SC - Re: Verse and Vice

[alysk at ix.netcom.com]

Brighid wrote:

>Recently, on rec.food.historic, there *was* a thread on rhyming recipes.  
>The ones I saw quoted were 18th or 19th century.  I have a vague notion 
>that there were some done in period...

Yes, it is Liber Cure Cocorum, written in a "Northern dialect of the XVth
century, probably not much later than the time of Henry VI."  Here's a
sample:

Chekyns in cretene.

Take cow mylke, lye hit anone
With flowre, or ellis with amydone;
Fors hit with galyngale and gode gyngere,
With canel and comyn, alle in fere,
Coloure hit with safron (th)o;
(Th)e chykyns by hom selfe (th)o sethe (th)er to,
Hew hom in quarteres and lay hom inne,
Boyle home up with alle, no more ne mynne;
But seson hit with sugur suete,
And serve hom forthe for (th)ay ben sete.

I don't know if it has been reprinted by anyone other than the 
Philological Society.  I have an 1865 volume of their works (a
bargain find at $35!).  I've always had the idea to put the poetry
into modern English spelling but only did a few before life took
over.

Alys Katharine