone possibly some of these n s should be read as u s. This one is a recipe for fried stuffed eggs; perhaps -en[n]one represents a corruption of a spelling for eggs, such as eyroun, but the Clo/an element remains baffling. 18. Facsimile of the edition ed. Anne Ahmed (Cambridge: Corpus Christi College Cambridge, 2002). 19. The English Dialect Dictionary gives cock s comb, but this doesn t seem to fit the context here at all. 16

15 INTRODUCTION Spelling in general is often a problem here. It is rarely consistent: the scribes appeared to think all vowels interchangeable. In the first recipe, for example, sew is spelled sauwe, souwe, and sowe. Both scribes use abbreviations constantly, but with varying meanings; a line above a vowel usually represents n or m, but sometimes must mean es, for example. All such abbreviations have been expanded in the text, as have such abbreviations as w t for with and þ t for that, but it must be borne in mind that some expansions may be incorrect. When u clearly represents v, it is so transcribed. The consonant (or semi-vowel?) ʒ appears in some expectable contexts, such as the word ynowʒ, but sometimes seems quite out of place, as in the occasional spelling of broth as broþʒ: which is also sometimes spelled broht, suggesting that the th spelling for þ was currently sometimes misunderstood (it is used correctly in the word forth a few times). The collection is almost, but not quite, complete. One leaf has obviously been torn out between fols. 12 and 13: that the leaf missing here was in the book when it was originally bound is witnessed by a corner of paper between these leaves. The folio numbers were obviously added at a later date. The missing leaf contained all of recipe 14, Tartis permuson, except the title, which is at the bottom of 12 v, and the last words of the last sentence which are on the top of 13 r. Following immediately is 15, Tartis gyngile, which is a mere two and a half lines giving a non-lenten version of the preceding recipe: that is, calling for flesh instead of the fish evidently called for in the missing preceding recipe. The title of 14 probably means Parmesan tart; recipes for a tart of this name occur in a number of Italian collections 20 and some French ones. 21 It is always a long, complex recipe in some versions, using poultry and/or pork: Melitta Weiss Adamson gives the Viandier s version as an example of 20. For example, the Liber de Coquina (ed. Marianne Mulon, Deux traités inédits d art culinaire médiéval, Bulletin Philologique et Historique, 1971 for 1968), V. 6, pp ; in Libro di Cucina del Secolo XIV, ed. Ludovico Frati (Leghorn, 1899, facs. 1979), 112, pp ; in Due Libri di Cucina ed. Ingemar Boström (Stockholm, 1985), A.1, p In the Viandier of Taillevent (ed. Terence Scully, Ottawa, 1988), no. 197, pp , Tourtes parmeriennes. Chiquart s Du Fait de cuisine (ed. Terence Scully, in Vallesia 40 [1985], pp ) has two versions, one for meat-days (#21) and one for fishdays(#40); in Scully s translation, Chiquart s On Cookery : A Fifteenth Century Savoyard Culinary Treatise (New York: Peter Lang, 1986), pp and

16 a particularly elaborate medieval recipe, 22 but that is simple in comparison to Chiquart s meat-day version. The only other example in English appears to be the Tart permusan of New York Public Library MS Whitney 1, 23 no. 148, which also calls for fish. It may, at first glance, appear rash to conclude that the words on the top of 13 r are part of recipe 14 rather than an intervening recipe. While the average recipe in this collection occupies a space only equal to one side of a leaf, some recipes are considerably longer; 56, Capon and beef stuwed, begins on fol. 41 r and runs almost to the end of 43 v, covering more than five sides. That there is no intervening recipe between Tartis permuson and Tartis gyngile in the table of contents is not much help, since it is not a reliable guide to the original contents when it omits five recipes still to be found in the manuscript. I note, with regret, that either I or Bruno Laurioux was apparently misguided by the table of contents in our description of this collection in the Répertoire, which states that it originally contained 98 recipes. This is obviously wrong: if we add to the table of contents 95 recipes, one of which does not actually appear in the text, the five in the manuscript not noted in the table of contents, we get 100, not counting any which may be missing and unnoted in the table of contents. Ogilvie-Thomson may have had such a calculation in mind in saying that there are 100 recipes here, although, in fact, one of those is only represented in the table of contents; this edition thus contains 99, not 100, recipes. The best guide to the original number is the numbering on the tops of many pages in the recipe section, which appears to be that of the original scribe, with the numbers apparently added soon after the recipes were copied. While these are in Arabic numerals rather than the Roman numerals invariably found in the recipes themselves, it is an early version of Arabic numerals perfectly consistent with a fifteenth-century date; in fact, it corresponds remarkably closely to some examples from the twelfth fifteenth centuries found in Capelli s Dizionario de Abbreviature latine ed italiane. 24 This numbering appears only on pages containing the titles of at least one recipe; it does not correspond to folio numbers or what would be 22. Food in Medieval Times, Westport, Connecticut, 2004, p Printed in A Gathering Of Medieval English Recipes; cf. n. 5, above. See p th ed., Milan,

17 INTRODUCTION page numbers if sides were separately numbered. It refers to the numbers of the recipes for which the titles appear on the numbered pages even if the title of the recipe appears on the last line of a page and the recipe itself is on the following page. The numbers correspond exactly to the recipe numbers in the table of contents through recipe 17, Flawmpoynt. The numeral 17 appears at the top of fol. 14 r. The recipe itself, preceded as usual by its title, starts at the very bottom of this folio, and is completed on fol. 14 v, which ends, as many other recipes do, with the quantities of ingredients needed. But the next folio, fol. 15 r, is headed , not 18 or 19. The first line of the folio contains the title of the recipe which is numbered 19 in the table of contents: Dareals ʒelowe. Further, recipe 18 in the table of contents, Broke crustes, is the one which does not appear in the text at all. There is no other recipe in the table of contents which is not to be found in the text; on the other hand, the table of contents numbers the recipes surrounding the five it omits as if these five did not exist. It thus appears that a sheet has been lost from the text between fols. 14 v and 15 r, and that this contained two recipes, 18 and 19, only one of which is noted in the table of contents, since what is there numbered 19 appears here as 20. It may have started with a few last words of recipe 17, since the quantities which end fol. 14 v do not include a statement of how many dishes, or tarts, this quantity will suffice for, as such lists invariably do elsewhere. At any rate, since 18 is noted in the table of contents, we can deduce that this loss occured not only after the page-top numbers had been written but also after the table of contents had been (rather carelessly) compiled. From recipe 20 (number 19 in the table of contents) the top-ofthe-page numbering in the text is consistently two numbers higher than the numbers I have assigned (counting only recipes which actually occur in the text) as showing what is there today. In light of the consistency of the top-of-the-page number, it seems fair to conclude that recipe 14, Tartis permuson, covered both sides of a missing sheet, since the numbering indicates that the next recipe is indeed recipe 15, not 16 or 17. This means that the collection originally contained 101 recipes, consisting of the 99 now found in the manuscript plus two missing on a leaf between fols. 14 and 15; nothing else has been lost, except a leaf on which almost all of recipe 14 was written. 19

18 Instead of following the edited text with separate sections for a selection of adapted recipes and a glossary, as I did in my edition of An Ordinance of Pottage, this volume will follow each edited recipe with its translation, concluding with a commentary including, where appropriate, suggestions for cooks. Those who wonder what a word in the original Middle English means can look at the translation; when the meaning is dubious that is stated in a footnote. The suggestions for adaptation in the commentary sections are usually not fully spelled-out recipes, but suggestions which should be enough for the experienced cook. Sometimes, the translated recipe gives enough guidance on procedure anyway: for example, the directions for making Petitone (9) are admirably explicit in telling the cook to put a plate over the pan and turn it upside down to turn out the omelette. But these are often confused medieval recipes, and anyone s adaptation is bound to be partly guesswork. Therefore, directions more like those of Elizabeth David than like those of Fannie Farmer seemed appropriate, giving cooks a chance to exercise their own judgment and preferences, as their medieval forebears did. Those needing further guidance on times, temperatures, etc., can consult a more standard cookbook for example, on how long to roast a chicken and at what temperature. When such suggestions for adaptation give exact measurements, these presume you will wish to make a dish which will serve only four to eight diners. While I have taken account of the quantities specified in the recipes themselves (when they are so specified) and tried to make the measurements proportionate, I could not duplicate them because they are all for either 8 or 20 servings, which means from 16 to 80 diners: medieval servings were always for two (generally at high table only) or four diners. In any case, exact amounts for minor spices seemed particularly inadvisable. As remarked above, pepper, cinnamon, saffron and salt were fairly standard, and unless a quantity is specified, as in the case of the spicing for pears and a dish of capon with beef mentioned above, we can assume the quantity was so small as to be unremarkable. I suggest that you treat them as you do pepper and salt in modern recipes which do not give exact quantities for those seasonings, i.e. sprinkling on cinnamon and saffron as sparingly as you do pepper and judging the salt to taste. But you may wish to skip the saffron much of the time: saffron in every dish may seem a bit too much for modern diners. And there does not seem any 20

19 INTRODUCTION reason to be much more generous with ginger and mace, unless a larger quantity is specifically recommended. And note that honey is called for in more than half the recipes: unless there are indications that this is meant to be a noticeably sweet dish, treat this as also a routine seasoning, to be added in very small quantities. Another frequent ingredient in these recipes is grated bread, used as a thickener: often specified as wastel bread, which simply means white bread of high quality. A medieval loaf would have been a round one, weighing perhaps a pound. 25 Stale bread suitable for grating must have been always on hand in a medieval kitchen; this is not always the case in the modern kitchen, but not-so-stale bread is perfectly suitable for making bread crumbs in a food processor. You should remove the crusts first, especially if it is a good crusty bread. It is best to make the bread crumbs and set them aside before you put moister ingredients, such as meat, in the processor. But also, if you are thickening something cooked in liquid, you can simply tear up crustless slices of bread and put them in the food processor or a blender with a suitable amount of the cooking liquid; blend to thicken it, then stir it back into the pot. In any case, do not even dream of using packaged bread crumbs from the supermarket: they would have a nasty, gritty effect. Like all medieval recipes, a good many here call for almond milk. To make this, blend ground almonds (as finely ground as you can get or make them) with a hot liquid and squeeze through a cloth or rub through a strainer lined with a coffee filter: almond milk should be smooth, not gritty. When recipes differentiate between a first thicker and second thinner almond milk, this means you are expected to be economical and save the ground almonds left in the cloth (or filter paper) when you have rubbed through the first, thicker milk to make a second batch with the same almonds. Most of the recipes in this collection call for a pound of almonds, when they specify quantities; my suggested quantities assume you wish to make a quarter of the medieval quantity, thus a quarter-pound (4 oz) of almonds 25. A good source of information about medieval bread is Peter Brears, Cooking and Dining in Medieval England, Totnes, 2008, Chapter 7. For fuller information, see C. Anne Wilson, Food & Drink in Britain from the Stone Age to the Present (London, 1973), Chapter 7. 21

20 per recipe. For this, the appropriate amount of liquid is about one cup (8 fl oz, scant 250 ml.); but if you are making a second thinner milk with the same almonds, use about double the amount; recipes calling for both generally expect you to boil down the mixture containing the thinner milk until it is very thick indeed and can well absorb the better milk. The most important part of the commentary is often an explanation of the difficulties in the recipe in light of other versions of the same recipe which could be located by consulting the Concordance. Without that help, I would have found it difficult to explain much of what goes on here, even though I was, by the time I undertook editing this manuscript, familiar with most of the corpus of Middle English recipes. The late Sharon Butler and I had begun to transcribe the recipes in this manuscript around 1980, but, recognizing its difficulties, did not try to do anything with it other than excerpt one recipe: Chinche (no. 10), junket, which appears in Curye on Inglisch Part V (p. 155). I am very glad now I did not try to go further with it at a time when I did not know enough to handle it successfully. The volume ends with a supplement to the Concordance, covering all the Corpus Christi recipes plus the recipes previously published in A Gathering, where they appeared without page numbers in that volume s supplement to the Concordance. But this made them difficult to locate in a volume containing recipes from more than twenty manuscripts, so it seemed best to include them, with this further information, plus a few corrections, here. In addition, I have included some corrections and additions to the original Concordance, and one revised gloss (to Cockatrice) which seemed clearer than the original gloss. The table of contents on pages 5 8 above should be sufficient to serve as an index to the recipes here, but readers are referred to the notes and comments on each recipe for explanations of unusual words and difficult titles: bearing in mind that some of the titles are inexplicable. The secondary title (in square brackets) on the title line of most recipes in the following text is the entry in the original manuscript s table of contents, where that entry differs from that given in the body of the text. 22

