February
28, 2004
A.S.
XXX
The
Cauldron Bleu Cooks Guild
Barony
of Thescorre
Maistres queux de bouche (Chief Cooks)
Don Eric
Grenier de Labarre (Grendel)
Dame
Katja Davidova Orlova Khazarina
Cuisinier (Lunch Cook)
milady Dubheasa
inghean Dubgaill
Master of the Hall (Butler)
Don
Grendel
Bakers
Benefactor
of the Barony Energizer Jean
Benefactor
of the Barony Holly of Blackrock Castle
Kitchen Staff
Solliars (scullions), Carroniers (butchers)
& Pollaliers (poulterers)
Baroness
Mistress Michaele del Vaga
Lady
Bryn Ni MacRose
milady Dubheasa
inghean Dubgaill
Lady
Khazima bint Hakeem
Lord
Caradwc Mendwr
milady
Margreth Stewart
Lord
Eldjarn
milord
Lionheart
Lord
Dark Oak
milady
Isolda inghean bhi Seanagain
Lady
Katrina of York
Lord
Ulric
Lady
Everild le Kember
Lord
Cadifor Cynan
Lord
Ruairidh
Baroness
Mistress Sadira bint Wassouf
Lady
Nezhah bint Saleem
All redactions of period
recipes Chris Adler-France
and Eric France©2004, except where noted.
Lunch Menu
Roo
Broth (beef soup)
Losyns
(cheese lasagne)
Hard-boiled
eggs
Bread
Honey
butter and butter
Olives
Apples
Almonds
Hot
mulled cider
Lemonade
Loseyns
Forme of Cury
Take good broth and do in an erthen pot. Take flour of
payndemayn and make thereof past with water, and seeth it in the broth. Take
cheese ruayn grated and lay it in dishes with powdour douce, and lay theron
loseynss isode at hool as thou might, and aboe all powdour and chese; and so
twyse or thryse, and serue it forth.
Cheese lasagne
(based on recipe from Traveling Dysshes, Siobhan
Medhbh O’Roarke)
1 lb.
lasagne noodles
1 lb.
grated cheese
1 lb.
drained ricotta or cottage cheese
4 tsp.
butter
4 ts.
flour
½ C.
milk
½ C.
sugar
¼ tsp.
ginger
¼ tsp.
nutmeg
extra
grated cheese
Boil
the noodles in water. Melt the butter in a pan, then add the flour and make a
roux. Add the milk to make a bechamel. Add the cheese and stir until smooth. Drain
the noodles. Dot the bottom of a square baking pan with butter. Put a layer of
noodles, then smooth a layer of ricotta over them, then a layer of noodles,
then the sauce and top with some grated cheese. Cook at 350 degrees for 20
minutes or until the top begins to bubble and turn lightly golden.
Roo broth
Forme of Cury
Roo broth wel to the same seruyse. Take venysoun & wasch it and
culpoun it in a fyngerbroede & perboyle it; & than tak it yp & streyne
the broth & do water to the venysoun, & pike it into the broth, &
sette it ouer the feere, & do therto salt and percely and ysope and suerey
and poudere of peper, and late sethe til it be tendre; & therto poudre of
coloure & of maces & canel and quibibes, but look it be nought to hot.
Beef soup
(based on recipe from Traveling Dysshes, Siobhan
Medhbh O’Roarke)
1 lb.
beef sirloin
¾ C. fresh
bread crumbs
¼ C.
vinegar
¼ tsp.
ginger
¼ tsp.
cinnamon
1 tsp
salt
½ C.
raisins
Cover
the meat with water in a pot and simmer for an hour. Soak the breadcrumbs in
vinegar and stir into the soup to thicken. Mix the spices and raisins together
and add to the soup and simmer.
