[Sca-cooks] A Feast in the Time of Chaucer

[Johnna Holloway]

The entire book by Cook (now up on google books)
  goes into more about who accompanied the Duke to Italy
and the journey. The numbers were substantial. 450 plus people went  
along.
They also were entertained along the way.
The gifts are listed and seem to have between the families or  
households. I suspect
some were kept and others were dispersed to ranking members of the
wedding parties. Part of the gifts would have reflected the dowery  
too. And these
were large households of course.

The gilding? I wonder if it has to do with the early courses 1-5 being  
roast
courses that were then gilded.
Course 6 starts with beef and capons in sauces and sturgeon in water.
Likewise 7 mentions both meat and fish in lemon sauce.
8 are pies; 9 aspic; 10. galantines.
By the time you get to the roasted kids and garfish in course 11 -who  
notices
the gilding when you are getting 6 coursers with gilded saddles?
12 is back to being sauced or possibly pickled.
Course 13 seems to indicate fancier preparations with venison and beef  
in molds
and fish turned inside out. 14 indicates red and green sauces and fish  
turned out.
15 is peacocks. 16 back to roasts.
17-18 junkets, cheese, cherries, fruits, etc.

Transcription error? I don't know. Cook based his menu on a number of  
accounts. Are there errors? One might have to go back to the archives  
in Italy and check
firsthand to make sure that the original printed accounts were  
correct. (Of course, those archives or volumes may not exist today.)  
Some of the early (16th century) accounts
were later published and those might be available to be checked in  
either Yale
or Harvard. Others are up at least in part on the internet now.

Corio, L'Historia di Milano, Padua, 1646 carries a note in another  
volume that it hasn't been edited since 1565.
The 1554 is up on the internet archive in case you want to read it  
yourself.

What I am sure of is that Cook's is the best and most complete account  
in English and it's much better
than the abbreviated accounts that appear in a number of Chaucer  
biographies.

Johnna (not Johannae)



On Mar 26, 2010, at 10:55 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Johnnae mentioned her recent article:
> The article can be downloaded at:
> http://chronicler.cynnabar.org/citadel/  >>>
>
> One thing that makes me wonder about this menu is the gilding.
>
> *Everything* in the first give courses seems to have been gilded.   
> Then in the rest of the courses (13 more courses) no foods, or  
> almost none, are gilded.
> Anyone have a guess as to why? Johannae, is there a transcription  
> error somewhere? Did only some of the upper level people get the  
> first few courses? And who got the gifts that were exchanged? Were  
> these wedding gifts just for the wedding couple? Or were these  
> between the two families?
>
> Stefan