SC - Lamb recipes: may butter

[TG]

<< Having checked out Maggie Black's The Medieval Cookbook, and reading
it tonight, I can give you her definition of May butter (not that I
would use it in a recipe):
(pg. 131) For the Colic
"Another poultice recipe! This one is a good deal nastier than it
sounds. May butter was made for children by setting newly made, unsalted
butter on open platters in the sun for almost a fortnight. By that time
it was stinking rancid, colourless and devoid of vitamin A although it
did contain increased vitamin D as a result of the action of the sun's
rays." >>

As far as I can see, the passage you quoted is not a definition of may
butter, but a medical recipe, _using_ may butter. It comes from "A
Leechbook or Collection of Medical Recipes of the Fifteenth Century, ed.
W.R. Dawson, 1934".

According to some German sources, may butter was estimated as very good,
it was used in feast meals and was given as a tax to parsons etc.

More later
Th.