Dinner Menu
Scented
Handwashing Water
Corbeil
Trenchers (edible wheat/rye bread “plates”)
“Poiree”
(pear juice)
“Hypocras”
(spiced grape juice)
Pain de
Main (fine white rolls)
Fresh
Cheese
Crayfish
(shrimp)
Poivre
Noir (pepper-lemon sauce)
Syseros
(chickpea salad)
Entremet (Subtlety)
Hedgehogs
(meatloaf subtleties)
Emplumeus
(apple sauce)
Calunafree
of Partridge (Cornish game hens)
Cameline
(cinnamon sauce)
Soup of
New Peas (light pea soup)
Honey-Glazed
Vegetables (carrots, squash, turnips)
Steamed
Barley
Desservir (Dessert)
Fruit
Rissoles (apple & raisin turnovers)
Dragees
(candied seeds)
“…A very honorable feast be given, at which there may be kings,
queens, dukes, duchesses, counts, countesses, princes, princesses, marquesses,
marchionesses, barons, baronesses, and prelates of various classes, and nobles,
too, in large number, the following things are necessary both to cook for the
regular household and to do the feast honorably and to the honor of the lord
who gives it.”
-- Mestre Chiquart
Amiczo, Du fait de cuisine, 1420
Greetings from your cooks!
What we have prepared for you
tonight is an abbreviated version of the head cook Chiquart’s famous banquet
prepared in honor of the marriage of the daughter of the Duke of Savoy, in 1393.
It is supplemented with some
dishes from the recipes of Guillaume Tirel (also known as Taillevent), the head
cook to the royal French family in the late 14th Century, and even
some non-noble dishes from the household handbook written in 1393 by an unknown
elderly Parisian for his teenaged bride.
Why is this an abbreviated
version, and why did we borrow some recipes from the other two sources? To
answer the first question: a complete late-14th Century French meal
for nobility would have included multiple eel, shellfish, fish, and fowl
dishes, meat & fish jellies, flans, puddings, pies, soups, and sausages in
addition to the roasted meat, vegetables, and sweets we have chosen for this
feast. As for the latter, we wanted to show how some recipes differed between
the three books… and we needed to find more vegetable recipes!
We hope you will enjoy your
meal tonight, and please tell us if anything can be improved. Be well,
Katja & Grendel
To Prepare Water for Washing
the Hands at Table
Le Mènagier de Paris
Set sage to boil, then pour out the water and let it cool
until it is just warm. Or you may instead use camomile or marjoram, or you may
put in rosemary; and boil them with orange peel. And bay leaves are good too.
Scented handwashing water
Bay leaves
and/or rosemary steeped in warm water
************************
Poiree
Early French Cookery, p. 36
“Several beverages were made
from the juice that had been expressed from locally grown fruits in the Middle
Ages, juice that was usually allowed to ferment for a short time in order to
make an effervescent, mildly alcoholic drink. In particular, the French
consumed poiree from pears, moree from blackberries, a quince cider, and,
especially, an apple cider.”
Savoring the Past, p. 56, on
Gilles de Gouberville, 1546
“Gouberville pressed cider and
perry every fall…”
Maison Rustique, or the Countrey Farme, Arnold Hatfield, 1606
"Perrie is made of diuers sortes of peares: sometimes of rough,
harsh, sowre, and wilde ones, neuer husbanded, planted, grafted, or otherwise
hauing had anie labour or paines taken with them: such perrie will keep long,
euen three or fower yeares, and be better at the ende then at the beginning.
Sometimes of garden, tender and delicate peares, such as are the Eusebian and
the Marie peare, the roset, hasting, rimolt, mollart, greening, butter peare,
the Iaques du four peare, the little conie peare, the perplexed peare, the
alabaster peare, the two headed peare, the dew peare, and the wood of
Hierusalem: and such perrie is pleasant for a certaine time, but after it is
once come to be fiue monethes old it becommeth voide of all taste and dead: the
best and most excellent perrie is made of little yellow waxe peares, and such
as haue beene throughly dressed and husbanded, as the little muske peare, the
two headed peare, the peare robart, the fine gold peare, bargamot, tahou,
squire, and such other peares, which haue a fast and solide flesh and hard
coat. The amiot peare is commended aboue all the rest, ... Some doe also
sometimes mingle diuers sorts of peares together to make perrie of."