21 Bibliography of Works Cited REFRENCE AND GENERAL BACKGROUND Adamson, Melitta Weiss. Food in Medieval Times. Westport, CT, Bartlett, Jonathan. The Cook s Dictionary and Culinary Reference. Chicago, Brears, Peter. Cooking and Dining in Medieval England. Totnes, Capelli, Adriano. Dizionario di Abbreviature latine ed italiane, 6th ed. Milan, Coxe, H.O. Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum qui in collegiis aulisque Oxon iensibus hodie adservantur. Oxford, Davidson, Alan. The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford, Hieatt, Constance B., Carole Lambert, Bruno Laurioux, and Alix Prentki. Répertoire des Manuscrits Médiévaux Contenant des Rescettes Culinaires, in Du Manuscrit à la Table, ed. Carole Lambert, Montreal and Paris, Hieatt, Constance B., and Terry Nutter, with Johnna H. Holloway. Concordance of English Recipes: Thirteenth Through Fifteenth Centuries. Tempe, Arizona, Ogilvie-Thomson, S.J. The Index of Middle English Prose, Handlist viii. A Handlist of MSS Containing M.E. Prose in Oxford College Libraries. Cambridge, Wilson, C. Anne. Food & Drink in Britain from the Stone Age to the Present. London, Woolgar, C. M., D. Serjeantson, and T. Waldron, eds. Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

22 COOKERY BOOKS Ahmed, Anne, ed. A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye: Margaret Parker s Cookery Book (facs. of the ed.). Cambridge, Austin, Thomas, ed. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books. London, EETS (o.s.91), 1888; repr. Oxford A Booke of Cookrye. London, 1581; facs., Amsterdam & Norwood, NJ, Boström, Ingemar, ed. Due Libri di Cucina. Stockholm, Dawson, Thomas. The Good Housewife s Jewell (London, 1596, 1597); ed. A.B. London, Frati, L., ed. Libro di Cucina del Secolo XIV. Leghorn, 1899; facs Hess, Karen, ed. Martha Washington s Booke of Cookery. New York, Hieatt, Constance B., ed. A Gathering of Medieval English Recipes. Turnhout, Belgium, 2008., ed. The Middle English Culinary Recipes in MS Harley 5401, an Edition and Commentary, Medium Ævum LXV (1996), , ed. An Ordinance of Pottage: an Edition of the Fifteenth Century Culinary Recipes in Yale University s MS Beinecke 163. London, 1988., and Sharon Butler, eds. Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century (Including the Forme of Cury). London, EETS (ss. 8), Markham, Gervase. The English Housewife (London, 1615), ed. Michael R. Best. Kingston and Montreal, Morris, R., ed. Liber Cure Cocorum (BL MS Sloane 1986). London, Mulon, Marianne, ed. Liber de Coquina, in Deux traités inédits d art culinaire médiéval, Bulletin Philologique et Historique, 1971 for Napier, Mrs. Alexander (Robina), ed. A Noble Boke off Cookry ffor a Prynce Houssolde or eny other estately Houssolde. London, Noble boke of festes ryalle and Cokery, printed by Pynson in 1500; facs. forthcoming, Longleat, Warminster, Wiltshire. Scully, Terence, ed. Du fait de cuisine par Maistre Chiquart, 1420, in Vallesia (1985), ; trans., Chiquart s On Cookery : A Fifteenth- Century Savoyard Culinary Treatise. New York, 1986., ed. The Viandier of Taillevent. Ottawa, Warner, Richard, ed. Antiquitates Culinariae: Tracts on Culinary Affairs of the Old English (including BL MS Arundel 334, incorrectly labelled 344). London, 1791; facs. London,

23 Cocatrice and Lampray Hay (Corpus Christi College, Oxford MS F 291) Text, Translation and Commentary

24

25 [3 r ] 1. Cocatrice [Cocatryce]. COCATRICE AND LAMPRAY HAY Scalde a pyge clene. Tak of þe hed; quarter hym on fowre. Tak a cok; scalde hym, draw hym, quarter hym on foure. an sauwe þe forme quarter of ʒe pyge with þat hynder quarter of þe cok be þe skynne; þan sette þe forme quarter of the cok before and þe hynder quarter of þe pyg behynde. an tak þe ruffe 1 of þe cok 2 and make it clene & souwe it evene rownde, and not flate it to þe hynde quarters as it were a tayl. an fle þe pygges hed; kep þe skyn hole, with þe eris. Mak farsene of to colouris, as þou may se before in þe making 3 of þe cun-[3 v ]nyges. Fyll þe roffe behynde wyth oon colour & þe hed with anoþer colour, þanne turne þe backe side donwarde & ley a feerse as mykyl as a mannys þom be fro þe hed to þe tayl, & sowe þe skynnes togeder above. Perbule þis in seþinge water a furlong way awyle. Tak & ley it on a bord. an put it on a spete, þorw at þe tayl and out at þe hed, & drye hym aʒen þe fere. Mak batour; tak sum of þis batour & make it grene, & sum red, & sum ʒelow. Colour þes quarters eche on diverse. Ley on þis tayl sylver foyle and on þe hed gold foyle, and sette it forth. Scald a pig clean. Take off the head; quarter it into four pieces. Take a cock; scald it, draw it, quarter it into four pieces. Then sew the forward quarter of the pig to the hind quarter of the cock by the skin; set the forward quarter of the cock before and the hind quarter of the pig behind. Then take the ruff of the cock and make it clean, and sew it evenly around, and not flat to the hindquarters as if it were a tail. Then flay the pig s head; keep the skin whole, with the ears. Make stuffing of two colours, as you have seen before in the making of the rabbits. Fill the ruff behind with one colour and the head with another colour, then turn the backside downwards and lay stuffing as deep as a man s thumb from the head to the tail, and sew the skins together above. Parboil this in boiling water for the time it takes to walk a furlong. 1. MS ruffpyn if I have read it correctly. 2. MS calf, apparently. 3. makynges. 27

26 Take [it out] and lay it on a board. Then put it on a spit, through at the tail and out at the head, and dry it against the fire. Make batter; take some of this batter and make it green, and some red, and some yellow. Colour these quarters, each one a different colour. Lay on the tail silver foil and on the head gold foil, and set it forth. Commentary : The cockatrice, perhaps better known today as a basilisk, was said to be a fabulous serpent hatched from a cock s egg with the power to kill by a glance. This one is to be made of five separate sections: the pig s head, the forequarter of the pig, the hindquarter of the cock, the forequarter of the cock, and the hindquarter of the pig, in that order, so that the pig s head comes first and the pig s tail last. Why the cock s body in the middle is to be added in reverse order, and what the ruff of the foremost part is, are not clear, although they might become clear to the cook if anyone wants to actually attempt this complex recipe. The reference to the stuffing used in a previous rabbit recipe must come from the collection s source, whatever that may have been. There is no immediately preceding rabbit recipe in the four other collections containing cockatrice recipes identified in the Concordance. Anyone who really wants to make this can use whatever medieval stuffing recipe (farsure) he or she can find and a suitable uncoloured sauce, to be coloured in the hues suggested. The Forme of Cury has an all-purpose farsure (said to be for pomme dorre, meatballs) and a white sauce for chicken calling for ground almonds mixed with verjuice (for which white wine could be substituted) and ground ginger. An approximation of silver and gold foil can be found in the wrappings of chocolate bars. But anyone so inclined should also take note that two of the other four recipes for this subtlety say to remove the cock s legs, which would seem to be necessary for the monster to look at all convincing. And, since you may not easily find an old cock for cooking at your supermarket or neighbourhood butcher, note that some call for capon instead. 28

27 [4 r ] 2. Chawdroun [Chaudon] for Swan. Sle a swan. Scalde hym, draw hym; mak clene þe mawe, galle þe lyvere, pyk of þe suwet of þe guttes & ritte hem, skour hem with salt & water. Tak þe feete & þe wyngges; cast al into a pot & seyth al togeder tendir. Tak þan & hewe þe gutts & þe mawe & þe livere. Pyk out þe smale bones of þe feet. Mynce oynʒons & cast þerto. Draw blood & bred soket þorw a streynour. Cast þat þou hast hewyn into a posnet with þe same broth it was soden in. Cast pouder of peper þerto & of canel; boyle it. Stere it. Cast þerto þe livere till it be somdel chargeant; ʒif it salt. Seþ it & set it fro þe fyr, þan scharpe it with [4 v ] vyneger. an set a foot in a dysche, or a wynge; cast above þe chaudron & ʒive it forth. Slay a swan. Scald it, draw it; make the stomach clean, remove the gall from the liver, pick off the suet from the guts and slit them, scour them with salt and water. Take the feet and the wings; cast all into a pot and boil all together until tender. Then take and chop the guts and the stomach and the liver. Pick out the small bones of the feet. Mince onions and add to this. Draw blood and soaked bread through a strainer. Throw all that you have chopped into a pot with the same broth it was boiled in. Add to it ground pepper and cinnamon; boil it. Stir it. Add the liver to it until it is somewhat thickened; give it salt. Boil it and set it away from the fire, then sharpen it with vinegar. Then set a foot or a wing in a dish; pour the chauden over and give it forth. Commentary : This amounts to a sort of giblet gravy for a roast swan, only with various oddments of the bird included which we would be likely to discard today. Since swans are not legal game in most parts of the Englishspeaking world nowadays, it does not seem necessary to give this recipe further attention. 29

28 3. Lette Lardes [Lete lards]. COCATRICE AND LAMPRAY HAY Brake eyren in a wessel. Mak grenyng of malwes, percele, and wortes; temper it up with mylk & draw it þorw a streynour. Tak þe ʒelk and kepe, þan bete þe qwyht and draw hem þorw a streynor. Tak lard of pork soden betwyxe þe flesch & þe skyn; mynce it smal. Tak melk and caste it in a pot; cast a quarter of þis lard þerto. Caste þerto also þis grene; cast also a quarter of þe qwyhtes & salt [5 r ] and hony. Tak mylk & put it in anoþer pot, as mikyl milk and as many qwyhtes & as mikyl lard, & saffron & salt & hony. Pot into another as many qwyhtes & as mikil mylk & as mikil lard; colour it with sawndris. Cast salt & hony þerto. Set þese pottes to þe feer & stere hem wele, & as long as þey stonde on þe feer. Qwan þei seþ & begynne to gadere, cast in eche on a cuppe ful ale & set awey fro þe feer; þan cast al þis into a panne & ster it al togedre. Cast al þis into a canwas. Lap þe cloþ togedre & ley it on a bord & ley a bord above, & ley a ston [5 v ] above to wrynge out þe qwhey. an cut it on lengþe in leches, and cowche þese leches in a vessel. Cowche betwixe þe leches poudir of gynger & suger. Break eggs into a container. Make green colouring of mallows, parsley, and [other] herbs; mix it with milk and draw it through a strainer. Take the yolks and put aside, then beat the whites and draw them through a strainer. Take lard of boiled pork from between the meat and the skin; mince it small. 4 Take milk and put it in a pot; add a quarter of the lard to it, and also add the green colouring and a quarter of the whites and salt and honey. Take milk and put it in another pot with as much milk and as many whites and as much lard, and saffron and salt and honey. Put into another as many whites and as much milk and as much lard; colour it with sanders and add salt and honey. 4. When the fifteenth-century recipe says to mince or, more often, hew something small, it is tempting to translate this as fine or finely, in keeping with modern culinary usage; but this may be misleading, since the modern usage contrasts fine with coarse or coarsely, and in medieval usage there is only small. So it seemed best to retain small. 30

29 Set these pots on the fire and stir them well, and as long as they stand on the fire. When they boil and begin to thicken, pour into each one a cupful of ale and set away from the fire. Then put all this into a pan and stir it all together. Pour all this onto a canvas; lap the cloth together and lay it on a board, and lay a board above, and lay a stone on top to wring out the whey. Then cut it lengthwise into slices, and arrange these slices in a container. Set between the slices ground pepper and sugar. Commentary : No other recipe for Lete Lardes in various colours suggests separating the eggs, although one would think that the Forme of Cury s alternative of white would require leaving out the yolks, and this recipe does not suggest what we are supposed to do with those yolks. Adding them to the saffron-yellow quarter might be a possibility, but may seem an over-enrichment of a small portion of the dish. Then there s the question of what to do with the fourth quarter : perhaps that s to be white, but the other recipes for a three-colour effect say to divide the ingredients into three parts, not three quarters. And the only one which suggests a white portion is the Forme of Cury recipe, which gives directions for a possible six colours. A further problem is why the colours, after being kept carefully apart in the cooking, are to be stirred together. The only other recipe which suggests anything of the sort is one in BL MS Harley 279, 5 which says to stir the colours together with your hand to create a motley effect. Most recipes advocating a tricolour effect (or whatever number) say to pile the colours on a cloth, one over another, before pressing. One would think that the only colours which would show up at all well by this method would be those on the top and the bottom as in that same recipe in Harl. 279, which, when first describing a two-colour version, says the top would be one colour and the bottom another. Anyone who wishes to try this recipe in three colours which doesn t improve the taste may find it preferable to press and slice each colour separately. For quantities, I suggest 4 eggs (double that if you are not going to use the yolks) to about 2 cups (16 fl oz, scant ½ litre) milk, and about 4 slices of blanched bacon for the lard. Ale can be omitted: the point of 5. Austin, LV viii, pp

