[Sca-cooks] Good Huswife's Jewell recipes, Typos

[david friedman]

Katherine wrote:

>OK, here's tonight's transcriptions.  They're from The Good Huswife's
>Jewell, by Thomas Dawson, published 1596 in London.
>...
>Feedback/questions/etc welcome -- especially if you note any typos that
>look more like keyboard errors than lack-of-standardised-spelling.

If anyone got in earlier with typos I didn't find it, so here goes.
Also comments.

>To make a Tarte of Prunes
>
>Put your Prunes into a pot, and put in red wine or claret wine, and a
>little faire water, and stirre them now nad then,

now _and_ then?

>and when they be
>boyled enough, put them into a bowle, and straine them with sugar,
>synamon and ginger.

Does he earlier say anything about crusts on all these tarts?

>To make a Tart of Ryce
>
>Boyle your Rice, and put in the yolkes of two or three Egges into the
>Rice, and when it is boyled, put it into a dish, and season it with
>Suger, Sinamon and Ginger, and butter, and the juyce of wo or three

_two_ or three?

>Orenges, and set it on the fire againe.
>
>To make a Custard
>
>Breake your Egges into a bowle, and put your Creame into another bowle,
>and straine your egges ino the creame,

_into_ the creame?

>  and put in saffron, Cloves and
>mace, and a little synamon and ginger, and if you will some Suger and
>butter, and season it with salte, and melte your butter, and stirre it
>with the Ladle a good while, and dubbe your custard with dates and
>currans.

...

>To bake Chickens in a Cawdle
>
>Season them with salt and pepper, and put in butter, and so let them
>bake, and when they be baked, boile a few barberries and pruines,

prunes?

>  and
>currants, and take a little white wine or vergice, and let it boile and
>put in a little suger, and set it on the fire a little, and straine in
>two or three yolkes of egges into the wine, and when you take the dish
>of the fire, put the prunes and currants and barberies into the dish,
>and then put them in altogether, into the pye of chickins.

...

>To make a tarte that is courage to a man or woman
>
>Take twoo

two?

>Quinces, and twoo or three Burre rootes, and a potaton, and
>pare your Potaton, and scrape your rootes and put them into a quart of
>wine, and let them boyle till they bee tender, & put in an ounce of
>Dates, and when they be boyled tender, Drawe them through a strainer,
>wine and all, and then put in the yolkes of eight Egges, and the braynes
>of three or foure cocke Sparrowes, and straine them into the other, and
>a little Rose water, and seeth them all with suger, Cinamon and Gynger,
>and Cloves and mace, and put in a little sweet butter, and set it upon a
>chafingdish of coles betweene two platters, and so let it boyle till it
>be something bigge.

One could do some interesting schtick with this one, but some of the
ingredients might be hard to find. Are burdock roots commercially
available? (I know you can find them growing wild in many parts of
the country, but I haven't seen them around here--West Kingdom.) Any
guesses about what kind of "potaton" this would be--sweet or white?
And I have no idea where one would get the brains of male sparrows.

>
>To stewe a Cocke
>
>You must cutte him in sixe peeces, and washe hym cleane, and ake

take?

>pruines, Currantes and Dates cutte verye small, and Reasons of he Sunne,

of _the_ Sunne? and does he really spell raisons that way?

>and Suger beaten verye small, Cinamone, Gynger, Nutmegs likewise beaen,

beaten?

>and a little Maydens hayre cutte very small, and you must put him in a
>pipkin, & put in almost a pinte of Muscadine, and then your spice and
>Suger uppon your Cocke, and put in your fruite betweens every quarter,
>and a peece of Golde betweene every peece of your Cocke, then you must
>make a Lidde of Woode fit for your pipkyn, and close it as close as you
>can with paste, that no ayre come out, nor water can come in, and then
>you must fill two brasse pots full of waer, and set on the fire, and
>make fast the pipkin in one of the Brasse pottes, so that the pipkins
>feete touch not the brasse pot bottom, nor the pot sides, and so let
>them boyle foure and twentie houres, and fill up the pot still as it
>boyles away, with the other pot that standes by, and when it is boyled
>take out your Golde, and let him drinke it fasting, and it shall helpe
>him, this is approoved.

There is a similar recipe in _Du Fait de Cuisine_ (1420), including
the gold (and in his case, whatever gemstones the physician
recommends) and boiling in a flask inside a pot of water; as in this
case, it is medicinal.

Elizabeth/Betty Cook