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Early English Recipe
Selected from the Harleian Ms. 279
of about 1430 A.D.
With Wood Engravings by
Margaret Webb
Take a capon, scald it, clean it, and "smyte hem a-to in the waste across." Take a small pig, scald it, clean it, and cut it in half at the middle, also.
Take a needle and thread and sew the fore part of the capon to the after part of the pig, and vice versa. Then stuff it as you would stuff a pig.
Put it on a spit and roast it. When it is done "gild hem" with egg yolks, powered ginger and safron and wet with a juice of parsley.
"Than serve it forth for a ryal mete."
Boil a tenche and spread it out on a dish [a tenche is a small fish like a carp].
Take parsley and onions and mince them together. Take powdered pepper and cinnamon and cover the fish. Take vinegar and "caste safroun there-on" to color it.
And "serve it forth thanne all colde."
Clean a goose and "hacke hyre to gobettys." Put it in a pot of boiling water.
Then take pepper and "burnt bread, or Blode y-boylyd." Grind ginger and galyngale [an aromatic root] and season with ale and add it to the pot. Mince Onions and fry them in fresh oil. And do "ther-to a porcyon of wine."
Take a quart of honey and boil it and skim it clean. Add safron and powdered pepper. Take grated bread and add until it is so stiff that it could be cut into strips. Then take powdered cinnamon and sprinkle on the top. Shape it into a square for slicing. When it is sliced put "box leves" on top with cloves. To color it red add red sandal wood.
Clean and wash small birds and remove the legs. Fry them in a pan of fresh oil "ryt wyl." Then put them on a fresh cloth to let the grease run out.
Mince onions and fry them in the grease and put them in an earthen pot. Take a good portion of cinnamon and wine, pour through a strainer into the pot with the onions. Put the birds in with cloves, maces, and a small quantity of powdered pepper. Boil them until cooked. Then sprinkle with white sugar, powdered ginger, salt and safron, and serve.
Take almond milk, the "flowre of Rys," meat from a capon or hen and powdered ginger and boil it together until thick. When finished sprinkle with maces and quybibes [two spices] and serve.
Take a shovel of iron and heat it burning hot. Take it out of the fire and fill it full of salt. Make a pit in the salt in the shape of a wooden bowl. Put the pan and the salt over the fire again until the salt is burning hot.
Break an egg into the hole in the salt and let it cook over the fire until it is half hard. Cover a plate with salt. Move the egg to the salt covered dish and serve.
Take eels or gurnard [a fish] and slice them open. Put them in a pot with a liquid of half wine and half water. Chop up parsley and onions and add to pot. Add cloves or Mace, and add safron. Boil until done. Take powdered ginger, cinnamon, galingale and mix with wine. Add that to the pot and serve.
Put honey in a pot "tyl it wexe thick y-now." After the honey sits clean it. Add ginger, cinnamon and galyngale to the honey. Take white bread and cut it into big slices and toast it. Take the paste while it is hot and spread it on the bread. Then cover with pine nuts and serve.
Combine clean flour, safron, sugar and salt and make it into pastry dough. Shape it as a pie crust. Separate the whites and yolks of eggs making sure the yolks are not broken. Put 3 or 4 yolks into the pie crust. Take the marrow from some bones and divide it into small pieces and put them into the pie crust. Take powdered ginger, sugar, and raisons and spead them on top of the pie. Cover the open pie with a crust and bake. After it is baked fry it in fresh oil and serve.
Take the seeds out of cherries and wash them in wine. "Wryng hem" through a cloth and into a pot. Add enough "whyte grece" and flour to make it thick. Add honey or sugar. "Make it piquant with Venegre." Season it with strong powder of cinnamon and galyngale, and mix it with egg yolks. Color it with safron or saunderys. Add whole cherries when serving.
"Take Hennys, an roste hem." Grind garlic and put in pan with milk. Cut up the hen and add it to the garlic and milk with ege yolks. Color it with safron and milk, and serve.
Mix almond milk and flour. Add sugar or honey and powdered ginger and galyngale. Add figs that have been chopped up or raisins or a hard bread made with fine flower that has been diced and color it with saunderys. Cook the mixture, and serve it.
Take some finely ground wheat flour. Break an egg into the flour and color the mixture with safron. Roll it out on a board as thin as parchment, and shape it into sacramental wafers. Fry it and serve. For lent leave out the egg and substitute milk of almonds. Fry it in oil and serve.
Make small pie crust shells. Take boiled chicken or boiled pork, or both, and "smale y-hackyd." Chop cloves, mace, quybibes [a spice related to pepper]and add crumbled marrow and sugar. Put the combination into the shells and in the middle place a piece of marrow and sprinkle sugar around the top. Bake. This is for supper.
Take large oysters and remove the shells. Put the liquid from the oysters, ale [bastard -- a sweet Spanish wine], some strained bread, and water in a pot. Add ginger, sugar, safron, powdered pepper, and salt and let it boil well. Then put the oysters in and take it to the table.
Take walkys [whelks] and boil in ale. Then pick it clean and wash it in water and salt. Rub it with ale and salt so it will be slippery. Put it in vinegar and sprinkle parsley on top. And serve.
Mix almond milk and wine and boil them together. Add safron and salt. Cut up bread with a heavy crust and toast it. Then wet it in wine and put it in a dish and pore the syrup over it. Make a "dredge" of powdered ginger, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, mace and put it on top. Serve.
