[Sca-cooks] Need help with a recipe

[david friedman]

Brangwayna Morgan wrote:

>I would like to make the following recipe from Forme of Cury for the 14th
>century English feast I'll be doing...  If anyone has done it, or
>can lend any insight,  I'd really
>appreciate it.
>
>Founet.  Take almaundes unblaunched; grynde hem and draw hem up with gode
>broth.  Take a lombe or a kidde and half rost hym, other the thridde part;
>smyte hem in gobetes and cast hym to the mylke.  Take smale briddes yfarsyd
>and ystyued, and do therto sugur, powdour of canell and salt.  Take yolkes of
>ayren harde ysode and cleeve a two and plauntede with flour of canell, and
>flourish the sewe above.  Take alkanet fryed and yfoundred in wyne & colour
>hit above with a fether, and messe it forth.
>
>What I'm seeing is that I make almond milk of unblanched almonds and broth;
>partially roast a lamb,

or kid. We got one once, which was a story in itself.

>then cut it up and put it into the almond milk to
>finish cooking.  I then take small birds stuffed (with what) and stewed (in
>what) and put sugar, cinnamon, and salt on them.  Hard boiled egg yolks are
>cut in two, probably sprinkled with cinnamon.  I see some small birds, and
>some of the roasted/boiled lamb being put on a platter, hard cooked egg yolks
>being sprinkled with cinnamon and set around them, and then the almond milk
>broth being poured over the lot.  I then prepare the alkanet by sauteing it
>(?) and dissolving it in wine (?) and use a feather to paint it or sprinkle
>it over the top.

I've never done this recipe, but what you say here looks reasonable
to me. I read "take yolks of ayren...and flourish the sewe above" as
meaning "and decorate the sauce/dish on top", meaning that you put
the cinnamoned egg yolks on top to decorate it after you put the
sauce on--and it makes sense, since otherwise the sauce will wash the
cinnamon off.

I have been told that alkanet (red/pink coloring) is fat-soluble,
which is why you start by frying it to get the color loose.

I had a vague memory (I think from Two Fifteenth Century Cookery
Books) of a stuffing that was ground pork/spices/probably egg/maybe
currents, but I can't find my copy of that book; and when I looked
through Forme of Cury (in Curye on Inglysch) here is what I found for
pigeons stuffed and stewed:

49. Peiouns ystewed. Take peiouns and stop hem with garlec ypylled
and with gode erbis ihewe, and do hem in an erthen pot; cast (th)erto
gode broth and whyte grece, powdour fort, safroun, verious, & salt.

For an idea of what "good herbs" to use, there is a recipe for capon
stewed in Two Fifteenth Century in whch the capon is stuffed with
parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, and hyssop (and stewed in wine).

Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook