[Sca-cooks] Salad Course in Henry VIII Menu

[Elise Fleming]

This appeared in a Twitter link from one of the Hampton Court Cooks.  I 
thought some of you might like the documentation for the "entre de la 
table" - sort of the "appetizer".  Sure wasn't honey butter!
^^^^^^^^^^^^
So, apart from turning readable material into unreadable scrawl, the day 
at the BL [Alys: British Library] was a great success....still loads to 
read through and more trips needed to look through the books I had today 
(not to mention all the others on my list!) but there are only so many 
hours in a day.

Big thing for today as far as food goes was finding a few menus that I'd 
not come across before. They were in:
The Manuscript of William Dunche, being the Book of the new Ordinary of 
the King's Most Honourable Household, anno 31 Henry VIII. Transcripts 
edited with notes by A. G. W. Murray, M.A., and Eustace F. Bosanquet. 
(Reprinted from the Genealogist, N.S., vol. XXIX. and XXX.).

Which is a different version of the household ordinances for Henry 
VIII's court from those printed by the Society of Antiquaries in 1790. 
They didn't bother to transcribe pages that they thought were pretty 
much the same between the two versions, which includes most of the food 
lists, or indeed were subjects that they felt weren't interesting... 
which includes the 20 menus in the original MS, they transcribed 4 of 
which I had time to copy 1 down (below). Next trip up there I'll copy 
the rest and eventually when time allows I'd like to see the original MS 
if I can to look through that, but for the moment this "modern" (1914) 
transcription will suffice.
What stands out from this menu, and one of the other is the salad 
course....the "entre de la table" in this case and the "salat cours" in 
the other.....lots to think about really!

So, here is the menu:

"A fare for a soup[er] for the king, the quene and divse lordes and 
ladies sitting wt ther highnessis in the gardene at his mannor of 
westm[inster] the iijd day of june the xxiiijth yere of the ragne of 
king henry viijth.

la entre de la table

boild borage
cabege lectues rawe
capres
olives
cabege lectues boiled
Lymmaundis dised

The first cours

chekyns in criteney
pestelles of venyson stoped wt cloves
side of venyson forced
capons of grece
pike boiled
a Rose garnysshed
tonge in Rug galentyne
doulcetts
ix frittour napken

The second cours

cawdell ferrey Ruge
herons
ffesauntes
Runner
bremes boiled
godwits
capn chopped
chekins in chawdell
red dere in past larded
a closse bakemeat
cremetories
xj Egis in the moon shyne

The third cours

blaunc maunge
storc
brewes
chekins farcied
quailes
ffreshe sturgin
petite pernelt
pies of Paris
bake kide
pepyns in past
tarte
xj ffrutor crispe

The iiijth cours

jely garnysshed
scraped chese wt sugar
pepyns wt pistarde
Orange conserved
Pepyns conserved
march payne
Waffers and Jpocras"

Although I have copied this as it is in the book, I suspect the original 
transcription was slightly modernised for some spelling as there is no 
u/v substitution as I would expect to see.
^^^^^^^^^

Alys K.
-- 
Elise Fleming
alysk at ix.netcom.com
alyskatharine at gmail.com
http://damealys.medievalcookery.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8311418@N08/sets/