[Sca-cooks] Medieval steaks

[Johnna Holloway]

I've been away from Internet, so please excuse this late response.
I knew that our Concordance of English Recipes included a "steak" entry, so
I looked it up this am.
There is of course this one suitable for beef or venison.

The source is Harl. 279 LV 31 as found in [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, T. Austin (ed.)]: 

  xxxj - To make Stekys of venson or bef. Take Venyson or Bef, and leche and gredyl it vp broun; then take Vynegre and a litel verious, and a lytil Wyne, and putte pouder perpir ther-on y-now, and pouder Gyngere; and atte the dressoure straw on pouder Canelle y-now, that the stekys be al y-helid ther-wyth, and but a litel Sawce; and than serue it forth.

Date 1430-1435.

There is also a stekes of veneson with cyrop in MS RD 1222, dated 1450. See A Gathering of Medieval English Recipes.

And this mention from c1450    c1450 *Dc.55 Cook.Recipes [OD Col.] (Dc 55) 

xvij,   Take feyre moton of the buttes & kutt it in maner of stekes.

And this mention
a1450 Hrl.Cook.Bk.(1) (Hrl 279)   40:  Take fayre Bef of þe quyschons & motoun of þe bottes, & kytte in þe maner of Stekys; þan take raw Percely & Oynonys smal y-scredde & 3olkys of Eyroun soþe hard..& lay hem on þe Stekys..To make Stekys of venson or bef: Take Venyson or Bef, & leche & gredyl it vp broun.

Johnnae

On Jul 17, 2013, at 1:37 AM, JIMCHEVAL at aol.com wrote:

> snipped
> The only mentions I know of of steaks in our period come late, with  
> Taillevent mentioning a nomble (onglet or hanger steak) and the Menagier de  Paris 
> mentioning aloyau (sirloin). Otherwise, the idea seems to have just been  
> appearing at that point.
> 
> Anyone know any different?
> 
> Jim  Chevallier

July 17, 2013 10:36:04 PM EDT

Certainly interesting as always.
I'm still left with the idea however that steaks (or "slices", as one often finds in Taillevent) were just coming into fashion at the end of the medieval period and were not much known before (the references in the article all seem to be from later). But how one proves that is another matter.
Jim Chevallier