Pear juice
SCA
events cannot serve alcoholic drinks at dinner, so we are mimicking the feel of
a medieval French meal by serving the basis of this period drink: pear
juice. Although not alcoholic, we hope
that pear juice will give a more period feel rather than serving coffee or tea.
– Katja & Grendel
************************
To make powdered hypocras
Le Mènagier de Paris
Take a quarter-ounce of very fine cinnamon, hand-picked by tasting
it, an ounce of very fine meche ginger and an ounce of grains of paradise, a
sixth of an ounce of nutmeg and galingale together, and pound it all together.
And when you want to make hippocras, take a good half-ounce or more of this
powder and two quarter-ounces of sugar, and mix them together, and a quart of
wine as measured in Paris. And note that the powder and the sugar mixed
together make “duke's powder.”
To make a quart or a
quarter-ounce of hippocras by the measure used in Besiers, Carcassonne, or
Montpelier, take five drams of fine select clean cinnamon, select peeled white
ginger, three drams: of clove, grains, mace, galingale, nutmeg, nard,
altogether one and a fourth drams: more of the first, and of the others less
and less of each as you go down the list. Grind to powder, and with this put a
pound and half a quarter-ounce, by the heavier measure, of ground rock sugar,
and mix with the aforesaid spices; and have wine and the sugar melted on a dish
on the fire, and add the powder, and mix: then put in the straining-bag, and
strain until it comes out a clear red. Note that the cinnamon and the sugar
should dominate.
Ypocras
Early French Cookery, p. 57 on
Arnoldus of Villanova’s support of ypocras, approx. 1313
“This drink, Arnoldus argues,
‘fortifies the brain and the natural strength… It … causes foods to be digested
and produces good blood. It is good for flatulence of the belly, and also for
ailments of the womb caused by cold or superfluous humidity which prevents
women from conceiving children… It strengthens all spiritual parts… It is
marvellously useful for the cough and for the heart’.”
Spiced grape juice
1 gal.
grape juice
1 Tb.
cassia chunks
1 tsp.
freshly grated nutmeg
2-inch
sliced fresh ginger root
1 Tb.
whole grains of paradise
½ lb.
sugar
Mix all
ingredients together and refrigerate to let steep. Strain out the spices before
serving.
Once
again, this fruit juice (spiced in the manner of hypocras) mimics the taste of
the period drink without violating the Society ban on serving alcohol. – Katja
& Grendel
************************
Corbeil/Meslin Trenchers
Le Mènagier de Paris
Trencher bread, three dozen of half a foot in width and four fingers
tall, baked four days before and browned, or what is called in the market
Corbeil bread.
Item, two
bread-slicers, of whom one will crumb the bread and make trenchers and
salt-cellars out of bread, and will carry the salt and the bread and the
trenchers to the tables, and will provide for the dining-room two or three
strainers for the solid leftovers such as sops, broken breads, trenchers, meats
and such things…
Early French
Cookery, p. 65-66
“The Menagier’s
trencher bread was made in relatively small flat loaves, turned over in the
oven in order to smooth both sides, dense and coarse in substance, and with
hard crusts; it was made of a thickness that could be sliced horizontally in
two so that with one of its tough crusts upwards it could become two trenchers…
However, the most commonly available bread at this time was undoubtedly the
large loaf that was made from a mixture of wheat and rye flours. This was
miscelin or meslin bread, the bread eaten by the ordinary bourgeois and bought
by the wealthy to feed to their servants.”
Bread plates
1 C
warm water
2 T.
yeast
1 T
sugar (to proof the yeast)
4 C
(mixed) rye and whole wheat flours
1 tsp.
salt
Proof
yeast in water with sugar. Add flours, etc. Knead until elastic. Let rise for
an hour. Shape into two 6-inch-long flat loaves and let rise at room
temperature for one hour until doubled. Brush with an egg wash. Bake at 375
degrees for 35 to 40 minutes, turning them over after 20 minutes. Makes two
3-lb. loaves. Slice each in half lengthwise to make four trenchers.