30 adding ale to the thickened mixture is to aid its curdling, but few, if any, other recipes for this dish call for it. If you keep on stirring it until it is quite thick enough it will no doubt curdle anyway, rather like scrambled eggs; but if you want to make sure add just a little ale or beer. 4. Chyknes Farsed [Chekyn farsede]. Scalde chykenes & draw hem. Blowe þe chyknes undernethe þe nethyr byle. Tak pork soden; hak it & grende it & ʒelkes of harde eyryn & some grated bred & saffron & powder of peper & powder of canel. Hakke percele & tyme & rosmare on a bord & caste þat in þe morter, & reysynges of coraunce & hony & salt, & menge þese to geder with þin hondes, not with þe pestel. [6 r ] Crop þi chykene & draw it, & smyt of þe hed bot not þe feet. an put þi fynger betwyxe þe skyn & þe flesch & remeve up þe skynne; þan put hem on a broche. an mak pelates of þis stuff & put in þes pelates with þi fynger, & qwan it is within spalt it on brede in þe brest and to þies. Tak saffron, & with a few federis colour þe brestes & þe þies of þe chyknes, and in þe rostyng with qwyht grees lard hem, and hold þe bakke most aʒhen fer in þe rosting, and ʒf forth. Scald chickens and draw them. Blow the chickens underneath the back bill. Take boiled pork; chop it & grind it with yolks of hard-boiled eggs and some grated bread & saffron & ground pepper and cinnamon. Chop parsley and thyme and rosemary on a board, and cast that in the mortar, along with currants and honey and salt, and blend these together with your hand, and not with the pestle. Trim [each of] your chickens and draw it and cut off the head, but not the feet. Then put your finger between the skin and the meat and loosen up the skin; then put them on a spit. Then make pellets of your stuffing and put in these pellets with your finger, and when it is within spread it across the breast all the way to the thighs. Take saffron, and with a few feathers colour the breasts and the thighs of the chickens, and in roasting them lard them with white grease, and keep the back most against the fire while roasting; and give forth. 32

31 Commentary : Here, finally, is a dish which is likely to appeal to many cooks although it is a more delicate operation than making a modern stuffed chicken since the stuffing goes under the skin instead of in the cavity of the bird. What to do to get it there may not be entirely clear from this recipe, which is clearly a little confused. In this respect, it is in good company: some other fifteenth-century recipes for stuffed chicken are just as confused. One tells us to loosen the skin, but then puts stuffing in the cavity rather than under the skin, making the effort of loosening the skin pointless. Here we are told to draw the chickens twice, and in each case a different method of loosening the skin is suggested: first, blowing it, and second, simply using your fingers. It isn t the only recipe which makes this apparently redundant demand. But it is the only one which says to blow under the back bill, which is a puzzling direction; another similar recipe says to cut a slit in the back and blow there, but that is almost as puzzling since it is the skin of the breast, not the back, which is to be stuffed. Cooks who want to try this should start with a roasting chicken with the neck cut off, and either blow the skin up from the meat with an inserted straw or carefully pry it up with your fingers you re going to have to use your fingers at various points anyway even if you use a straw, but the straw may make it easier to pry up the skin without breaking it. Make your stuffing with the suggested herbs and other ingredients in sufficient quantities to suit the size of your chicken; for boiled pork, use a small piece of salt pork boiled. When you have inserted a suitable amount of stuffing under the skin, try to smooth it out with your hand (on the outside) so that there is a thin, even layer of it all over the breast. To colour the breast and legs with saffron, you will find it easiest to dissolve the saffron in a little boiling water before brushing it on. If there is any stuffing left, put it inside the chicken before you truss it for roasting. Many of the stuffings which were intended to go into the cavity of the chicken were very similar to this, which may be why the recipe which loosens the skin but then stuffs only the cavity was confused. 33

32 5. Macrel Farsed [Makerell farce].[6 v ] Draw a makerel at the gyle, þan ley þe makerel on a borde on a napron. Bete it lustily with þe ege of þin hond fro þe gyle to þe tayl by & by, þanne with a rounde rolle begynne at þe tayl & rolle upward on þe fysch at þe gyle & at þe sydes. Breke þe bon at þe tayl a lityl fro þe couche, but breke 6 not þe sckynne. Breke also þe bon at þe nape & at þe gyle. Draw out softly þe bone; þe fysch þat hanges, stryk unto þe tother fysch. Tak sawmon of þe þickest of þe fysch & an ele. Seþ þe sawmon & þe ele tender. Cast to þe fysch of þe makerel hote playinge water; tak it up of þe water. Stripe þe ele & [7 r ] ley þe sawmon & al þe toþer fysch withouten bones in a morter & grynd it togeder with a lytyl gratyd bred. Cast to powdir of gynger, canel & saffron & salt, menged al togeder, & with þis stuffor stuffe þis macrel with a lytyl stik. an ley it on a gredirin on a reed or two & rost it and turne it ofte, and ʒeve forth. And if þou wylt make a gely þerto, mak it of þis wyse. Tak sondis of stokfesch & ley hem in water. On þe morwe cut of þe bones & seþ hem tender in water. Cast hem hot in a morter, & cast þerto a tenches skynne [7 v ] and grende al togeder. In þe gryndyng, cast þerto hot almounde mylk, þan draw it þoru 7 a straynour. Put it in a posnet; mak it hote, þan cast of þis mylk into a plateere. Ley þi macrel þerin. Colour first þi mylk with saundrys & saffroun. Cast þan above drage of blaunchid almandys & clows, & ʒeve forþ þer. Draw a mackerel at the gill, then lay the mackerel on a board on an apron. 8 Beat it lustily with the edge of your hand, from the gill to the tail continuously. Then with a round roll begin at the tail and roll upward on the fish at the gill and at the sides. Break the bone at the tail a little from the base, but do not break the skin. Also break the bone at the nape and at the gill, and draw the bone out softly at the gill. The fish that hangs [on the bone?] strike off with the other fish. 6. MS beeke. 7. MS þorr. 8. Most medieval aprons were large squares of cloth, without bibs. Thus an apron would have been a handy cloth, larger than a napkin or a towel, to cover a kitchen surface. 34

33 Take salmon from the thickest part of the fish and an eel. Boil the salmon and the eel tender. Add to the fish of [for?] the mackerel hot boiling water; take it up from the water. Strip the eel and lay the salmon and all the other fish without bones in a mortar and grind it together with a little grated bread. Add to this ground ginger, cinnamon & saffron and salt, mixed together, and with this stuffing stuff the mackerel with a little stick. Then lay it on a gridiron on a reed or two and roast it, and turn it often, and give forth. And if you wish to make a jelly for it, make it in this manner. Take the sounds [swimming bladders] of stockfish [dried cod] and put them in water. In the morning cut off the bones and boil them in water until tender. Put them hot in a mortar and add the skin of a tench, and grind all this together. While grinding, add hot almond milk, then draw it through a strainer. Put it in a pan and make it hot, then pour this milk into a platter. Lay your mackerel in this. First colour your milk with sanders and saffron. Put on top a garnish of blanched almonds and cloves, and give forth there. Commentary : Here is a very unusual recipe; there is no other Middle English recipe for a stuffed fish except for two stuffed reversed eels in Bodliean MS Ashmole 1393, 9 neither of which resembles this dish. This is fairly simple to do, and can make an attractive dish, if we skip over some of the difficulties in the original and somewhat simplify the directions. The difficulties are, to be sure, many. What does it mean to strike off the fish which hangs and add it to the other fish? Maybe it means to collect any fish which clings to the removed bone, but it seems doubtful that there would be much of that. What is meant by adding boiling water to the fish of the mackerel? Possibly, this refers to the fish which is to go into the stuffing for the mackerel, but that is far from clear, although it seems obvious that such soaking would make it easier to strip the eel, as we are next directed. Then we are told to put all the other fish without bones in a mortar: this must mean that we would first have to remove the bones from the eel, and any that remain in the salmon; the boned fish must all be other and 9. Printed in A Gathering of Medieval English Recipes; see introduction above, note 5. 35

34 not the boned mackerel, since we have been cautioned not to break the skin of the mackerel when boning it and that must be the fish prepared for stuffing. Then the directions for making a jelly tell us to discard the bones: what bones? The stockfish swim bladders would not have any bones. All these difficulties can be ignored by anyone wishing to cook this dish. The only tricky part is boning the mackerel in the first place, although perhaps you could find a fishmonger who is willing to perform this chore. If you have to do it yourself, you had better cut off the head it will be easier that way rather than pulling the bone out of the gill, and modern diners usually don t care much for seeing the head on the cooked fish anyway. A small salmon steak, skinned and ground, ought to be enough to fill two mackerels, which are not large fish usually weighing a pound or less; you will need at least that many to serve four or more people. If you want to also use a bit of a second type of fish, fine, but eel is not usually that easy to come by (or handle) nowadays. Use just enough bread crumbs to thicken the stuffing: you do not want one of those mostly-bread crumb stuffings commonly produced by kitchens which put economy first. Season very lightly with ginger, cinnamon and salt: saffron can be skipped here, since you certainly do not want the salmon to turn orange. The stuffed fish is to be roasted on a grill, but you could roast it in a clay baker (chicken brick) if you prefer. It is probably best served hot, but if you want to jell it, you needn t bother with the fish ingredients of the almond milk base: their sole function was to jell the liquid. Just make some milk of finely ground almonds blended with hot fish stock; see the introduction on the method and ratio of ingredients. Stir in an appropriate quantity of gelatine powder, dissolved in boiling water according to the package directions. Colour the jelly and garnish the finished dish as you wish. 6. Caudel Ferre [Cawdell ferre]. Brek rawe eyryn into a vessel. Gadir þe ʒelkes fro þe qwhytes into a strynour; draw hem into a bolle. Put wyn into a pot or goode olde ale, & sugur or clarifyid hony, and boyle it with þe [8 r ] wyn or 36

35 with þe ale. Swynge þe ʒelkes togeder & in þe betyng cast to þe wyn boyled, þan cast it into a pot. Cast in saffroun & salt; set it on a feer not blasing be þe sydis. Stere it wel continually qwhan it begynnyt to seþ, & gader on a potstyk. 10 Tak away & sterre it weel. Leche it in dyschis; cast above sugur & gynger & geve forþ. xl eyrin & a potel ale or wyn is inow for eytene 11 dyschis. Break raw eggs into a container. Gather the yolks, separated from the whites, into a strainer; strain them into a bowl. Put wine or good wellaged ale into a pot with sugar or clarified honey and boil this with the wine or ale. Beat the yolks together, and while beating add the boiled wine, then put it in a pot. Add saffron and salt; set it on a low fire. Stir it well continually when it begins to boil, and gather it with a pot stick. Take it away and stir it well. Slice it into dishes; sprinkle sugar and ginger over it and give forth. Forty eggs and two quarts of ale or wine is enough for eighteen [? see note to original recipe] dishes. Commentary : Caudle Ferry was a very widespread recipe with a bewildering number of variations, so that any two examples chosen at random might seem to be entirely different dishes. Basically, at least in its origins, it seems to have been a mulled wine thickened with egg yolks, a (probably less sweet) ancestor of the modern zabaglione. Few, if any, of the corresponding recipes tell us to slice the final result, and there is no reason you couldn t simply spoon it out. Suggested quantities: for 5 or 6 egg yolks, ¾ cup (6 fl oz, 225 ml) sugar boiled in ⅔ cup (ca. 5 fl oz, 220 ml) wine, seasoned with a pinch each of saffron and salt. A little ground ginger and sugar, mixed, to sprinkle on top. 10. MS postyk. 11. MS vineytene, with the first three letters underdotted; but above the line is the Roman numeral viii. When the number of servings is specified elsewhere in this collection, it is invariably either 8 or 20; but the number of eggs called for here, 40, is more likely to be found in a dish intended to yield 20 servings, not 8. It is possible that the confused number here was originally a French vingt, 20, so it seemed best to leave in the 18 which the spelling seems (dubiously) to indicate. 37

