Chapter XVI

OLD ENGLISH COOKERY.--HISTORY OF “GOURMANDISE.”--ENGLISH COOKERY
OF THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.--BILLS OF FARE.--GREAT
FEASTS.

I have spoken of the ceremonious forms of the service of the mediæval table, but we are just now arrived at the period when we begin to have full information on the composition of the culinary dishes in which our ancestors indulged, and it will perhaps be well to give a brief summary of that information as illustrative both of the period we have now been considering, and of that which follows.

There is a part of the human frame, not very noble in itself, which, nevertheless, many people are said to worship, and which has even exercised at times a considerable influence over man’s destinies. Gastrolatry, indeed, is a worship which, at one time or other, has prevailed in different forms over all parts of the world--its history takes an extensive range, and is not altogether without interest. One of the first objects of search in a man who has just risen from savage life to civilization is rather naturally refinement in his food, and this desire more than keeps pace with the advance of general refinement, until cookery becomes one of the most important of social institutions. During all periods of which we read in history, great public acts, of whatever kind, even to the consecration of a church, have been accompanied with feasting; and the same rule holds good throughout all the different phases of our social relations. The materials for the history of eating are, indeed, abundant, and the field is extensive.

William of Malmesbury, as we have seen before, tells us that the Anglo-Saxons indulged in great feasting, and lived in very mean houses; whereas the Normans eat with moderation, but built for themselves magnificent mansions. Various allusions in old writers leave little room for doubt that our Anglo-Saxon forefathers indulged in much eating; but, as far as we can gather, for our information is very imperfect, this indulgence consisted more in the quantity than in the quality of the food, for their cookery seems to have been in general what we call “plain.” Refinement in cookery appears to have come in with the Normans; and from the twelfth century to the sixteenth we can trace the love of the table continually increasing. The monks, whose institution had, to a certain degree, separated them from the rest of the world, and who usually, and from the circumstances perhaps naturally, sought sensual gratifications, fell soon into the sin of gluttony, and they seem to have led the way in refinement in the variety and elaborate character of their dishes. Giraldus Cambrensis, an ecclesiastic himself, complains in very indignant terms of the luxurious table kept by the monks of Canterbury in the latter half of the twelfth century; and he relates an anecdote which shows how far at that time the clergy were, in this respect, in advance of the laity. One day, when Henry II. paid a visit to Winchester, the prior and monks of St. Swithin met him, and fell on their knees before him to complain of the tyranny of their bishop. When the king asked what was their grievance, they said that their table had been curtailed of three dishes. The king, somewhat surprised at this complaint, and imagining, no doubt, that the bishop had not left them enough to eat, inquired how many dishes he had left them. They replied, ten; at which the king, in a fit of indignation, told them that he himself had no more than three dishes to his table, and uttered an imprecation against the bishop, unless he reduced them to the same number.

But although we have abundant evidence of the general fact that our Norman and English forefathers loved the table, we have but imperfect information on the character of their cookery until the latter half of the fourteenth century, when the rules and receipts for cooking appear to have been very generally committed to writing, and a certain number of cookery-books belonging to this period and to the following century remain in manuscript, forming very curious records of the domestic life of our forefathers. From these I will give a few illustrations of this subject. These cookery-books sometimes contain plans for dinners of different descriptions, or, as we should now say, bills of fare, which enable us, by comparing the names of the dishes with the receipts for making them, to form a tolerably distinct notion of the manner in which our forefathers fared at table from four to five hundred years ago. The first example we shall give is furnished by a manuscript of the beginning of the fifteenth century, and belongs to the latter part of the century preceding; that is, to the reign of Richard II., a period remarkable for the fashion for luxurious living: it gives us the following bill of fare for the ordinary table of a gentleman, which I will arrange in the form of a bill of fare of the present day, modernizing the language, except in the case of obsolete words.

_First Course._

Boar’s head enarmed (_larded_), and “bruce,” for pottage.
Beef. Mutton. Pestles (_legs_) of Pork.
Swan. Roasted Rabbit. Tart.

_Second Course._

Drope and Rose, for pottage.
Mallard. Pheasant. Chickens, “farsed” and roasted.
“Malachis,” baked.

_Third Course._

Conings (_rabbits_), in gravy, and hare, in “brasé,” for pottage.
Teals, roasted. Woodcocks. Snipes.
“Raffyolys,” baked. “Flampoyntes.”