************************
Pain de Main
Le Mènagier de Paris
At the baker's, ten dozen flat white bread baked one day ahead and
costing one denier each.
Early French Cookery, p. 66
“The bread of first
choice was always a crusty loaf (a bellied mound – not, of course, the
elongated loaf with which we are more familiar), relatively white in color
(though never much more so than a fawn shade), and of a fine texture because it
was made from very finely ground wheat flour from which all the bran had been
sieved away in the bolting cloth. On the tables of the wealthy in France the so-called
pain de main, the small ‘individual-sized’ table loaf that resembled a good
solid bun, was made of this fine wheat flour.”
White dinner rolls
1 C
warm water
2 T.
yeast
1 T
sugar (to proof the yeast)
4 C
all-purpose flour
2 tsp.
salt
1 egg
½ C.
butter
¼ C
non-fat dry milk
Proof
yeast in water with sugar. Add flours, etc. Knead until elastic. Let rise for
an hour. Shape into orange-sized balls of equal size and let rise at room
temperature for one hour until doubled. Brush with more butter (to make a soft
crust). Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.
************************
To Know Good Cheese
Le Mènagier de Paris
Good cheese has six conditions. Non Argus, nec Helena, nec Maria
Magdalena, sec Lazarus et Martinus, respondens pontifici. Not white like Helen,
not weeping like Magdalene, not Argus, but completely blind, and as heavy as an
ox: It is firm against the thumb, and its coat is fine. Without eyes, without
weeping, not white, handsome, firm, well-weighted.
Caseus recens (Fresh Cheese)
Tacuinum Sanitatis, 1400s,
quoted in Early French Cookery, p. 86
The thicker part of the milk condenses with the addition
of rennet, the whey is expertly drawn off, and the cheese is formed. It is a
very nourishing, substantial food which softens and fattens the body…
Fresh cheese
1 qt.
whole milk
1 C.
heavy cream
1 Tb.
white wine vinegar
pinch
salt
Heat
milk and cream to “blood temperature,” which is about 105 degrees, but do not
let the milk/cream come to a boil! Take off the stove, then add the vinegar to
curdle it. Line a fine colander or sieve with two layers of cheesecloth, and
place over a pot or bowl to catch the whey drips. Carefully dump the curds into
the cheesecloth, gather up the ends, twist, and tie off. Let stand overnight in
a cool part of your kitchen, away from marauding felines, ferrets, pups, or
other creatures. The next day, add a pinch of salt to taste and stir gently.
Note: We used vinegar, used in period to
coagulate curds, rather than rennet, due to cost.
************************
On Cookery
And as
at such a feast there could be some very high, puissant, noble, venerable and
honorable lords and ladies who do not eat meat, for these there must be fish,
marine and fresh-water, fresh and salt, in such manner as one can get them.
Escrevisses (freshwater
crayfish)
Le Mènagier de Paris
Cook them in water and wine, more wine than water, and skim, then add
a little salt.
Escrevices (crayfish)
The Viandier de Taillevent,
#117
Cooked in water and wine, eaten with vinegar.
Simmered shrimp
20
shrimp
pot of
water
1 C.
wine
pinch
salt
Bring a
pot of salted water to a boil and add the wine. Add the shrimp, turn off the
heat, and let simmer for 10 minutes. Drain, and serve with black pepper sauce.
************************
Poivre Noir (black pepper
sauce)
The Viandier de Taillevent,
#165
Grind ginger, round pepper, and burnt toast, infuse this in a good
verjuice and boil it.
Black Pepper Sauce
Le Mènagier de Paris
Take a clove and a little pepper, ginger, and grind very fine: then
grind toasted bread soaked in a little liquid from the meat or in a little
cabbage-water which is better, then boil in an iron pan, and when boiling add
vinegar; then put in a pot on the fire to keep hot.