36 27. Soppis Dorre [Soppes dorre]. COCATRICE AND LAMPRAY HAY Tak for viij dyschys a pounde of almaundes; blaunche hem, grende hem, drawe hem up with water boyled on the fyr with sugur 39 & salt. 40 Kerve a lof or more after þe nedes in þin scheves, þan boyle þin melk on þe fyr. an take a panne with wyn or ale & set on þe fyr & boyle it, 41 a lytil sugur þerwith. an tak þin breed & cast in þe panne, but be-[21 r ]war þat it brek not. anne tak platers in þe qwyche þu schalt serve it yn and wete hem withynne al abowte with almaunde melke; þan cowche þin breed in þe same platers & put melke above. Take for eight dishes a pound of almonds, blanch them, grind them, blend them with water boiled on the fire with sugar and salt. Carve a loaf or more, according to your needs, in thin slices, then boil your milk on the fire. Then take a pan with wine or ale and set it on the fire and boil it, and with it a little sugar. Then take your bread and put it in the pan, but be careful that it does not break. Then take platters in which you shall serve it and moisten them all around with almond milk; then place your bread in the same platters and put milk on top. Commentary : Like most recipes for this simple dish, this omits saffron and has no ingredient to make it golden ; neither does there seem any reason why it should be considered royal, but the name seems to imply one or the other. To make almond milk: see directions in the introduction. 28. Blawmmager [Blankemanger]. Blawnche almaundes fayr & qwhyte; tak somme of hem & kutte hem of lengþe, & fryʒe hem in oyle for the tyme of Lentyn. an mak melk of þe remelaund of þe almandes with water boyled with sugur & salt, fyrst goode mylk, aftirward þinne melk. an tak 39. a lytyl crossed out. 40. & set þe melk on þe fyr tak dates crossed out. 41. MS adds, in. 63

37 ryse, half a pound to a pownd of almaundes; [21 v ] pyk hem clene & wasche hem in lewk water, þan cast hem in a pot with water so þat þe water passe þe ryse be an enche above. Boyle hem. Qwhan þei boyle, tak hem of þe fyr; þane tak þe secunde mylk, put (it) in the pot with the rice & boyle hem togyder. an tak þornbak or codlyng, salt or fresche; put it in a cloþ & breyse it or rubbe it a lytil betwen þin hande, and qwan þin pot seþ put in þin fysch & þe beter mylk, & boyle it togyder so þat it be standyng. anne dresse it in dysches; put þerinne þe fryde almounnes & clowes & qwhyte sugur, & serve forþ. j. li. of almau-[22 r ]ndes & di. li. of ryse is jnowʒ for viij dysches. Blanch almonds fair and white; take some of them and cut them lengthwise, and fry them in oil for the time of Lent. Then make milk of the remaining almonds with water boiled with sugar and salt: first good milk, afterwards thin milk. Then take rice, half a pound to a pound of almonds; pick it clean and wash it in lukewarm water, then put it in a pot with water so that the rice is covered with an inch of water. Boil it. When it boils, take it off the fire; then take the second milk and put it in the pot with the rice and boil these together. Then take thornback [a European ray] or [young?] cod, salt or fresh; put it in cloth and bruise it, or rub it a little between your hands, and when your pot boils put in your fish and the better milk, and boil it together so that it becomes very thick. Then arrange it in dishes; put on it the fried almonds and cloves and white sugar, and serve forth. One pound of almonds and a half-pound of rice is enough for eight servings. Commentary : Another standard recipe in exceptionally well-detailed form and with standard measurements except that we are not told how much water to use in making milk of a pound of almonds, nor how much fish to use for this quantity of almonds and rice. For quantities for the almond milk, see the introduction. And you will need about a pound of fish: codling is a word used rather loosely in this period, but any cod, or other bland white fish, will do. What is known in New England as scrod is fine for this dish; if you use salt cod, be sure to soak it thoroughly first. 64

38 29. Tenches or Sooles or Plays in Cyve [... cyvee]. Tak almaundes; wasche hem wel in lewk water. Grynde hem, draw hem up with water boyled with sugur & salt, & make goode þicke melke & also more þenner. anne tak tenche & splat it, & perbule it in scharp sawse. anne roste it on a grydile. If tench fayle, tak sole or playce & ley on þe credile, & drye it; & also þu mayst rost þe tenche withowtyn perbulyng. anne tak mynced oinʒons. an-[22 v ]ne boyle melk; cast in powder of peper & maces & powder of canel & saffroun & sawndris. Boyle al þis togyder. anne tak tenche or þin oþer fysch, hole or cutte, & ley in a vessel. Cast þis surrup above. j. li. of almaundes suffisit for viij. disch. Take almonds; wash them well in lukewarm water. Grind them, blend them with water boiled with sugar and salt, and make good thick milk, and also more thinner [milk]. Then take a tench and cut it so it lies flat, and parboil it in sharp sauce. Then roast it on a griddle. If there is no tench, take sole or plaice and lay on the griddle, and dry it; and you may also roast tench without parboiling. Then take minced onions. Then boil milk; put in ground pepper and maces, and ground cinnamon and saffron and sanders. Boil all this together. Then take tench or your other fish, whole or cut up, and lay in a container. Pour this sauce on top. One pound of almonds suffices for eight dishes. Commentary : This is a somewhat more carelessly written recipe than those which immediately precede it. A sharp sauce for parboiling fish is the first point which may confuse some, but it no doubt means water or wine (or a mixture) with some vinegar to sharpen it. Then there are the onions, which we are not immediately told what to do with; but they must be included in the later sentence, Boil all this together. Boil milk must mean almond milk, since the first thing we were told to do was to make almond milk. But at no point are we told where to use thinner almond milk and where the thicker. There is only one obvious place for almond milk in the recipe, not a two-step procedure that might call for boiling down 65

39 the thinner second milk. I thus advise cooks to ignore the directions for making two milks here; one will be enough. 30. Morterews of Fysch [Mortrew of fysh]. Tak almaundes blaunnched; mak melk þerof with boyled water with sugur & salt. Tak codlyng, þornbak, or haddock, & seþ it with water & salt. Qwhan it is sodden, pyk it clene fro þe bonis & fro [23 r ] þe skyn, þan grynde it smal. Temper it up with þe melk & cast it in a pot. an grate wastel bread & cast þerto so þat it be standyng, & stere it weel togyder. Colour it with saffroun. Leche it in dyschis. Make a drage of powder of gynger & canel & cast above. & if þer be lyvere, grynde it with 42 þis fysch. Take blanched almonds; make milk of them with water boiled with sugar and salt. Take codling, thornback, or haddock, and boil it with water and salt. When it is boiled, pick it clean from the bones and the skin, then grind it small. Mix it with the [almond] milk and put it in a pot. Then grate wastel bread and add that to it so that it will be very thick, and stir it together well. Colour it with saffron. Slice it into dishes. Make a garnish of ground ginger and cinnamon, and put on top. And if there is liver, grind it with the fish. Commentary : This can be easily made with a pound of poached fish ground in a food processor or blender with almond milk (see introduction), made with the hot fish broth, and a thickener of one or two slices of bread. In a blender, you probably cannot make it thick enough to slice, but that is difficult in any case. 31. Eles in Sorry [Elys in Sorrey]. Flee elys; gut hem & cut hem in culperons. Mynce oinʒouns; cast into a pot. Tak crustes of bread; tak also a few fygges & grynde 42. MS whyt. 66

40 þe bred & hem in a morter togider. Temper it up [23 v ] with wyn & drawe it þoruʒw a strynour. Boyle þe elys with a lityl water, þanne cast þe surryp þerto, powder of peper & of canel. Colour it with sawndes & saffroun, & cast þerto salt; & if it waxe þicke, cast þerto wyn. Flay eels; gut them and cut into pieces. Mince onions; put in a pot. Take crusts of bread; take also a few figs, and grind them together with the bread in a mortar. Mix it with wine, and put it through a strainer. Boil the eels with a little water, then cast the sauce on them, [with] ground pepper and cinnamon. Colour it with sanders and saffron, and add salt; and if it gets [too] thick add wine to it. Commentary : The name of this dish may come from the French soré, made red : while this is not absolutely certain, probably the wine in the recipe ought to be red wine. But, since fresh (live) eels are not marketed everywhere now, and not all cooks know how to handle them, this is not likely to be a popular recipe today. 32. Rappe [Rape]. Tak fygges & grete raysynges; pyk hem clene. Seþ hem with wyn or ale tender, þanne grynde hem smal. Temper hem up with þe same lycour þei wer sodyn in, & with more wyn or ale if it nede. Drawe al þis a streynour; put it into a pot. Tak þanne alma-[24 r ] wndes blawched; cut hem on lengþe; cast þerto. Tak powder of peper & of maces, saundris & saffroun; cast þerto. Swete it with a lytil hony & salt. A pound of frwhawt, half a quartroun of cut almondres, suffiseth for viij disschis. Take figs and large raisins; pick them clean. Boil them tender with wine or ale, then grind them small. Mix them with the same liquor they were boiled in and with more wine or ale if need be. Put all this [through] a strainer; put it in a pot. Then take blanched almonds; cut them lengthwise 67

41 [and] add them. Take ground pepper and maces, sanders and saffron, [and] add them. Sweeten it with a little honey and [add] salt. A pound of fruit, half a quarter pound of cut almonds, suffices for eight dishes. Commentary : This is one of a varied group of recipes with little in common except the name, but which usually contained dried fruits. This particular version is a simple confection of dried fruits cooked in wine, puréed, sweetened, with some slivered almonds adding texture. 33. Muskelys in Browet [Muskeles in bruþ]. Pyk muscles; wasche hem. Seþ hem with water & salt, þanne pyk hem out of þe schell & ley hem in a vessel. Wasche hem out of þat vessel for gravel or sond þat is in hem. Clene þe licour þat þei werre sodyn in [24 v ] þoruʒ a strynour. Mynce oinʒouns. Tak crustes of bred & a fewe fygges and grynde in a morter; temper it up with þe same broþʒ þat þei wer sodyn in, & draw hem þoruʒ a streynour. Put it into a pot. Cast þerto þe oinʒouns & þe fysch, powder of peper, canel & saffroun & salt; & if it be to chargeant, temper it up with wyn or goode ale. Boyle it & ʒef forþʒ. Pick mussels; wash them. Boil them with water and salt, then pick them out of the shell & lay them in a container. Wash any gravel or sand that is in them from that container. Clean the liquor that they were boiled in through a strainer. Mince onions. Take crusts of bread and a few figs and grind them in a mortar; mix this with the same broth that [the mussels] were boiled in, and put it through a strainer. Put it in a pot. Add to it the onions and the fish, ground pepper [and] cinnamon, saffron and salt; and if it is too thick, mix in wine or good ale. Boil it and give forth. Commentary : This is unusual only in that it is a little more detailed than most parallel recipes, and adds figs to the bread used for thickening the sauce. 68

42 64. Browet Sarsenesse [Brewet sarysene]. Tak pork of þe bipece; pyk out þe bonys & þe swarde 76 al raw. Hak it smal & grynde it in a morter with eyryn. Tak sawge, tyme, & perceel & hew hem smal, & cast to ʒe pork. Cast þerto reysinges of coraunce. Cast in powder of peper & canel & saffroun [48 r ] & salt & a lityl hony. Grynde almaundes; drawe hem vp wyþ boylid water with sugar & salt. Mynce oinʒouns. Set a panne on þe fyr with swete broþ of a leg of beef. Mynge þat in þe morter wel togidere with þin hond; gader out of þe morter into a vessel, & make þerof pelotes sumdel more þan chiryis, & cast into þe broth, & bole hem harde. an gader hem into a vessel with a skomour. Cast þis melk into a pot; cast þese oinʒouns to þe melk, & loke þe be jnowʒ. Cast þerin clows & maces & powder of peper & hony & salt; þan cast all þese pelotes into þe pot. Boyle it, stere it, & ʒef forþʒ, & sprenk-[48 v ]le it with alkenet: melte hym with grece. j libra of almaundes & iij ob. of pork is jnow for viii dysch. Take pork from a secondary cut; pick out the bones and the skin while it is raw. Chop it small and grind it in a mortar with eggs. Take sage, thyme, and parsley and cut them up small, and add them to the pork. Add to this currants. Add ground pepper and cinnamon and saffron and salt and a little honey. Grind almonds; draw them up with boiled water with sugar and salt. Mince onions. Set a pan on the fire with fresh broth of a leg of beef. Mix what is in the mortar together well with your hand; gather it out of the mortar into a container and make of it pellets somewhat larger than cherries, and add to the broth, and boil them until they are hard. Then gather them with a skimmer into a container. Put the milk in a pot; add the onions to the milk, and be sure there are enough. Add cloves and maces and ground pepper and honey and salt; then cast all the pellets into the pot. Boil it, stir it, and give forth, and sprinkle it with alkenet: melt it with grease. 76. MS sworde. 106