It may be well to make the general remark, that the ordinary number of courses at dinner was three. To begin, then, with the first dish, boar’s-head was a favourite article at table, and needs no explanation. The pottage which follows, under the name of _bruce_, was made as follows, according to a receipt in the same cookery-book which has furnished the bill of fare:--

Take the umbles of a swine, and parboil them (_boil them slowly_),
and cut them small, and put them in a pot, with some good broth;
then take the whites of leeks, and slit them, and cut them small,
and put them in, with minced onions, and let it all boil; next take
bread steeped in broth, and “draw it up” with blood and vinegar,
and put it into a pot, with pepper and cloves, and let it boil; and
serve all this together.

In the second course, _drope_ is probably an error for _drore_, a pottage, which, according to the same cookery-book, was made as follows:--

Take almonds, and blanch and grind them, and mix them with good
meat broth, and seethe this in a pot; then mince onions, and fry
them in fresh “grease,” and put them to the almonds; take small
birds, and parboil them, and throw them into the pottage, with
cinnamon and cloves and a little “fair grease,” and boil the whole.

_Rose_ was made as follows:--

Take powdered rice, and boil it in almond-milk till it be thick,
and take the brawn of capons and hens, beat it in a mortar, and mix
it with the preceding, and put the whole into a pot, with powdered
cinnamon and cloves, and whole mace, and colour it with saunders
(_sandal-wood_).

It may be necessary to explain that almond-milk consisted simply of almonds ground and mixed with milk or broth. The _farsure_, or stuffing, for chickens was made thus:--

Take fresh pork, seethe it, chop it small, and grind it well; put
to it hard yolks of eggs, well mixed together, with dried currants,
powder of cinnamon and maces, cubebs, and cloves whole, and roast
it.

I am unable to explain the meaning of _malachis_, the dish which concludes this course.

The first dish in the third course, coneys, or rabbits, in gravy, was made as follows:--

Take rabbits, and parboil them, and chop them in “gobbets,” and
seethe them in a pot with good broth; then grind almonds, “dress
them up” with beef broth, and boil this in a pot; and, after
passing it through a strainer, put it to the rabbits, adding to the
whole cloves, maces, pines (_the kernels of the pine cone_), and
sugar; colour it with sandal-wood, saffron, bastard or other wine,
and cinnamon powder mixed together, and add a little vinegar.

Not less complicated was the boar in _brasé_, or _brasey_:--

Take the ribs of a boar, while they are fresh, and parboil them
till they are half boiled; then roast them, and, when they are
roasted, chop them, and put them in a pot with good fresh beef
broth and wine, and add cloves, maces, pines, currants, and
powdered pepper; then put chopped onions in a pan, with fresh
grease, fry them first and then boil them; next, take bread,
steeped in broth, “draw it up” and put it to the onions, and colour
it with sandal-wood and saffron, and as it settles, put a little
vinegar mixed with powdered cinnamon to it; then take brawn, and
cut it into slices two inches long, and throw it into the pot with
the foregoing, and serve it all up together.

_Raffyolys_ were a sort of patties, made as follows:--

Take swine’s flesh, seethe it, chop it small, add to it yolks of
eggs, and mix them well together; put to this a little minced lard,
grated cheese, powdered ginger, and cinnamon; make of this balls of
the size of an apple, and wrap them up in the cawl of the swine,
each ball by itself; make a raised crust of dough, and put the ball
in it, and bake it; when they are baked, take yolks of eggs well
beaten, with sugar and pepper, coloured with saffron, and pour this
mixture over them.

_Flampoyntes_ were made thus:--

Take good “interlarded” pork, seethe it, and chop it, and grind it
small; put to it good fat cheese grated, and sugar and pepper; put
this in raised paste like the preceding; then make a thin leaf of
dough, out of which cut small “points,” fry these in grease, and
then stick them in the foregoing mixture after it has been put in
the crust, and bake it.

Such was a tolerably respectable dinner at the end of the fourteenth century; but the same treatise gives us the following bill of fare, for a larger dinner, though still arranged in three courses:--

_First Course._

Browet farsed, and charlet, for pottage.
Baked mallard. Teals. Small birds. Almond milk served with them.
Capon roasted with the syrup.
Roasted veal. Pig roasted “‘endored,’ and served with the yolk on his
neck over gilt.” Herons.
A “leche.” A tart of flesh.

_Second Course._

Browet of Almayne and Viaunde rial for pottage.
Mallard. Roasted rabbits. Pheasant. Venison.
Jelly. A leche. Urchynnes (_hedgehogs_).
Pome de orynge.

_Third Course._

Boar in egurdouce, and Mawmené, for pottage.
Cranes. Kid. Curlew. Partridge. (All roasted.)
A leche. A crustade.
A peacock endored and roasted, and served with the skin.
Cockagris. Flaumpoyntes. Daryoles.
Pears in syrup.