Pepper sauce
1 C
bread crumbs
1 tsp.
freshly ground pepper
½ inch
fresh minced gingerroot
1 C.
vegetable broth
1 Tb. lemon
juice
Bring
broth, crumbs, & gingerroot to a boil in a pan. Add juice and pepper, and
reduce for 5 minutes.
************************
Puree de poys (puree of peas)
Le Mènagier de Paris
When you have new peas, sometimes they are cooked on a meat day both
in meat stock and with ground parsley..
Cretonnée de pois nouveaulx
(puree of new peas)
The Viandier de Taillevent, #11
Cook them until they can be pureed, then puree them and fry them in
bacon grease…
Light pea soup
1 lb.
frozen peas
2 qts.
vegetable broth
2 qts.
water
1 bunch
fresh parsley, minced
pinch
saffron
Bring
water and broth to a simmer, add the seasonings and peas, and cook for
15minutes.
Rather
than the heavy, thick, meat broth-based pottage intended above, we chose to
make this as a light, vegetarian dish for our non-meat-eating guests at this
meal. – Katja & Grendel
************************
Syseros (A Pea Dish)
On Cookery, #76
To instruct the person who will be preparing the Pea Dish, he should
get his chick peas and cull through them one by one so that there is nothing
left but only the peas themselves, then he should wash them in three or four
changes of warm water and put them to boil. When they have boiled, he should
remove them from that water & put on a new, fresh water and them back in it
again to boil. When they have boiled, he should let them sit in that kettle
until the next day, when he should drain off the water and again put in new
fresh water, and put them to boil, with a very little salt, some almond oil,
whole parsley… & a little sage.
Chickpea salad
1 can
chickpeas
pinch
salt
1 Tb.
almond oil
2 Tb.
minced parsley
1 tsp.
dried sage
Mix
chickpeas with seasonings, cover, and chill to let flavorings blend.
************************
Herissons (Hedgehogs)
The Viandier de Taillevent,
#210
Chop raw meat as small as possible; mix seedless grapes and crumbled
rich cheese together with fine spice powder; get sheep cauls, scald them and
wash them thoroughly – though not in water hot enough to shrink them – and fill
them with the chopped meat, and then sew them up with a little wooden skewer.
More
detail on hedgehog preparation is provided in the following English recipe,
Yrchons – K&G
Two Fifteenth-Century
Cookery-Books, Thomas Austin, London, Oxford University Press, 1988.
…Take blaunchid Almaundys, & kerf hem long, smal & scharpe,
& frye hem in grece & sugre; take a litel prycke, & prykke the
yrchons, An putte in the holes the Almaundys, every hole half, & eche for
other; ley hem then to the fyre.
Le Mènagier de Paris
Take raw lean meat from a mutton thigh, and the same from a lean pork
thigh. It should be all chopped very finely together, then grind in the mortar
ginger, grains, clove, and sprinkle it into your chopped meat, and then moisten
with egg-white with no yolk; then use your hands to shape the raw meat and
spices… then when the shapes are well made, put them on to cook in water with
salt, then take them out, and have some hazelwood skewers and spit them and set
them to roast; and when they turn brown, have some parsley ground and sieved
and flour mixed together, neither too clear nor too thick…
Item, hedgehogs are made with mutton balls, and this is very
expensive and a lot of work with poor returns and little profit, so no more of
this.
Although
these recipes were prepared with pork and/or lamb, we chose to use beef so as
to provide a meat choice for our Kosher guests. The meat was freshly ground,
not purchased as pre-packaged ground beef. – Katja & Grendel
Molded meatloaves
4 lbs.
ground beef
½ C.
minced raisins
4 eggs
4 C.
bread crumbs
1 Tb.
ground ginger
1 Tb.
grains of paradise
1 tsp.
salt
toasted
almond slivers, raisins, and greens for garnish
Mix
together ingredients and form into loaves rounded at one and pointed at the
opposite end. Spray with oil and bake at 350 for 1 hour, rotating each 15
minutes to allow even roasting.