43 One pound of almonds and three-halfpenny worth of pork is enough for eight dishes. Commentary : These meatballs seasoned with herbs in a lightly spiced sauce of almond milk and onions should be pleasing to diners today: one egg to each pound of ground pork should be a good ratio for the meatballs, but tastes may vary as to how many minced onions are enough in the sauce. It is not clear why these meatballs are called Saracen, but dishes given that name in English recipe collection were sometimes coloured red, as this one is by the addition of alkenet to the sauce. Of course, no true Saracen would have dreamed of eating pork. 65. Cunninges in [Conyngs yn] Grave. Fle cunnynges; mak almaunde melk of blaunchid almoundes. Perbule he[m]; choppe hem on a borde, a cunnyng in viii or x. Cast it into a pot & þe mylk þerto. Cast þerto mynced oinʒouns smalle. Cast þerto maces & powder of peper. Boyle it togidere; ʒeve it esy fyr. Cast to salt & hony & grese, a lytil, or elles if þou seþ fresch flesch, cast þerto fatte þerof. Cast þerto alknet with a fewe fedris, moltyn with a lytil grese. & ʒef it be chargeaunt, alay it with wyn; 77 [49 r ] þis is a rennyng potage. A conyg with j liber of almaundes is jnowe for viii dysch. Flay rabbits; make almond milk of blanched almonds. Parboil them; chop them on a board, each rabbit into eight or ten parts. Put it in a pot and the milk with it. Add to this onions minced small. Add to it maces and ground pepper. Boil it together over a low fire. Add to it salt and honey and grease, a little, or else if you boil fresh meat, add to it the fat from that. Add to it alkenet [applied] with a few feathers [and] melted in a little grease. If it is thick, dilute it with wine; this is a thin pottage. A rabbit with one pound of almonds is enough for eight dishes. 77. wyn repeated as first word of new page. 107

44 Commentary : This is a typical recipe for Rabbit in Gravy in that it is a fairly simple recipe for rabbit boiled in a lightly seasoned almond milk sauce. Not all others contain onions, and some call for a little more spicing. However, it is distinguished mainly by the alkenet colouring and the specification that it should not thicken. 66. Hennys in [Hennes yn] Cyve. Scalde hennys; drawe hem, choppe hem rawe, an henne in iiii or vii; 78 cast hem in a pot. If þou have swete broþ of oþer flesch, cast þerto of þe leene, or elles cast þerto a legge of swete beef. Cast to oinʒouns myncyd & herbes, & also peper & clowys, maces & sawndris. Grynde þan togyder crustes of bred with a fewe fygges; temper hem up with wyn. Boyle þe hennys weel & tender; cast þerto þan þis lycour. If it be to chargeant alay it with wyn. Drese it in dyscchys; cast above powder of gynger & canel, and ʒeve forþʒ. Scald hens; draw them, chop them raw, [each] hen into four or seven 79 [pieces]; put them in a pot. If you have fresh broth of other meat, add some of the lean, 80 or else add to it a leg of fresh beef. Add minced onions and herbs, and also pepper and cloves, maces and sanders. Then grind together crusts of bread with a few figs; mix them with wine. Boil the hens well until tender; then add this liquid to them. If it is too thick, dilute it with wine. Arrange it in dishes; sprinkle with ground ginger and cinnamon, and give forth. Commentary : A civy means onion sauce : but since many of the preceding dishes, not so labelled, called for minced onions just as this one does, it is difficult to see any difference here. Perhaps we can consider the title as an instruction to use more onions in this dish. 78. This may be an error for viij : the odd number is unlikely ? See previous note. 80. I.e., skim off the fat. 108

45 [49 v ] 67. Bore in Pevered [Bore in peverade]. Tak a bore qwhen he is schalded & chyne hym. Tak a quarter of hym, or as mykyl as þu nedes; cut it in grete peces. Seþ it tender on þe fyr, þan cut it on lengþe, a ryb in a mustel, þan ley hem in a panne. Cast mynced oinouns jnowe, hole clows & maces, & powder of peper cast þerto. an cast þerto swete broþ or elles a legge of beef or more, if þu nede. an seþ fygges in water; grende hem, drawe hem with þe same broþ þei were sodyn in. Seþ þis brawne; qwhan it is soden jnowe, cast to þe surrip & salt & sawndris & saffroun, & ʒif forþʒ. Take a boar when it has been scalded and split 81 it. Take a quarter of it, or as much as you need; cut it in large pieces. Boil it on the fire until tender, then cut it in lengths, a rib surrounded by muscle, then put them in a pan. Add enough minced onions, whole cloves and maces, and add ground pepper to it. Then add to it fresh broth or else a leg of beef or more, if necessary. Then boil figs in water; grind them, mix them with the same broth they were boiled in. Boil this meat; when it is boiled enough, add to it the syrup and salt and sanders and saffron, and give forth. Commentary : A peverade means a pepper sauce, so although there is nothing in the recipe itself to suggest that an unusual amount of pepper is called for, the title probably indicates just that just as the title of the previous recipe seems to indicate an unusually large amount of onions. An aspect of this recipe worth noting is that the thickener is figs alone, not figs and bread, as has usually been the case in previous recipes. 68. Bukenade. Mak good almonde melke with blawnchyd almaundes temperid with water boylyd and sugar, or elles with swete broþ [50 r ] of swete flesch. Tak vele of þe forqwarter; choppe it, perbule it, þan 81. The noun chine means backbone, so the verb may mean to cut along the back. 109

46 cast it into cold water. Pyk it out into a pot; cast þerto þe melk. Cast þerto mynced oinʒouns, also powder of peper & canel & a fewe stunnyd maces. an tak lard of pork; qwhan þe skyn is aweye, hak it smal & cast þerto. Cast þerto hony & salt & saundris & saffroun. Dresse it in dyschys; cast above powder of gynger & sugar. j brest of veel or an hed ryb with a pounde of almondis is jnowʒ for viii dysches. Make good almond milk with blanched almonds mixed with boiled water and sugar, or else with fresh broth of fresh meat. Take veal of the forequarter; chop it, parboil it, then put it in cold water. Pick it out into a pot; add to it the milk. Add to this minced onions, also ground pepper and cinnamon and a few crushed maces. Then take pork lard; when it has been skinned, chop it small and add it. Add to this honey and salt and sanders and saffron. Arrange it in dishes; sprinkle ground ginger and sugar over it. One breast of veal or a top section of ribs 82 with a pound of almonds is enough for eight dishes. Commentary : Bukkenade was usually stewed veal in an egg-thickened sauce; perhaps the enrichment of lard here is a substitute for eggs. The seasonings of the dish otherwise are the more-or-less standard ones for this collection. 69. Fyletis in Galentyn [Fyletes yn galentyne]. Tak a loyne of pork or more as þu nedis; kut of þe swarde 83 þerof, þan rost it half. Kut it on fayr smale peces. Cast it into a pot & oinʒouns mynced, [50 v ] dates & resynges of coraunce, peper & saundris & a fewe stunnyd maces. Cast þerto swete broþ of fresch flesch & a good quantite of good ale or wyn. Boyle al þis on þe fyr; stere it amonge. Suete it with hony. Qwhan þi flesch is tender, cast 82.? I am not sure what is meant by a head rib. 83. MS sworde. 110

47 þerto a quantite of galentyn & ʒeve it a boyle, & set it awey fro þe fyr. Dresse it in dysch; cast above powder of canel & gynger. iij d. of pork, a pynt of ale or wyn, half a pynt of galentyn is jnow for viii dysch. Take a loin of pork, or more according to your needs; cut off the skin of it, then roast it until half done. Cut it in fine small pieces. Put it in a pot with minced onions, dates and currants, pepper and sanders and a few crushed maces. Add to this fresh broth of fresh meat and a good quantity of good ale or wine. Boil all this on the fire; stir it throughly. Sweeten it with honey. When the meat is tender, add to it a quantity of galentine and give it a boil, and take it off the fire. Arrange it in dishes; sprinkle ground cinnamon and ginger over it. Three pennyworth of pork, a pint of ale or wine, half a pint of galentine is enough for eight dishes. Commentary : A loin of pork is not our idea of a filet, and even if the bones are to be removed, which the recipe does not specify, meat cut into small pieces is a long way from our definition of that word. Galentine is obviously considered to be such a standard sauce that no recipe for it is needed: the cook is apparently expected to have it on hand; we have seen this above in recipe 54, for lampreys. A recipe for the sauce will be found in recipe 42, tenches in egredouce, but some of the ingredients there (onions, parsley, currants) are not standard ones. 70. Garbage of Gyce in Mose [Garbage of goose]. Pyk þe fete & þe garbage of þe geece & seþ hem in water. Pyk out þe lytilbones [51 r ] out of þe feet; lete þe grete bon be stille. an cut þe mawe & þe lyvere smalle on lengþe. Tak herbes & cut hem smale. Brek eyryn, whyte & al, brek hem smalle: draw hem þoruʒ a strynour. Grate wastel bred; cast to þe herbes & to þe egges [with] powder of peper & canel & saffron & salt. If þu have swete broþ, put it into a pot & good ale, a litil, & boyle it. anne cast al þis garbage with þe herbes [&] spyces into þe panne 111

48 boylyng. Stere it a lytil; cast above a lytil ale. an leache it in dysches with a skomour: þis is a stondyng potage. & cast above of þe same þat it is soden in, & þis [is] best of ʒonge geese. Pick the feet and the giblets of the geese and boil them in water. Pick the little bones out of the feet, leaving the large bone in. Then cut the stomach and the liver into short lengths. Take herbs and cut them small. Break eggs, white and all, breaking them up well: draw them through a strainer. Grate wastel bread; add it to the herbs and the eggs with ground pepper and cinnamon and saffron and salt. If you have fresh broth, put it into a pot and a little good ale, and boil it. Then put in all the garbage with the herbs and spices into the boiling pan. Stir it a little; add to it a little ale. Then slice it into dishes with a skimmer: this is a thick pottage. And pour over it some of what it was boiled in, and this is best made of young geese. Commentary : Mose in chicken recipes usually calls for the yolks of hardboiled eggs to be served with the fowl, but this is not the case here: the title is probably a mistaken one. For modern tastes, it might be well to also remove the large bones of the feet (and chop them) and forget about the stomach of the goose. To make this, use enough broth to cover the meat, and add enough bread crumbs to the eggs to thicken the quantity of liquid well; stir in with the seasonings. Sage and parsley are appropriate herbs. See recipe 9, Petitone, above for a slightly different, but similar, treatment of goose garbage which may be a little easier to make. 71. Pygge in Sauge [Pygge in sarped(?)]. Tak a pyg, or moo ʒ(e)f þu nede; scal-[51 v ]de hem, drawe hem clene, a pyg or tuo. anne cut of hem longe peces, as it were roondes of an hog. Perbule hem in water & salt, & kepe it hol. an make harde eyryn; kepe þe ʒelkes be hemself. Gader a goode quantite of sawge, & of percele as myche; wasch hem, drye hem with rubbynge in a cloþ. Grynde þe herbes & þe ʒelkes, & powder of 112

49 peper, canel, saffroun, & hony, smal; drawe al þis up with wyneger, & drawe chargeaunt, & salt it. an cowche þe pyg in dysches; cast þis surrip above. is is a cold potage for sopers. Take a pig, or more if necessary; scald them, draw them clean, a pig or two. Then cut them into long pieces, as if they were slices of a hog. Parboil them in water and salt, and keep it whole. Then make hard-boiled eggs; keep the yolks by themselves. Gather a good quantity of sage, and as much of parsley; wash them, dry them by rubbing in a cloth. Grind the herbs and the yolks small, with ground pepper, cinnamon, saffron, and honey; mix all this with vinegar, and mix it so it is thick, and salt it. Then arrange the pig in dishes; pour this sauce over it. This is a cold pottage for supper. Commentary : This sage sauce was sometimes served with chicken, although more frequently with pork. It is a little confusing of the recipe to tell us to keep it whole when we have already been told to cut up the pig(s), but it presumably means not to cut it up any further: no doubt this was left up to the diners to do with their own knives. 72. Pyg or Pygges Feet or Smale Chykenys in Egredous [Pygge yn egrdowse]. Do with pyg as þu mayst se before in þe nexte potage; [52 r ] seþ hym, & cut chykenes on þe same manere. Qwan þey ar perbuled, tak hem up; tak of þe skyn of þe chyknes. Hewe percele & oinʒouns smal; cast þis to þe pyg or to þe chykenes & reysynges of coraunce & mynce[d] dates. Tak vyneger; cast þerto galentyn. Cast to powder of peper & canel, salt, saffroun, & hony. Cowche þi flesch in dysches; cast þis surrip above & ʒeve forþʒ. In the next pottage do the same thing with pig as described above; boil it, and cut chickens in the same way. When they are parboiled, take them up; take off the skin of the chickens. Chop parsley and onions small; add this to the pig or to the chickens along with currants and minced dates. 113