Boil two or three pared apples and strain them through a strainer. Add flour and white wine and strain it all. Make sure that it is not too stiff. Add saunderys and safron, and let it be marbelized. Add raisins and shredded almonds. Mince dates and add them with a little honey to make it "dulcet" -- or else add sugar. Then add mace, cloves, pepper, cinnamon, ginger, and other spices. Take pears and boil them a bit. Then heat them on the coals until they are tender, and cut them into small pieces. Sprinkle the bits of pear on the top before serving.
Combine almond milk, sugar, powdered ginger, galyngale, cinnamon and red wine. Boil them together. That is good tannye.
Take flowers of hawthorn -- boil, press, and grind them into small pieces. Mix with almond milk or good cow milk. Combine it with "amydoun [wheat flour, steeped, strained, and dried in the sun] or flowre of rys." Add sugar or honey, if no sugar is available. Color it with the hawthorn flowers.
Take a cleaned, raw "roe of Pyke" and put it on a mortar. Add grated bread. Grind them into as small pieces as you can. If the mixture is too stiff add almond milk and stir it together. Add safron, salt, and white sugar. Put into a clean wooden bowl and mix it by hand. It should be thin enough that it could be pored out of the bowl.
Strain the broth of a "pyke or "freysshe samoun" into a cooking pot. Add parsley and sage and let it boil. Then add a little safron and salt. When it has boiled a while stir it fast and add "the stuffe there-to, and stere it evermore." "Caste a litel an a litel in-to the chafoure." [cooking pot] Stir softer and softer until it comes together. Then gather it together with a ladel -- soft until it is round together.
Take it off the fire and set aside to cool and let it become "styf be hys owne acord." Then serve.
Take egg white, milk, flour and a little "barm" and beat it together. Pore through a strainer "so it be renneng" and not too stiff. Add sugar and salt. Put fresh oil into a deep pot; put it on the fire and bring to a boil. Put "the hond in the bature" and let it run down the fingers into the pot. When it is cooked use a "skymer" to take it out. Drain off the oil. Put it on a dish and sprinkle with sugar. Serve.
Make pie crust shells. Cut open a lampray and let the blood drain into a bowl. Cut up brown bread and soak it in vinegar. Then strain it into the bowl. Add cinnamon until the blood has become brown. Add powdered pepper, salt and a little wine that is not too sharp.
Skald the lampray and skin it. Put the lampray in the pie crust and add the mixture until it covers the fish. Then cover it with a top of pie crust, which has a hole in the middle. At the hole, blow in the pie crust "with the mowthe a gode blast of Wynde." Quickly close the hole "that the wynd a-byde with-ynne, to reyse uppe the cofynne [pie] that he falle nowt a-dowune."
When it has cooked in the oven enough to get hard prick the pie crust top and bake it.
When the lampray has been eaten take the syrup from the pie plate and put it into a bowl. Add wine and powdered ginger and let it boil in the fire. Take bread that has been soaked in wine and put it in the pie plate. Pore the syrup over it and eat it hot -- for it is "gode lordys mete."
Take a fresh sturgeon and chop it up into clean water. After cooking take it from the fire and stain the broth through a strainer and into a pot. "Pyke clene the fysshe" and add powdered pepper, cloves, mace and cinnamon. Soak bread in the mixture and then add it to the pot. Add safron, ginger, salt and vinegar and serve.
Take a pot of clarified honey, a pound of pine nuts, a pound of raisins, a pound of saunderys [sandalwood spice], powdered cinnamon, 2 gallons of wine or ale, a pound of pepper, and put it all in a pot. Take 3 pounds of amyndouns [gritty type of grain such as wheat germ] a gallon of wine, a gallon of vinegar and let it steep together. Then strain it. Put it on the fire. When it boils add the liquor and cook until stiff. When finished cooking add powdered ginger, salt and safron and season it "uppe." Put it on a flat dish, hot, and sprinkle with powdered ginger and serve.
Take mulberrys and "wrynge a gode hepe of hem thorw a clothe." Take veal, cut it up and grind it and add it to the mulberrys. Add good spices and sugar. Grate "wastilbrede" and add egg yolks, and mix it all together. Then sprinkle with powdered spices and serve it.
Boil lean pork; when it is cooked well cut it into small pieces. Take safron, ginger, cinnamon, salt, galyngale, old cheese, and crumbled bread -- grind them in a mortar. Put the pork in with the spices and grind it well. Add a raw egg and mix. Grease a pot and fill it with the mixture. Take a piece of canvas and double it and cover it "fast a-bowte the rim." Cook it in "the grete fleysshe" or in a cauldron. When it is firmed up take it out of the pot and put it on a spit and "lay it to the fyre."
Make a good batter of spicerye, safron, galyngale, cinnamon, and flower and grind it in a mortar. Then add a raw egg and sugar of Alexandria. As it cooks on the fire baste it with batter.
Boil together wine, spices, ground bread and sugar. Clean" trowtys, rochys," perch or carp, or all together. Roast them on a griddle and "hewe hem in gobettys." When they have been boiled fry them in oil a little. Then add to the "brwet." Then cover it with mace, cloves, guybibes, gilliflowers and serve.
Take wheat and pick it clean. Grind it in a mortar. Add a bit of water and stamp with the pestel until it loses the husks. Blow out the husks and put the grain in a pot and boil it until the grains burst open. Take it off the fire and let it cool. Put it back on the fire
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