************************
Emplumeus de pomes (an
applesauce)
On Cookery, #73
Get good Barbarin apples in the amount that are to be done, pare them
properly and slice them up into fine gold or silver dishes. He should have a
fine, good clean earthenware pot, put good clean water in it and set this to
boil over good bright coals and set his apples to boil in it.
Applesauce
1 lb.
apples
2 C.
water (or enough to just cover the apples)
1 Tb.
sugar
Peel
and slice apples, then place in a Dutch oven. Add enough water just to cover
the apples, and let simmer for 30 minutes until the apples are softened. Add
sugar if not sweet enough.
************************
Calunafree de perdix
(partridge)
On Cookery, #47
He who will make it should take his partridges and clean them well
and properly and restore(?) them and lard them very well and then spit and
roast them very well and properly; and when they are roasted, take them off
onto a fair and clean board, and then take them one after the other and cut
them into fair members and leave the wings whole and cut the white meat very
small as if one were carving it before the lord, and put this on fair silver
dishes -- and if you do not have enough silver dishes put then in a fair and
clean pan. And take a great deal of cameline sauce and put it so that it covers
everything, and put on only enough mustard to give it taste, and put on
verjuice to cover everything. And according as you have meat take onions and
chop them very small and put them in, and sugar, and flavor it with salt in
good manner; and then put it to boil. And then when it comes to the sideboard
arrange it in good order on fair serving dishes.
Stuffed Chicks
Le Mènagier de Paris
…scald, pluck, gut, put it back together and stuff… And note that the
stuffing is made of parsley and a little sage with hard-cooked eggs and butter,
all chopped up together, and powdered spices too. For each chick you need three
eggs, whites and all.
Poullaille farce (stuffed
poultry)
Viviendier of Taillevent, 1370
Take your hens, cut their neck, scald and pluck them, and be careful
that the skin remains undamaged and whole; and do not plump the birds…To make
the stuffing, take mutton, veal, pork, and the cooked dark meat of chickens,
and chop up all of this raw, and grind it in a mortar, together with a great
quantity of raw eggs, cooked chestnuts, a good rich cheese, good spice powder
and a little saffron, and salt to taste. Then stuff your chickens and sew up
the hole again...
Roasted Cornish game hens
2
Cornish game hens, cleaned and rubbed with butter
5 to 10
strips of bacon, finely chopped
1 tsp.
prepared mustard
¼ C
minced fresh parsley
1 pinch
rubbed dry sage
1 C.
fresh bread crumbs
2
pinches salt
2 tb.
Reggiano
1 pinch
pepper
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Saute bacon until crisp, add seasonings, then bread crumbs, and combine. Stuff
into birds with a spoon, then place breast-down on a baking sheet and roast for
25 minutes. Flip carefully onto their backs, then continue roasting birds for
an additional 20 minutes until they are 160 degrees inside.
************************
To Make Camelin Sauce
Viviendier of Taillevent, 1370,
#155
Grind ginger, a great deal of cinnamon, cloves, grains of paradise,
mace, and if you wish, long pepper; strain bread that has been moistened in
vinegar, strain everything together and salt as necessary.
Cameline
Le Mènagier de Paris
Note that at Tournais, to make cameline, they grind together ginger,
cinnamon and saffron and half a nutmeg: soak in wine, then take out of the
mortar; then have white bread crumbs, not toasted, moistened with cold water
and grind in the mortar, soak in wine and strain, then boil it all, and lastly
add red sugar: and this is winter cameline. And in summer they make it the same
way, but it is not boiled. And in truth, for my taste, the winter sort is good,
but the following is much better: grind a little ginger with lots of cinnamon,
then take it out, and have lots of toasted bread or bread-crumbs in vinegar,
ground and strained.