50 Take vinegar, and add galentine to it. Add to this ground pepper and cinnamon, salt, saffron, and honey. Arrange your meat in dishes; pour this sauce over, and give forth. Commentary : This is probably intended to be another cold supper dish, although that point is not spelled out here. This time the sauce is to be a sweet-and-sour one, so rather more vinegar and honey should be used than usual: enough of each to make a balanced sweet/sour taste; for about 2 cups (ca. 16 fl oz) of sauce you will need about ½ cup (4 fl oz) each of vinegar and honey. Note that again galentine is called for as a staple ingredient; see the commentary on recipe 69, above, 73. Traps in Surrip [Traps in siryp]. Tak fygges; grynde hem drie. Tak þe lene flesche of a bypece of pork, soden. Seþ heyryn harde; cast þe ʒelkes þerto withoutyn licour. Cast þerto powder of peper & canel & sugar [52 v ] rocke & saffron & salt; grynd it al togeder up into a vessel. Make it of pelotes as grete as it were eyryn or grettere, & rolle hem rounde. anne brek qwyht eyryn & alle, & bete hem togyder. Cast þerto flour; mak it þicke as it were batour for fretour. Colour with 84 sugar & salt it. anne tak & fryʒe grece in a panne; wrappe þes pelotes in þe batour. Cast hem into þe gresce & fryʒe hem. Mak past; temper it with flour & a fewe egges. Mak þerof a kake; cut þis kake on poyntes an enche long, as smal as it were reschys, & frye hem harde. Gadere hem up & styke þes poyntes in þe pelotes round a bow-[53 r ]te. Mak good almande mylk; temper it up with wyn & swete broþ of flesch. Cast it in a pot; cast þerto maces stunnede, powder of peper, & hony claryfyed & salt. Boyle þis togider. Dresse þi pelotes in dyschis; cast þis surrip above. Sprenkle it above with alknet. J pound of almaundes, a quartroun of fygges, xii egges, J d. of flesch, is jnow for viii dyschis. 84. Here saffron is probably omitted, since sugar is not a colouring ingredient. 114

51 Take figs; grind them while dry. Take the lean meat of a secondary cut of pork, boiled. Boil eggs hard; add the eggs without liquid. Add to this ground pepper and cinnamon and rock sugar and saffron and salt; grind it all together into a container. Make of it pellets as big as eggs, or bigger, and roll them until they are round. Then break eggs, white and all, and beat them together. Add to this flour; make it as thick as if it were batter for a fritter. Colour with [saffron], sugar, and salt it. Then take grease and fry it in a pan; wrap these pellets in the batter. Put them in the grease and fry them. Make pastry; mix it with flour and a few eggs. Make a cake of this; cut this cake into points an inch long, as small as rissoles, and fry them until hard. Gather them up and stick these points round about in the pellets. Make good almond milk; mix it up with wine and fresh meat broth. Put it in a pot; add to it crushed maces, ground pepper, clarified honey, and salt. Boil this together. Arrange your pellets in dishes; pour this sauce over. Sprinkle the top with alkenet. One pound of almonds, a quarter pound of figs, twelve eggs, one pennyworth of meat, is enough for eight dishes. Commentary : This is a somewhat puzzling recipe: the only culinary meaning of trap appears to be a baking tin or pan; this recipe is fried, not baked. There are only two other recipes of the period with the word trap in the title, Sew Trap in MS Harley and Trape Desire in MS Sloane These two recipes resemble each other, amounting to a baked pastry filled with, in one case, ground dried fruit, in the other, meat and herbs, with seasoned eggs poured over the mixture, in one case at the very end of the end of the baking. These certainly do not resemble the pellets decorated with points of fried pastry which we find in the Corpus recipe, although, of course, the almond milk sauce is to be taken as a special addition, not necessarily part of the basic dish. All of this makes it hard to see what the basic nature of the dish was supposed to be. The pellets are larger than would have been normal for rissoles or fritters and, if perfectly round, would be difficult to fry except 85. Austin, p Gathering, p

52 in deep fat. But perhaps the writer meant to push the egg-shaped pellets into flatter round cakes? If so, it is odd that he continues to refer to them as pellets. Rock sugar appears to be what is called hard sugar in recipe 26, and is presumably sugar scraped from a loaf. 74. Gosnade. Grynde togider drie fygges & dates & sodyn pork; cast þerto egges rawe, so þat it be not to þenne. Cast þerto powder of gynger, canel, & saffroun & salt; tak it up in a vessel. Mak grenyng of percele & of malwes; qwhan it is grounde in a morter temper þes herbes [53 v ] 87 up in þe gryndyng with eyryn & swete milk. If þis grenyng be not þikke jnow, temper it with a lytyl flour. Mak a fryʒyng panne hoot & wete þe panne with a lytyl grece with a fewe federis. Cast in of þis grenyng & make þanne a kake þerof as it were a span brood, & þanne tak hem up. Tak on of hem & ley hym on a bord; tak þis stuffour & fyll half þe kake þe þyknesse of a knyf. Tak þanne þe toder syde of þe cake & wlapp over, & close þe sydes togedre. Kutt it & make it iiije square. Tak þanne eyryn withowtyn schell & bete togedre; cast þerto flour & make as it were batour. Tak þanne & frye þe stuffour with þe kakes, & frye hem. But or þu frye hem, dippe þe syde in þe batour of heyren & make as it were a boordour abowte hem of þis batour. Qwanne þu takyst hem owt of þis fryyng panne, cowche hem in a vessel & ley betwyxe hem powder of gynger & sugar. Ʒ[e]ve [54 r ] forþe be hym selvyes or be eyryn in coker. Grind together dried figs and dates and boiled pork; add to this raw eggs, so that it is not too thin. Add ground ginger, cinnamon, and saffron and salt; put it in a container. Make green colouring of parsley and mallows; when it is ground in a mortar mix these herbs up in the grinding with eggs and fresh milk. If this green colouring is not thick enough, mix in a 87. Writing changes here, 53 v 55 r ; 55 v reverts to previous hand. 116

53 little flour. Heat a frying pan and wet the pan with a little grease, using a few feathers. Put in it some of this green colouring, and then make a cake of it a span broad, and then take them up. Take one of them and lay it on a board; take the filling [i.e., the pork-based mixture] and fill half the cake to the thickness of a knife. Then take the other side of the cake and wrap it over, and close the sides together. Cut it and make it foursquare. Then take shelled eggs and beat together; add flour and make a batter. Then take your filling with the cakes [i.e., filled cakes] and fry them. But before you fry them, dip the side in the egg batter and make a sort of border of this batter about them. When you take them out of the frying pan, arrange them in a container and lay between them ground ginger and sugar. Give forth by themselves or with eggs in coker. Commentary : No other recipe of this title exists, and there is no clue as to what that title means: it certainly has nothing to do with geese. The recipe is for rather elaborately filled cakes fried in two steps, first the coloured outside layer alone and then the filled cakes dipped in an egg batter. But it is hard to see why that batter should be a border rather than a complete covering. Another puzzling aspect here is the size of the cakes: cakes made from an outer covering a span in length, i.e., about nine inches, folded over are to be trimmed into squares, but wouldn t they have to be cut into two to make anything like squares? In any case, this is not a recipe likely to be very appealing to a modern cook. 75. Eyryn in Cokyr. Tak eyryn; gader owt þe qwyte & þe yelkes at an hole þat þu xalt make at þe over ende. Kepe þe schell. Make stuf as þu dedyst for þe gosnade; fell þe schell þerwith & sette þe schell upryth in salt. Make also swiche batour as þu madist for þe borderyng of þe gosnade. Tak fayre grece & put it in a fryyng panne over þe fere; tak þe egges & depe þe schell in þe batour & set hem upryt in þe grese & frye hem a lytyl, & geve forth. 117

54 Take eggs; gather out the whites and the yolks at a hole you will make at the top end. Keep the shell. Make stuffing as you did for the Gosnade. fill the shell with this and set the shell upright in salt. Also make the same batter that you made for the bordering of the Gosnade. Take good grease and put it in a frying pan over the fire; take the eggs and dip the shell in this batter and set them upright in the grease and fry them a little, and give forth. Commentary : This is another recipe with no parallels elsewhere; cokyr (or coker ) is apparently cocker in the sense of quiver, although an eggshell doesn t much resemble a quiver. It is hard to see why one should coat an eggshell with batter before frying it or how to set a stuffed eggshell upright in hot grease, unless it is very deep indeed. Again, not a recipe with much appeal today. 76. Blanke Fretour [Blank Frytour]. Breke egges & kepe þe ʒelkes hole in a vessel, þanne bete þe qwytes smale with þin hand. Take tender chese mad of swete melk; cast þe chese in a morter. Cast to þe chese [54 v ] as mekel flour as þu hast chese; temper it in þe gryndyng with qwytes of eyryn þat it be sumdel þikke. Gader it into a vessel. Make a lathe of.v. enche long; tak it be þe syde & gadere up þe batowre with þe lathe of þe same lenkthe, & frye hem ʒelow. anne gader hem up in a vessel; cowche betwyxe hem sugre, & ʒeve it forth. Break eggs and keep the yolks whole in a container, then beat the whites well with your hand. Take tender cheese made of fresh milk; put the cheese in a mortar. Add to the cheese as much flour as you have cheese; mix it in the grinding with [the] whites of eggs so that it is somewhat thick. Gather it into a container. Make a lath five inches long; take it by the side and gather up the batter into lengths the same as that of the lath, and fry them yellow. Then gather them up in a container; set between them sugar, and give it forth. 118

55 Commentary : This is another recipe which seems to be unique to this manu script, although it bears some resemblance to other fritter recipes, especially some for long fritters. 88 What distinguishes it from these, and similar, recipes is that only the whites of the eggs are used, which explains the title. The yolks are no doubt to be reserved for another use. The main difficulty of this recipe is gathering the batter in the same length as the piece of wood used to shape them, which sounds a lot harder than simply shaking batter off a knife, as at least one of the closest recipes does. Anyone wishing to try it is advised to use fresh curd cheese, or ricotta. 77. Clonnenonne [Clanenone]. Grynde fyges & dates & a lytel pork sodyn, & þe fyges & dates drye. Temper hem up with a fewe eyryn so þat it be sumdel sad; cast þerto powder of canele, safroun, & salt. Gader it up into a vessel. Seþe eyryn harde; cast hem in cold water & pele hem þan clene. anne tak awey þe ʒelkes [55 r ] & mak þer þe ʒelkes lay more large & lay þe stuffe þerin, & fylle hem fulle. Grynde þan þe ʒelkes with rawe egges so þat þe strenys be awey, & flour cast þerto, powder of canel & saffroun & salt: mak þerof styf batour. Gader sauge levys with þe smale stalkes. Set þan grese over þe fere. an abouyn þe stuf in every half egge ley a sawge lef; dip al togeder into þe batour & frye hem, & ʒeve it forth. Grind figs and dates and a little boiled pork, with the figs and dates dry. Mix them with a few eggs so that the mixture is somewhat firm; add to it ground cinnamon, saffron, and salt. Gather it up into a container. Boil eggs hard; put them in cold water and then peel them clean. Then take away the yolks and make the area where the yolks were larger and put your stuffing therein, and fill them full. Then grind the yolks with raw eggs, not including the strains, and add flour, ground cinnamon and saffron and salt; make a stiff batter of this. Gather sage leaves with the small stalks. Then set grease over the fire. Then lay a sage leave over the 88. Especially those in Ordinance of Pottage, p. 79, and MS Ashmole 1393 (Gathering, p. 25). 119