The receipt for making _farsed browet_, or _browet farsyn_, is literally as follows:--

Take almonds and pound them, and mix with beef broth, so as to
make it thick, and put it in a pot with cloves, maces, and figs,
currants, and minced ginger, and let all this seethe; take bread,
and steep it in sweet wine, and “draw it up,” and put it to the
almonds with sugar; then take _conyngs_ (rabbits), or rabbettes
(_young rabbits_), or squirrels, and first parboil and then fry
them, and partridges parboiled; fry them whole for a lord, but
otherwise chop them into gobbets; and when they are almost fried,
cast them in a pot, and let them boil altogether, and colour with
sandal-wood and saffron; then add vinegar and powdered cinnamon
strained with wine, and give it a boil; then take it from the fire,
and see that the pottage is thin, and throw in a good quantity of
powdered ginger.

It is repeated, at the end of this receipt, that, for a lord, a coney, rabbit, squirrel, or partridge, should be served whole in this manner. The other pottage in this course, _charlet_, was less complex, and was made thus:--

Take sweet cow’s milk, put it in a pan, throw into it the yolks and
white of eggs, and boiled pork, pounded, and sage; let it boil till
it curds, and colour it with saffron.

The following was the syrup for a capon:--

Take almonds, and pound them, and mix them with wine, till they
make a thick “milk,” and colour it with saffron, and put it in a
saucepan, and put into it a good quantity of figs and currants, and
add ground ginger, cloves, galingale (_a spice much used in the
middle ages_), and cinnamon; let all this boil; add sugar, and pour
it over your capon or pheasant.

The _leche_ in this first course was, perhaps, the dish which is called in the receipts a _leche lumbarde_, which was made thus:--

Take raw pork, and pull off the skin, and pick out the skin sinews,
and pound the pork in a mortar with raw eggs; add to it sugar,
salt, raisins, currants, minced dates, powdered pepper, and cloves;
put it in a bladder, and let it seethe till it be done enough, and
then cut it into slips of the form of peas-cods: grind raisins in
a mortar, mix them with red wine, and put to them almond-milk,
coloured with sandal-wood and saffron, and add pepper and cloves,
and then boil the whole; when it is boiled, mix cinnamon and ginger
with wine and pour on it, and so serve it.

_Browet of Almayne_, which comes in with the second course of this dinner, was a rather celebrated pottage. It was made in the following manner:--

Take coneys, and parboil them, and chop them in gobbets, and put
them with ribs of pork or kid into a pot, and seethe it; then take
ground almonds, and mix them with beef broth, and put this in a
pot with cloves, maces, pines, minced ginger, and currants, and
with onions, and boil it, and colour it with saffron, and when
this is boiled, take the flesh out from the broth, and put it in
it; and take “alkanet” (_alkanet is explained in the dictionaries
as the name of a plant, wild buglos; it appears to have been used
in cookery to give colour_), and fry it, and press it into the pot
through a strainer, and finally add a little vinegar and ground
ginger mixed together.

The composition of _viande royale_ was as follows:--

Take Greek wine, or Rhenish wine, and clarified honey, and mix
them well with ground rice, ginger, pepper, cinnamon, and cloves,
saffron, sugar, mulberries, and sandal-wood; boil the mixture, and
salt it, and take care that it be thick.

_Pome de oringe_ was quite a different thing to what we should expect from the name. It was made as follows:--

Take pork liver, pound it well raw, and put to it ground pepper,
cloves, cinnamon, saffron, and currants; make of this balls like
apples, and wet them well in the white of eggs, and then put them
in boiling water, and let them seethe, and when they have seethed a
while, take them out, and put them on a spit, and roast them well;
then take parsley, and grind it, and wring it up with eggs through
a strainer, and put a little flour to it, and with this “endore”
the balls while roasting, and, if you will, you may take saffron,
sandal-wood, or indigo, to colour them.

_Endore_ was the technical term of the kitchen for washing over an article of cookery with yolks of eggs, or any other liquid, to give a shiny appearance to its exterior when cooked.

