For it to be served in goode mennys howse.

[coraa]

A recent comment in morganlf's journal started me thinking about some of my historical research into medieval cooking. I read a number of medieval and early renaissance cookbooks, and, in addition to using the research for papers, I did some experimentation, too. On a whim, I dug up the recipes; I'm posting them now more for my own pleasure than anyone else's, though given my friends list I wouldn't be too surprised to find others interested in medieval cookery. The original recipes are transcribed from the cookbook Liber cure Cocorum, written in the early 1400s; they're followed by a word-for-word modernization and then a sort of modern summary version.



Chekyns in Browet

Take chekyns, scalde hom fayre and clene;
Take persole, sauge, oþer herb3, grene
Grapus, and stope þy chekyns with wynne;
Take goode brothe, sethe hom þerinne,
So þat þay sone boyled may be;
Coloure þe brothe with safrone fre,
And cast þeron powder dowce,
For to be served in goode mennys howse.

Chickens in Broth

Take chickens, scald them fair and clean;
Take parsley, sage, other herbs, green
Grapes, and stuff they chickens with will;
Take good broth, seethe them therein,
To that they soon boiled may be;
Color the broth with saffron free,
And cast thereon powder douce,
For to be served in good men's house.

Scald chickens. Stuff them with parsley, sage, herbs and green grapes. Cook them through in simmering or boiling broth. Color the broth generously with saffron, and season with powder douce (a mixture of sweet spices, probably containing cloves, cinnamon, and ginger).



For sawce gynger.

Fyrst stepe þy brede, þat white is bake,
And verius or venegur I undertake;
Þen drawghe hit þorowghe a streynour fyne,
Coloure hit with safroune, and cast þer in
Powder of gynger ino3ht, and salt,
Or ellys coloure hit nou3t þou schalt;
For grete lordis þou schalt take wyne
With safroune to þy sawce ful fyne.

For Sauce Ginger

First steep thy bread, that white is baked,
And verjus or vinegar I undertake;
Then draw it through a strainer fine,
Color it with saffron, and cast therein
Powder of ginger enough, and salt,
Or else color it not thou shalt;
For great lords thou shall take wine
With saffron to your sauce full fine.

Steep white bread in verjus (a sour grape juice) or vinegar. Press it through a strainer. Color it with saffron, and season it with ginger and salt. When serving ginger sauce to great lords, add wine to the sauce along with the saffron.

Comments

[morganlf.livejournal.com]

U of Toronto has a great medieval cookbook called Pleyn Delit (or some such spelling thereof) that has the original recipes along with modern versions. :-)

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's nifty. I'll haev to look into that, especially considering my obsession with cookbooks.

[morganlf.livejournal.com]

here's a link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802076327/102-3068214-4128907?v=glance&n=283155&v=glance

[maggiedacatt.livejournal.com]

Wow, I didn't know that cookbooks were that old. I sort of envisioned cookbooks as a 19th century invention.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

Cookbooks with standardized measurements are a 19C invention. In the United States that was what Fanny Farmer was about. Some people say it ruined cooking forever because so much about cooking can't be standardized and has to be learned from observation and action.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

While I don't know about ruining cooking, I can say that, since I've become comfortable with cooking, I use recipes only for inspiration, put things in until it looks, smells and tastes right rather than by measure, and in fact measure only during baking, where I am less sure of my skills. (This does not lessen my obsession with cookbooks, oddly enough; I collect them even if I use them only in the loosest ways.) And since having started doing so, following a cookbook recipe exactly feels peculiar indeed.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

It surprised me a little, too, when I found out about it -- which is why I studied it pretty intensively. (Well, plus my obsession with material culture. And Food + History = Yay.)

The first cookbook that I know of is De Re Coquinaria (On Cookery), written by the Roman Apicius in the first century CE. The earliest period for which we have a sizeable number of surviving cookbooks is the 12th-13th century, and they increase in frequency fairly steadily from there on.

As Zalena notes, these aren't exactly cook books as we know them -- they assume a lot of knowledge on the part of the cook: no quantities save for 'a fair number of' or 'a little' or the like, no organized ingredients list, and they say things like 'and make it into a pie' rather than giving instructions for makign the dough, rolling it out, blind-baking it, filling it, baking it... Unlike cook books from the 18th or 19th century onward, too, they're pretty much only indicative of the diets of the extremely wealthy.

But I find them absolutely fascinating.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

I love recipes both olde and nyewe.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Me, also. I have a cookbook collection that's growing at a frightening pace...

[2gouda4u.livejournal.com]

What a pain - not only do you have to figure out the right ingredients to make something tasty, but you have to make the instructions rhyme! Glad I'm not a 15th century recipe-writer...

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I was pretty impressed with that. The whole thing rhymes, and it's a substantial cookbook!