56 stuffing in every half egg; dip all together into the batter and fry them, and give forth. Commentary : This is another title not found elsewhere, and there is no clue to its meaning. What the dish is is easy enough to say: hard-boiled eggs stuffed with a stuffing of the sort we have seen above several times (dried fruits ground with boiled pork), each topped with a sage leaf and dipped into an egg batter before being fried. This may appeal to those who don t object to that dried fruit in the stuffing. An interesting point here is the direction to put the boiled eggs in cold water before peeling them: an elementary helpful pointer which such recipes rarely mention. 78. Morterews. Seþe pork of þe bypese, þan pyke it from þe bonys & þe skyn & hewe it smal. Grynde it in a morter with þe broth 89 þat it was sodyn in, þan cast it into a pot with þe same broth. Boyle it & stere it. To make it chargeant, cast þerto gratyd bred of [55 v ] wastel & saffroun & salt, and set it fro þe fyr. Tak þe ʒelkes of eyrin; drawe hem þo a strynour & cast þerto, but first cast a lytil broþ to þe ʒelkes, & cast hem to qwhan þou takyst þe pot fro þe fyr. Stere it wel. Leche it in dyschys; cast above powder of gynger. ij d. of pork, xiiii egges, is jnow for viii dyschys. Boil pork of a secondary cut, then pick it from the bones and skin and chop it small. Grind it in a mortar with the broth it was boiled in, then put it in a pot with the same broth. Boil it and stir it. To make it thick, add grated wastel bread and saffron and salt, and take it off the fire. Then take yolks of eggs; put them through a strainer and add them, but first add a little broth to the yolks, and add them to the pot when you have taken it off the fire. Stir it well. Slice it into dishes, and sprinkle over it ground ginger. Two pennyworth of pork, fourteen eggs, is enough for eight dishes. 89. MS browth, with the w underdotted. 120

57 Commentary : After a run of five recipes with no parallels elsewhere, we return to a group of some of the most popular of medieval recipes, starting with Mortrews, a thick pottage of ground ingredients named for the mortar in which it is made. This is quite a typical version; compare the fish-day example in recipe 30. But note we seem to have the same careful instructor we saw in recipe 77: this time, cautioning us to dilute the egg yolks before adding them to the hot mixture and to add them only after taking the pot from the fire. 79. Mawmone [Mammemy]. Put reed wyn into a pot. If þu have a galon of wyn, tak ij liber of sugar; breke it smal & cast to þis wyn. Tak canel & clows & grynde al þis in a morter; drawe it up with wyn & set it in a vessel. Leche gynger & galyngale. Tak þanne brawne of fesauntes or of capoun rostid, [56 r ] or of a bipece of wel rostid; cut it on peces & ley it on a plater. Tak half a pound of pynys, if þou make with a galon of wyn; wasche hem in lewk water clene & drey hem in a cloþ. Drawe þan half a pound of flour of ryse to a galoun of wyn; cast in to þe pot pynys, also lechyd gynger, galyngale. Cast also þerto þe drawght of þe canel & clows & greynys. Cast to þi flesch; boyle it wel togydere over a sokyng fyr, & stere it wel & salt it. But it be chargeaunt, cast to flour of ryse. Boyle a lytyl wyn with sugar. Qwhan þu schalt dresse þi potage with a sawser, wete þi sauser in þis wyn & sugar soden, or elles þi potage wyl cleve on þe sawser. Plat it in dyschys. A galon of wyn with oþer substaunce as þu may se wele serve for xl. dyschys. Put red wine into a pot. If you have a gallon of wine, take two pounds of sugar; break it into small pieces and add to this wine. Take cinnamon and cloves and grind all this in a mortar; mix it with wine and set it in a container. Slice ginger and galingale. Then take meat of pheasants or of roast capons, or of a secondary piece of veal well roasted; cut it into pieces and lay on a platter. Take half a pound of pine nuts, if you are making this with a gallon of wine; wash them clean in lukewarm water and dry 121

58 them in a cloth. Then mix half a pound of rice flour to a gallon of wine; add to the pot [the] pine nuts, also [the] sliced ginger, galingale. Also add to this the mixture of cinnamon and cloves and grains of paradise. Add your meat to this; boil it well over a slow fire, and stir it well and salt it. If it is not thick, add flour of rice. Boil a little wine with sugar. When you are about to arrange your pottage with a saucer, wet your saucer with this boiled wine and sugar, or else your pottage will stick to the saucer. Spread it in dishes. A gallon of wine with other ingredients as you can see will serve for forty dishes. Commentary : This version of mawmene is typical of other fifteenthcentury examples in consisting mainly of minced meat, the primary choices for which are poultry, in a highly spiced sauce. It is pretty complex, and the directions are not always clear. Presumably we are to add the spice grains of paradise (Amomum melequetta) to the cinnamon and cloves dissolved in wine in the first place. The saucer to be used to dress (arrange) the pottage and the verb used, plat, imply that the saucer is used to spread out the pottage flat in the dishes, not a direction found in other mawmene recipes. It is interesting that quantities (two pounds of sugar to a gallon of wine) are specified here right from the beginning of the recipe. Another interesting point is that the ginger and galingale are to be sliced, not ground, although it is unlikely that fresh ginger was available at this time. And note that the quantity aimed for is considerably larger than is usual in this collection, suggesting that this was a dish to be made for a crowd on a special occasion: forty dishes would have served diners. 80. Blawmanger [Blankmanger]. [5 v ] For viij dyschys, tak half a pownd of ryse; creve 90 hem in a pot with water so þat þe water passe þe ryse by an enche. Qwhan 90.? crene is also possible, and equally meaningless. The meaning given for the verb creve in the OED is to burst, to split, which does not make sense here or in recipe 91; in both cases, cover seems a more likely meaning, and perhaps creve may be a miswritten cover. 122

59 þei boyle tak hem fro þe fyr. Mak good almaunde mylke, þickere & þennere, of ij draughtes. Cast þe secunde mylke to þe ryse. Tak þe brawne of capoun or of hennys, soden, & tese hem smal. Seþ þe pot with þe ryse & in þe sethyng cast to þe þicker mylk; þan cast to þe brawne, & boyle it & salt it. Tak blaunchyd almaundes & cut an almaunde on iij, & fryʒe hem. Cast among þese almaundes sugar broken; mynge þeramong clows. Leche þi potage in dischys; cast above þin almoundes. Half a pounde of ryse with j libra of almoundes is jnowʒ for viij dyschys. 91 For eight dishes, take half a pound of rice; cover it in a pot with water so that the water is over the rice by an inch. When it boils take it from the fire. Make good almond milk, thicker and thinner, in two mixtures. Put the second milk with the rice. Take the lean meat of capon or of hens, boiled, and tease it small. Boil the pot with the rice and while it is boiling add the thicker milk; then add the meat, and boil it and salt it. Take blanched almonds and cut each almond in three, and fry them. Mix these almonds with broken sugar, and mix in cloves. Slice your pottage into dishes and sprinkle your almonds over it. Half a pound of rice with one pound of almonds is enough for eight dishes. Commentary : This is quite a simple recipe for one of the great favourites of the period, a dish of poultry and rice in almond milk. A fish-day version of it appears above, recipe 28, but this is the primary type. Possibly when it boils should read when it is boiled, since the dish would not need long cooking after the meat is added, since that is already cooked. In any case, the rice must be cooked until it absorbs both the original water and the almond milk. Note that it is not highly spiced only the fried almond garnish is spiced at all and is one of the few dishes in the collection which does not call for saffron. This seems proper for a white dish, but recipes for blancmanger were not always as white as the title claimed. 91. Followed by Tak in a box on the next line, at the bottom of the page, anticipating the next recipe. But Tak is repeated in the first line of the following page. 123

60 Supplement to the Concordance of English Recipes: Thirteenth Through Fifteenth Centuries This concordance is arranged in the same way as the original Concordance, to which it is a supplement. As in the original, all manuscripts are given an approximate date, and recipes for the same lemmatized title (column 2) are arranged in order of these dates. However, as in that original, these dates are often arbitrary: neither the accuracy of the specific dates nor the order in which they are given can be relied upon. For example, the Corpus Christi recipes are dated 1499 simply because they show many signs of being the latest fifteenth-century collection (see introduction). As explained in that introduction, the recipes listed in this supplement to the Concordance are mainly those from the Corpus Christi manuscript plus those from the miscellaneous manuscripts previously published in A Gathering of Medieval English Recipes. Numbers appearing in parentheses for the latter are page numbers of the volume in which they were printed; while no page numbers can be given for the Corpus Christi recipes, these are the sole contents of this volume and are easy to locate by recipe number. The few corrections or omissions from the original Concordance appear in italics, for the convenience of those who would like to enter the corrections in their copies of the original. The abbreviations for those manuscripts are not in the list below since they would extend the list confusingly. The few sixteenth-century recipes which appear in A Gathering are listed separately at the end of that volume, all on p. 170, and there seemed no need to list them again here. 145

61 Abbreviations used here for manuscripts containing the recipes of A Gathering and the present volume are: A1393 Bodleian MS Ashmole 1393 A1444 Bodleian MS Ashmole 1444 AS All Souls, Oxford, MS 81 CCC Corpus Christi College Oxford MS 291 CUL Cambridge University Library MS Ll.I.18 em Bodleian MS e. Mus. 52 H665 BL MS Harley 665 H1605 BL MS Harley 1605 HU1 Huntington Library MS HU 1051 HU3 Huntington Library MS HU HUS Royal Library, Stockholm, MS Huseby 78 P National Library of Wales MS Peniarth 394 D Royal BL MS Royal 12 B xxv RD9 Bodleian MS Rawlinson D 913 RD12 Bodleian MS Rawlinson D 1222 SA Society of Antiquaries MS 287 S7 BL MS Sloane 7 S442 BL MS Sloane BL MS Sloane 1108 TCC0 Trinity College Cambridge MS TCC10 Trinity College Cambridge MS W1 N. Y. Public Library MS Whitney 1 WW Wellcome Western MS

62 SUPPLEMENT TO THE CONCORDANCE Recipe Lemmatized Source Date (Ca.) A Annimels Farsed Allumells CCC Almoigne butter Almond Butter SA 8 (137) 1480 Creme of Almonds Boyled Almond Cream CCC Pygge in creme for sopers Almond Cream RD12 29 (67) 1450 Pork in Almond growell Almond Gruel TCC0 87 (141) 1465 To mak almond milk Almond Milk TCC0 88 (141 2) 1465 Anoþer milk Almond Milk TCC0 89 (142) 1465 Almounde Almond Milk, Pottage CCC Cawdell of almonds Almonds, Caudle of TCC0 91 (142) 1465 Cawdel of Almandis Almonds, Caudle of CCC Alowys in Cyrype Alows in Syrup RD (80) 1450 Alowyz yn syrype Alows in Syrup em 42 (51) 1495 Aloes Alows of Beef A (24) 1410 Alesed Bef Alows of Beef CCC Amyn of fysshe Amyn of Fish RD12 25 (66) 1450 Amyn of flesshe Amyn of Meat RD12 24 (66) 1450 Another for leche metys Another Leach Food em 67 (55) 1495 Fritoures rounde Apple Fritters A (25) 1410 Apple ffrytoure Apple Fritters CUL 117 (106) 1485 Appulmose Applemoys RD (79) 1450 Appylmose Applemoys CCC Aqua Arden Aquavite em C,23 (61) 1495 Armanack Armanack S7 19 (93 4) 1480 Aturmyn is a Stondynge Potage Aturmyn CCC B A gammon of bakon Bacon, Gammon of SA 2 (135) 1480 A bake mete Baked Food em 27 (49) 1495 Bakemete of Burdeux Baked Food of Bordeaux Royal (151) 1445 A lytell bake mettes Baked Food, little em 87 (58)

63 Recipe Lemmatized Source Date (Ca.) A bakyn mete overte Baked Food, Open S7 9 (92) 1480 Bake mete praty upon Baked Food, Open, Pretty(?) em 66 (55) 1495 Petye bake mette open Baked Food, Open, Small(?) em75 (56) 1495 Elys or pike in ballock broth Ballock Broth, Eel in WW 62 (146 7) 1470 Pyke in ballobrothe Ballock Broth, Pike in RD12 40 (69) 1450 Elys or pike in ballock Ballock Broth, Eels or Pike in WW 62 (146 7) 1470 Melet in servyse & bars Bass in Service RD12 87 (74) 1450 Barse, mylette, boylette Bass, Boiled CUL 166 (114) 1485 Base boyled Bass, Boiled P 182 (125) 1485 Rollys Beef Rolls P 224 (129) 1485 Capon and Beef Stuwed Beef, Stewed with Chicken CCC Aloes Beef, Alows of A (24) 1410 Alesed Bef Beef, Allows of CCC Aliperd for rostid befe Oylepevere for rostede boef Beef, Roast, Garlic Peverade for Beef, Roast, Garlic Peverade for A (23) 1410 RD12 42 (69) 1450 Pouderid Byf Beef, Salt CCC Hare in worts Beef, Salt, in Greens H (69) 1449 Lange de beefe Beef Tongue CUL 122 (107) 1485 Lange de boef flory Beef Tongue Florished RD12 34 (68) 1450 Smale byrdes or grete Birds, Small or Large CUL 157 (113) 1485 Byttoure Bittern, Roast CUL 142 (111) 1485 Blanck de surre Blancdesire (100) 1420 Blandʒere Mayled Blancdesire Mailed CCC Blaunche bruete Blanche Brewett em 29 (49) 1495 Blanche poudire Blanche Powder A (27) 1410 Blawmanger Blancmanger CCC Blawmmager Blancmanger CCC Blanke manger of fyssh Blancmanger of Fish WW 59 (146) 1470 Brasyll on flessheday Brasee of Meat (99) 1420 Tenche and breme in Brase Brasee, Bream in RD12 78 (72 3) 1450 Tenche or Breme in Brasee Brasee, Bream in CCC