Both the pottages in the third course are rather elaborate ones. The following was the process of making boar in _egurdouce_, or _egredouce_, a word which of course means “sour-sweet:”--

Take dates, washed clean, and currants, and boil them, and pound
them together, and in pounding put cloves to them, and mix them up
with vinegar, or clarey, or other sweet wine, and put it in a fair
pot, and boil it well; and then put to it half a quartern of sugar,
or else honey, and half an ounce of cinnamon in powder, and in the
“setting down” take a little vinegar and mix with it, and half an
ounce of ground ginger, and a little sandal-wood and saffron; and
in the boiling put minced ginger to it; next, take fresh brawn,
and seethe it, and then cut it in thin slices, and lay three in a
dish, and then take half a pound of pines, and fry them in fresh
grease, and throw the pines into it; and when they are thoroughly
hot take them out with a skimmer, and let them dry, and cast them
into the same pot; and then put the syrup above the brawn in the
dishes, and serve it.

_Mawmené_ was made according to the following receipt:--

Take almonds and blanch them and pound them, and mix them with
water or wine, and take the brawn of capons or pheasants, and pound
it small, and mix it with the other, and add ground rice, and put
it in a pot and let it boil; and add powder of ginger and cloves,
and cinnamon and sugar; and take rice, and parboil it and grind it,
and add it to them, and colour it with sandal-wood, and pour it out
in dishes; and take the grains of pomegranates and stick in it, or
almonds or pines fried in grease, and strew sugar over it.

The following was the manner of making the _crustade_, mentioned in the third course of this bill of fare:--

Take chickens, and pigeons, and small birds, and make them clean,
and chop them to pieces, and stew them altogether in a good broth
made of fair grease and ground pepper and cloves, and add verjus to
it, and colour it with saffron; then make raised crusts, and pinch
them and lay the flesh therein, and put to it currants, and ground
ginger, and cinnamon; and take raw eggs, and break them, and strain
them through a strainer into the pottage of the stew, and stir it
well together, and pour it into the raised crusts, above the flesh,
and then place the covers on them and serve them.

The process of serving a peacock “with the skin” also requires some explanation. The skin was first stripped off, with the feathers, tail, and neck and head, and it was spread on a table and strewed with ground cummin; then the peacock was taken and roasted, and “endored” with raw yolks of eggs; and when roasted, and after it had been allowed to cool a little, it was sewn into the skin, and thus served on the table, always with the last course, when it looked as though the bird were alive. To make _cokagrys_, you must

Take an old cock and pull him, and wash him, and skin him all but
the legs, and fill him full of the stuffing made for the pome de
oringe; and also take a pig and skin him from the middle downwards,
and fill him full of the same stuffing, and sew them fast together,
and seethe them; and when they have seethed a good while, take them
up and put them on a spit, and roast them well, and endore them
with yolks of eggs mixed with saffron; and when they are roasted,
before placing them on the table, lay gold and silver foil on them.

Flampoyntes have been already explained. Pears in syrup were merely boiled in wine, and seasoned with sugar and spices.

In these bills of fare, our readers who believe in the prevalence of “old English roast beef,” will find that belief singularly dissipated, for our ancestors seem to have indulged in all sorts of elaborately made dishes, in which immense quantities of spices were employed. The number of receipts in these early cookery-books is wonderfully great, and it is evident that people sought variety almost above all other things. Among the Sloane manuscripts in the library of the British Museum, there is a very complete cookery-book (MS. No. 1201) belonging to the latter part of the fifteenth century, which gives seven bills of fare of seven dinners, each to differ entirely in the dishes composing it from the other, with the object, of course, of giving a different dinner every day during seven consecutive days. In the foregoing bills of fare, we have seen that on flesh-days no fish was introduced on the table, but fish is introduced along with flesh in the seven dinners just alluded to, which are, moreover, curious for the number of articles, chiefly birds, introduced in them, which we are not now accustomed to eat. The first of these bills of fare, which are all limited to two courses, runs as follows:--

_First Course, of Eleven Dishes._

Nowmbles (_umbles_) of an harte. Vyand ryalle. The syde of an hert rostede.
Swanne with chauderoun. Fesaunt rostede. Bytore (_bittern_) rostede.
Pyke, and grete gurnarde.
Haggesse of Almayne. Blaunche custade.
A sotelté, a blake bore enarmede with golde.

_Second Course, of Eleven Dishes._

Gelé. Cream of almonds.
Kynd kydde. Fillets of an herte endored. Squyrelle rost.
Chykons (_chickens_) ylarded. Partriche and lark rost.
Perche and porpoys rost.
Frytours Lumbard. Payne puffe (_puff-bread_).
A sotelté, a castelle of sylver with fanes (_vanes or flags_) of gold.