Cinnamon sauce
4 C
breadcrumbs
4 C water
½ red
wine vinegar
¼ C cinnamon
pinch grains
of paradise, cubebs
1 Tb. sugar
************************
A Barley Dish
On Cookery, #78
To instruct the person who will be getting it ready, he should see
that he has his pure barley and have it ground in such a way that the grains
remain whole; and when it has been ground, put it back into the winnowing-sieve
and winnow it and remove all straw from it, then cull through it and clean it
so that only the grains remain, then wash it in three or four or more changes
of warm water until it is thoroughly cleaned; then put it to boil in good water
in a bright, good and clean kettle, skimming it carefully. When it has come to
a boil, drain the water off, then, when it is well drained, put good fresh
water again and put it back to boil until it is done; then take it down onto
warm coals and let it sit there until the next day, covering it good and neatly…
Formentee (frumenty)
Viandier of Taillevent, 1370
Clean grains of wheat in warm water, wrap in a cloth and beat heavily
on this with a pestle until all the chaff has separated, and wash it well and
cook it in water; when it has cooked, mash it; bring cow’s milk to a boil, put
the wheat into it and bring it to a boil again stirring frequently; remove this
from the fire and stir frequently and add a great quantity of beaten egg yolks,
and it should not be too hot when they are added; and some people add spices
and a little saffron and venison water.
Frumenty
Le Mènagier de Paris
First, you must hull your wheat the same as you would for hulled
barley, and remember that for ten bowls you need a pound of hulled wheat, which
you can sometimes find at the spice-shop already hulled for one blanc per
pound. Clean it and cook it in water in the evening, and leave it overnight
covered by the fire in lukewarm water, then take it out and wash it. Then boil
milk in a skillet and do not stir it, for it would turn: and without waiting,
put it all at once into a clean pot; and when it is cold, take the cream off
the top so that this cream does not cause the frumenty to turn, and then boil
the milk again with a little wheat, but very little wheat; then take egg yolks
and pour them in, that for each sixth of milk a hundred eggs, then take the
boiling milk, and beat the eggs with the milk, then move the pot back and throw
in the eggs, and move it back (away); and if you see that it is trying to turn,
put the pot in a full pail of water. On fish days, use milk: on meat days, use
meat juices; and you can add saffron if the eggs aren't yellow enough; item,
half a piece of ginger.
To Clean Barley or Wheat To
Make Frumenty
You need very hot water, and put the wheat or barley in this hot
water, and wash and rub very thoroughly for a long time: then pour off all the
water, and let the wheat or barley dry and then pound it with a wooden pestle,
then winnow it in a wash-basin.
Barley with milk
5 lbs.
toasted barley
1 qt.
milk
Cook
barley in milk and water for 1 hour until cooked through.
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This Is The Way To Make Compote
(turnips, carrots, and gourds)
Le Mènagier de Paris
Take, around All Saints Day
(November 1), large turnips, and peel them and chop them in quarters, and then
put on to cook in water: and when they are partially cooked, take them out and
put them in cold water to make them tender, and then let them drain; and take
honey and do the same as with the walnuts, and be careful not to over-cook your
turnips.
Item, on All Saints, take
carrots as many as you wish, and when they are well cleaned and chopped in
pieces, cook them like the turnips. (Carrots are red roots which are sold at
the Halles in baskets, and each basket costs one blanc.)
Item, when gourds are in
season, take those which are neither too hard nor too tender, and peel them and
remove the seeds and cut into quarters, and do the same to them as to the
turnips.
We chose to combine these three different recipes for
making preserved root vegetables into one dish, so as to provide variety for our
guests. – Katja & Grendel
Honey-glazed root vegetables
5 lbs.
carrots
3 lbs.
turnips
5 lbs.
squash
honey
salt
Peel
vegetables and chop or slice. Braise in a little water until softened slightly,
then season with salt to taste and drizzle on honey.