64 SUPPLEMENT TO THE CONCORDANCE Recipe Lemmatized Source Date (Ca.) Pyke in brase Brasee, Pike in RD12 77 (72) 1450 Sole embrace Brasee, Sole in CUL 172 (115) 1485 Tenche and breme in Brase Brasee, Tench in RD12 78 (72 3) 1450 Tenche embrace Brasee, Tench in CUL 171 (115) 1485 Tenche or Breme in Brasy Brasee, Tench in CCC Mete vernis Brawn de Vine UC 10 (85) 1395 Buron de Vyne, a standing potage Brawn de Vine P 105 (121) 1485 Brawn Doucet Brawn Doucet RD12 81 (73) 1450 Brawne fonde Brawn Fondue em 63 (54) 1495 Brawn in egerdouce Brawn in Egredouce H (150) 1395 Brawn in peverade Brawn in Peverade RD12 36 (68) 1450 Blanche Braune Brawn, White em 6 (47) 1495 Tenche and breme in Brase Bream in Brasee RD12 78 (72) 1450 Tenche or Breme in Brasy Bream in Brasee CCC Breme Baken Bream in Pastry CCC Breme in sawce Bream in Sauce CUL 168 (114 5) 1485 Breme de mere boyled Bream, Boiled CUL 167 (114) 1485 To farsse peke or breme Bream, Stuffed P 212 (128) 1485 Bru rostyd Brewe, Roast WW 13 (143) 1470 Bruet dyvers Brewet Diverse P 109 (122) 1485 Bruet mose Brewet Mose P 110 (122) 1485 Brewette of Almayne Brewet of Almayne em 43 (51) 1495 Blanche Bruet of Almayne Brewet of Almayne, White DS 13 (64) 1381 Brewett Sarsyne Brewet Saracen em 44 (51) 1495 Browet Sarsenesse Brewet Saracen CCC Brewette Sake Brewet Sec em 45 (52) 1495 Browet camel Brewet, Cinnamon RD (82) 1450 Cold bruet for hennes oe vele Brewet, Cold, P 229 (130) 1485 Cold bruet for hennes or vele Brewet, Cold,Veal in P 229 (130) 1485 Lamprons in browet Brewet, Lamprey in RD (80) 1450 Pike in browet Brewet, Pike in TCC0 92 (142) 1465 Salt Ele in browet Brewet, Salt Eel in RD (80)

65 Recipe Lemmatized Source Date (Ca.) Blanch Bruett Brewet, White S7 14 (93) 1480 Hennys in browes Brewis, Chicken in RD (80) 1450 Pyke in browes Brewis, Pike in RD12 39 (69) 1450 Chekyns yn Brittenet Brittenet, Chicken in P 108 (121 2) 1485 Muskelys in Browet Broth, Mussels in CCC Broth of moton Broth, Mutton in P 219 (128 9) 1485 Venysoun in Broþʒ Broth, Venison in CCC Bocnade Bukkenade em 85 (58) 1495 Bukenade Bukkenade CCC Cheries or bolas or plumbes Bullace Plums TCC10 83 (151) 1490 C Cabage Cabbages CCC Sauce camelyn for veneson and wilde foule Cameline Sauce A (23) 1410 Caper Vyande Caper Viaund S7 22 (94) 1480 Carpusselles Carpusselles RD12 18 (65) 1450 Caudel fferrey Caudle Ferry S7 1 (91) 1480 Caudel ferres Caudle Ferry S7 2 (91) 1480 Cawdell fere Caudle Ferry em 82 (57) 1495 Caudel Ferre Caudle Ferry CCC Cawdell of almonds Caudle of Almonds TCC0 91 (142) 1465 Cawdel of almonds in Lent Caudle of Almonds P 174 (125) 1485 Cawdell of almondes in Lent Caudle of Almonds CUL 131 (109) 1485 Cawdel of Almandis Caudle of Almonds CCC Caudel of muscles Caudle of Mussels RD12 23 (66) 1450 Cawdel rynnyg Caudle, Thin S7 6 (92) 1480 Cayce Cayce RD (81) 1450 Celse Celse WW 57 (145 6) 1470 Charlette Charlet S7 4 (91) 1480 Charlet Charlet CCC Chawdrow Chauden A (23)

66 SUPPLEMENT TO THE CONCORDANCE Recipe Lemmatized Source Date (Ca.) Chawdon Chauden CUL 137 (110) 1485 Chawdoun off samoun boylet or rostet Chauden for Salmon CUL 179 (116) 1485 Chawdryn for a swanne Chauden for Swan HU1 2 (152) 1490 Chawdroun for Swan Chauden for Swan CCC Chaudons of swannes for sauce Chauden for Swan WW 39 (144) 1470 Chaudone off vele Chauden for Veal WW 55 (145) 1470 Chaudoun potage Chauden Pottage RD (83) 1450 Cheries or bolas or plumbes Cherries TCC10 83 (151) 1490 Chykenes in flory Chicken Florished RD12 35 (68) 1450 Gely of a coke Chicken Gele CUL 124 (107) 1485 Hennys in browes Chicken in Brewis RD (80) 1450 Chekyns yn Brittenet Chicken in Brittenet P 108 (121) 1485 Hennys in Cyve Chicken in Civy CCC Conynges or henneys in clene broth Chicken in Clear Brothe M68 (55) 1495 Capons in Connse Chicken in Concys CCC Chykynus in curtney Chicken in Cretyne em 46 (52) 1495 Pyg or Pygges Feet or Smale Chykenys in Egredous Chicken in Egredouce CCC Capoun in kyslanes Chicken in Kyslanes RD (86) 1450 Chykyns in mose for soperys Chicken in Mose RD12 83 (73) 1450 Capoun in Urinele Chicken in Urinal CCC Capon and Beef Stuwed Chicken, Beef Stewed with CCC Sauce Blanche for Sode Capoun Sauce Blanche for Capoun Isoude Stoffe drey for a capon or a Hen Stuffe moiste for a capon Chicken, Boiled, White Sauce for Chicken, Boiled, White Sauce for RD12 55 (70) 1450 em 83 (57) 1450 Chicken, Dry Stuffing for A (24) 1410 Chicken, Moist Stuffing for A (24) 1410 [Stewed Capon] Chicken, Stewed AS (152)

67 Glossary of Recipe Titles Used as Lemmas and Cross-Index of Variant Titles As in the original Concordance, this lists only those lemmas, or parts of lemmas, which may need explanation for many readers: and, in this case, only those which do not appear in the original Concordance. Words which are, or appear in, lemmas are printed in boldface. Corrections (including an addition which should have appeared there) to the original appear in italics. Allumells Omelettes with a filling of pork and herbs, served with a sauce containing figs. Amyn of Meat (or Fish) Variants of Brewet of Almayne, without the onions. Armanack Hard egg yolks mixed with cream, lightly spiced. Aturmyn Rice pudding with currents or dates, thickened with fig syrup. Brawn de Vine Not brawn in the usual sense, but a thick ( standing ) pottage of pork and chicken dyed green with vine leaves and parsley. UC s Mete vernis is the same dish; since that title has no clear meaning, the later title seemed preferable.. Brawn Doucet Pork in sweetened veal broth. Brawn Fondue Fried pork slices in a sweetened egg batter. Brittenet, Chicken in Stuffed chicken, boiled, and served in an almond milk sauce. Caper Viaund A sort of curd cheese, dyed in various colours. Carpusselles Sweet-and-sour roast pork, dyed red with alkenet. Cayce Pork or chicken served cold with parsley and sage; a version of a 173

68 popular dish, but omitting the usual boiled eggs in the sauce. Celse Boiled pork and chicken in a spiced sauce; differs from cayce in being thickened and served hot, without sage or parsley. Chicken Florished Roast chickens, endored with egg yolk and florished (garnished, decorated) with an elaborate sauce. Chicken in Urinal An improbable (impossible?) recipe for cooking a capon in glass. Clonnenonne Stuffed boiled eggs, wrapped in sage leaves, and dipped in an egg batter before being fried. A more elaborate version of FC s Stuffed Sage. Cockatrice A subtlety : a cock and a pig combined to make a fabulous beast. Cocker, Eggs in Eggs in a quiver (?); not a recipe that makes much sense. Crapee Pears in a sweet sauce, largely made with ground almonds in wine. Cressadys A sweet-and-sour mixture, apparently to be eaten as a pottage. Dory John Dory, a European fish. Douce Saracen A version of saracen sauce (not really sweet, despite title). Dupercely Pork in a wine-based sauce (no parsley included). Eel Reversed Unfortunately, no English recipe is quite clear on how to reverse the eel before roasting it. Enaus Preparing a mutton butt with herbs; actual directions for cooking missing. Ferysse A baked dish of ground chicken in a green broth thickened with egg yolks and amydon. Freeshe of Veal Veal ground with calf s blood boiled in rich beef broth, with grease added; boiled and dried. French Poach Ground chicken in a sweet-and-sour sauce with many dried fruits; boiled, not exactly poached. Fritter Lumbard Pork or veal ground with cheese and egg yolks and fried. Fritters, French, Round Balls of ground dates and marrrow, dipped in batter and fried. Gauncele Yellow garlic sauce (> Fr. jance yellow sauce + aille garlic ). Gole, Pork in Roast pork in a sauce containing figs and raisins. Gosnade Stuffed cakes dipped in an egg batter and fried. 174

69 Greynes A variant of chaudon. Gunȝyne A rich bread pudding. Gyngile Tarts A meat-day version of Parmesan tarts, apparently. Kyslanes, Chicken in A variant of chicken in cassels. Lampray Hay A version of Haslets of Fruit : any connection with lampreys or hay may be a joke (see recipe 54 for the possible connection). Latimer Sauce A sauce made of the contents of the fish s stomach and red wine, with or without dried fruits and spices. Leach Bastard A sweet, stiff pottage based on ground dates. Leach Casuay A veal dish similar to leach lombard. Leach Lorrey A standing pottage with ingredients resembling those of leach lombard. Leach Royal A leach dish based on raisins, figs, and dates. Macaroon A dish of ground dates and currants which bears no resemblance to a modern macaroon (or macaroni). Mailed The blancdesire is mailed because it is covered with a red dye. Maundemene Pork in a sauce of almond milk with strained, ground dried fruit, baked. Mawment A leach dish made with dates in wine and almond milk. Mesegewe Ground dates in wine with chopped almonds. Message Ground dates and chopped pears with white wine. Mortrews Eweas An elaborate version of a poultry-based mortrews. Munda Something to do with wheat bran. Olyotes Ground chicken in sweetened wine with parsley juice, rice flour, egg yolks, and spices. Parmesan Tarts An elaborate fish tart, with dried fruits. Paste Royal A sugar candy. Peapods, Preserved Peapods were to be preserved in a sealed pot of salt water, buried in the ground. Pearmoys Ground pears strained with cream. Peas of Almayne Boiled dried white peas in almond milk thickened with rice flour. Pickle A sauce; not a pickle in any modern sense. 175

70 Pourviens de Hay A dish flavoured with sloes to be served with blancmanger; nothing explains the hay in the title. Pykenard (sauce for kid) Ground boiled egg yolks with vinegar and ginger. Ramioles Meatballs of pork ground with eggs with currants and fried pieces of almonds. Rice Cameline A rice pudding containing cinnamon. Russyntayles A variant of tayle, to be served garnished with fried almonds. Samfarayn Almonds fried in olive oil, mixed with almond milk, sugar, and wine. Sauterys in Lent Ground salmon mixed with fried slivers of pastry, made into balls, dipped in a light batter and fried. Sew Godrich A sweet pottage of almond cream mixed with ground raisins in wine. Spynes of Fish Fish pies; spines not mentioned. Superpusoun Fried flounder in a sweet sauce containing several dried fruits. Tars Curtays Ground chicken, figs, and raisins, boiled in almond milk. Trap Desire A tart filled with dried fruit and topped with egg yolk, to be baked in the sun. Traps in Syrup A sort of meatball, bearing no resemblance to any other recipe with trap in the title. 176