It appears that at this time it was considered more absolutely necessary than at an earlier period, that each course at table should be accompanied with a subtilty, or ornamental device in pastry, representing groups of various descriptions, as here a black boar and a castle. We have here the porpoise eaten among fishes, and the squirrel among animals; we have before seen hedgehogs served at table. In the “Ménagier de Paris,” a French compilation, made in the year 1393, a hedgehog is directed to have its throat cut, and to be skinned and emptied, and then to be arranged as a chicken, and pressed and well dried in a towel; after this it was to be roasted and eaten with “cameline,” a word the exact meaning of which seems not to be known; or in pastry, with duckling sauce. Squirrels were to be treated as rabbits. The same book gives directions for cooking magpies, rooks, and jackdaws. The second of the seven bills of fare given in the Sloane Manuscript contains turtles (the bird) and throstles, roasted; in the third we have roasted egrets (a species of heron), starlings, and linnets; in the fourth, “martinettes;” in the fifth, barnacles, “molette,” sparrows, and, among fishes, minnows; and in the sixth, roasted cormorants, heathcocks, sheldrakes, dotterels, and thrushes. The seventh bill of fare runs thus:--

_First Course, of Nine Dishes._

Long wortes (_vegetables_). An hen in dubate.
Shuldres of motoun.
Wylde goos. Wode doves.
Fresh laumprey. Grete codlynge.
Bonsomers. Tortons, in paste.

_Second Course, of Ten Dishes._

Pynnonade (_a confection of almonds and pines_).
Malardes of the rivere.
Cotes, rost, and dampettes.
Quayles, and goldefynche.
Ele reversed. Breme de mere.
Frypours ryalle. Viande en feast.
Quarters of lambe.

The bills of fare I have thus given are intended for dinners of moderate size, but I might easily have given much larger ones, though we should have learnt nothing more by them than by the smaller ones, from which the reader will be able to form a very good judgment of the general style of eating among our forefathers, when they lived well. The fifteenth century, especially, was celebrated for its great feasts, at which the consumption of provisions was enormous. The bills of expenses of some of them have been preserved. In the sixth year of the reign of Edward IV. (A.D. 1466), George Nevile was made archbishop of York, and the account of the expenditure for the feast on that occasion contains the following articles:--Three hundred quarters of wheat, three hundred tuns of ale, one hundred tuns of wine, one pint of hypocras, a hundred and four oxen, six wild bulls, a thousand sheep, three hundred and four calves, the same number of swine, four hundred swans, two thousand geese, a thousand capons, two thousand pigs, four hundred plovers, a hundred dozen of quails, two hundred dozen of the birds called “rees,” a hundred and four peacocks, four thousand mallards and teals, two hundred and four cranes, two hundred and four kids, two thousand chickens, four thousand pigeons, four thousand crays, two hundred and four bitterns, four hundred herons, two hundred pheasants, five hundred partridges, four hundred woodcocks, one hundred curlews, a thousand egrettes, more than five hundred stags, bucks, and roes, four thousand cold venison pasties, a thousand “parted” dishes of jelly, three thousand plain dishes of jelly, four thousand cold baked tarts, fifteen hundred hot venison pasties, two thousand hot custards, six hundred and eight pikes and breams, twelve porpoises and seals, with a proportionate quantity of spices, sugared delicacies, and wafers or cakes.

On the inthronation of William Warham as archbishop of Canterbury in 1504, the twentieth year of the reign of Henry VII., a feast was given for which the following provisions were purchased:--Fifty-four quarters of wheat, twenty shillings’ worth of fine flour for making wafers, six tuns or pipes of red wine, four of claret wine, one of choice white wine, and one of white wine for the kitchen, one butt of malmsey, one pipe of wine of Osey, two tierces of Rhenish wine, four tuns of London ale, six of Kentish ale, and twenty of English beer, thirty-three pounds’ worth of spices, three hundred lings, six hundred codfish, seven barrels of salted salmon, forty fresh salmon, fourteen barrels of white herrings, twenty cades of red herrings (each cade containing six hundred herrings, which would make a total of twelve thousand), five barrels of salted sturgeons, two barrels of salted eels, six hundred fresh eels, eight thousand whelks, five hundred pikes, four hundred tenches, a hundred carps, eight hundred breams, two barrels of salted lampreys, eighty fresh lampreys, fourteen hundred fresh lamperns, a hundred and twenty-four salted congers, two hundred great roaches, a quantity of seals and porpoises, with a considerable quantity of other fish. It will be understood at once that this feast took place on a fish day.

This habit of profuse and luxurious living seems to have gradually declined during the sixteenth and first part of the seventeenth century, until it was extinguished in the great convulsion which produced the interregnum. After the Restoration, we find that the table, among all classes, was furnished more soberly, and with plainer and more substantial dishes.