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Rosseolles on a Fish Day (Fruit
rissoles)
Le Mènagier de Paris
Item, on ordinary days, they can be made of figs, grapes, chopped
apples and shelled nuts to mimic pignon nuts, and powdered spices: and the
dough should be very well saffroned, then fry them in oil. If you need a
liaison, starch binds and so does rice.
Rissoles
On Cookery, #51
…And arrange that you have figs, prunes, dates, pine nuts, and
candied raisins; remove the stems from the raisins, and the shells from the
pine nuts, and all other things which are not clean; and then wash all this
very well one or two or three times in good white wine and then put them to
drain on fair and clean boards; and then cut the figs and prunes and dates all
into small dice and mix them with your filling. And then arrange that you have
the best cheese which can be made… and then mix this very well with your
filling, and eggs also; and take your spices: white ginger, grains of
paradise--and not too much, saffron, and a great deal of sugar according to the
quantity which you are making. And then deliver your filling to your
pastry-cook, and let him be prepared to make his fair leaves of pastry to make
gold-colored crusts(?); and when they are made, let him bring them to you and
you should have fair white pork lard to fry them; and when they are fried, you
should have gold leaf: for each gold-colored crust(?) which there is, have one
little leaf of gold to put on top. And when this comes to the sideboard arrange
them on fair serving dishes and then throw sugar on top.
Fruit turnovers
Dough (Early
French Cookery, p. 70)
½ C
warm water
3 to 4
Tb. butter
½ tsp
salt
pinch
saffron to make the crusts golden
1-½ C
soft flour
Mix
together water, oil, salt, and saffron. Stir in flour a little at a time. Knead
until smooth. Let rest half an hour. Roll out to the thickness of a dime, and
cut into 4-inch rounds. Fill and seal edges with water/flour mixture. Cook in
boiling water for 5 minutes and drain. Pan-fry in butter and serve.
Fruit
filling
5 lbs.
apples
1 lb.
figs
2 lbs.
cottage cheese or farmers cheese
1 lb.
raisins
1 C.
sugar
1 Tb.
cinnamon
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Dragees
Le Mènagier de Paris
…half a pound of anise, a quatrain and a half of fennel, a quatrain
and a half of coriander, a quatrain and a half of caraway seed, which is a seed
eaten in dragees…
For dessert: compete, with
red and white sugared dragees placed on top: rissoles, flans, figs, dates,
grapes, nuts… Hippocras and the wafer dish to finish.
On Cookery, #23
…when it is to be dressed do not forget the sugar-spice pellets
[dragiees] which should be scattered on top.
Candied seeds
1 cup
fine sugar
½ C seeds (coriander, anise, caraway, fennel)
½ C hot
water
red and
white food coloring
Cook a
sugar syrup to the soft ball stage. Spoon some over dry seeds and stir them
around with a fork. Keep adding syrup and stirring the seeds to build up layers
of candying. Let cool between layers.
Sources
An Acquired Taste: The French Origins of Modern Cooking, T.
Sarah Peterson, Cornell University Press, 1994.
Chiquart’s On Cookery (Du Fait de Cuisine), 1420; translation, Terence Scully, Peter
Lang, New York, 1986.
Elizabeth Cook translation available on-line at
www.best.com/~ddfr/Medieval/Cookbooks/Du_Fait_de_Cuisine/Du_fait_de_Cuisine.html
Early French Cookery: Sources, History, Original Recipes and Modern
Adaptations, D. Eleanor Scully and Terence Scully, University of
Michigan Press, 1995.
Le Mènagier de Paris (The Goodman of Paris): A Treatise on Moral and
Domestic Economy by A Citizen of Paris, 1393; translation by Eileen
Power, Harcourt Brace and Company, New York, 1928.
Janet Hinson translation available on-line at
http://daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Menagier/Menagier_Contents.html
The Viandier of Taillevent (Guillame Tirel, the Provisioner): An
Edition of All Extant Manuscripts (c. 1370), edited by Terence
Scully, University of Ottawa Press, 1988.
Dr.
Thomas Gloning transcription (in French) available on-line at
http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~gloning/vi-vat.htm