[Sca-cooks] Ivan Day Lecture-LONG

[Elise Fleming]

Greetings! Here are my notes from the April 4 lecture by Ivan Day. Much 
of what he said revolved around the photos he showed.

Ivan Day, noted British food historian, professional chef and 
confectioner, and fount of much knowledge, gave a lecture for The Ohio 
University’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Columbus, 
Ohio, 4 April 2014. Fourteen members of the Society for Creative 
Anachronism attended, unfortunately out-numbering the University’s 
students and staff. SCAdians came from Illinois, Indiana, and 
Pennsylvania as well as Ohio.

Ivan’s topic was “Flaumpens, Chewitts and Bakemetes”, subtitled “Pastry 
as a Sculptural Medium in Late Medieval Europe”. These are my brief 
notes, based on the photos that were used in the presentation.

British food went into a decline at the end of the Edwardian period. 
Part of the reason was the conscription (and frequently death) of many 
young men to serve during World War I. Culinary talent was lost along 
with them. There were a number of food extinctions (like flaumpens, a 
type of meat pie where the egg-endored crust is folded back in triangles 
to expose the contents). But, there were also survivals such as 
chewitts. These continue today as pork pies (see the Wikipedia entry), 
common in many shops in the UK. Bakemetes was another term for a type of 
pie, made in a pastry case (coffin), and common throughout Europe in the 
late Middle Ages. One can find examples in contemporary art.  Ivan noted 
that these were “court dishes”. The recipes would move with a noble 
bride who made an international marriage.

What went into these pies, he asked?  Balls of minced, spiced veal, 
barberries, grapes… (http://www.historicfood.com/Pie%20recipe2.htm)  And 
he then showed a photo of a lumber (also lumbar) pie which he made using 
eels.  “Court cookery”, Ivan told us, necessitated a high skill level. 
It was sophisticated cookery, not simple or plain, and definitely was, 
as he put it, “no bowl of goop!” The presentation of the food picked up 
the zeitgeist of the time: gothic, baroque or byzantine. Pastry could be 
formed into geometric shapes with different colors of jellies set in 
each. A later example can be seen at 
http://www.historicfood.com/Jellies.htm . (See also 
http://foodhistorjottings.blogspot.com/search/label/Robert%20May where 
they are called “cut laid tarts”. An Elizabethan example is in a 
subsequent photo, called a “strap work tart”.)

Ivan described (and showed examples of) decorated pastry cases. Venison 
pasties, designed to preserve venison for two to three months, were 
huge. Since venison doesn’t improve with salting, the meat was placed 
inside a thick rye flour pastry case and then baked very slowly. The 
thick pastry prevented bacterial growth as did the clarified butter that 
covered the venison. These pasties were frequently sent over long 
distances as gifts to family or to nobility. While not quite the same, 
examples of a much smaller, decorated meat pie can be seen at 
http://www.historicfood.com/Edward%20Kidders%20Lamb%20Pasty.htm . The 
two photos that Ivan showed us are at the top of that link.

We then saw a photo of a series of playing cards which had pastry 
designs on them. One cookery book informed the reader that templates 
could be made from the designs in his book and then placed on the pastry 
so it could be cut to shape. Examples of designs are on some of the 
pastry cases mentioned earlier, as well as here: 
http://www.historicfood.com/Setcustards.htm . We saw the photo of the 
“crown” with the lion (on the left) and were told that pastry forms 
(such as those on the first photo on the right) were filled with 
custards or with jellies. (An example of enlarging and using a cookery 
book design for a template is at 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/8311418@N08/3552826878/in/set-72157618506182935 
.

Using royal menus from Queen Victoria’s reign, Ivan pointed out that 
while the main courses were “modern”, the foods on the sideboard 
consisted of medieval dishes that hadn’t disappeared: brawn, baron of 
beef, and Christmas pie were three that I jotted down.  Ivan showed an 
ingredient list from 1763 for a huge Christmas pie which weighed 22 
stone (308 lbs!).  There were too many animals and birds to jot down! 
Hannah Glasse (“The Art of Cookery”) has the earliest known printed 
recipe for a Christmas pie although “Grete Pyes” are included in “Two 
Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books” and a 1394 manuscript in the archive of 
the Worshipful Company of Salters in London which Ivan showed in a photo.

Ivan showed some pages from a book by Conrad Hagger (1719, Augsburg) 
which depict birds made of pastry. The shapes are augmented by armatures 
which are inside. We can learn a lot, he informed us, by using later 
recipes and working backwards. Later recipes often include “secrets” and 
hints on how to make a particular dish that aren’t in the earlier 
versions. A photo from Hagger’s book can be found at 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/8311418@N08/3552815152/in/set-72157618506182935 
.

We then heard about several “trick” dishes, three of which are described 
in Robert May’s cookery book, “The Accomplisht Cook” (“Triumphs and 
Trophies in Cookery”): a ship with cannons that fired, a bleeding stag, 
a castle with guns that fired, frogs that escaped from a pie. The 
earliest account of a pie with live birds that were set free when the 
pie was opened is in the 1475 Vatican Library account of the wedding 
banquet of Costanzo Sforza and Camilla Marzano d’Aragona.

Ivan showed us a brief video of a German “nef” in the shape of a ship 
which actually moved across the table, musicians playing, and cannon 
shooting at the end. However, I cannot find the link to the video that 
appeared online a while ago which shows the ship in action.

Ivan spent a little time showing sugar “trionfi” from the Sforza 
wedding: a depiction of Mt. Helicon; a sugar pail filled with sugar 
coins, one side having the bride’s emblem and the other side the groom’s 
emblem. A full account, with contemporary drawings of the sugar items, 
is in “A Renaissance Wedding” by Jane Bridgeman, a somewhat pricey book.

While we have heard that it was only the confectioners who made the 
sweets, Ivan has found a wage bill for cooks who made marchpanes during 
Henry VIII’s time, so perhaps some of the confectionery work was also 
done in the regular kitchens. Ivan has also found records of 300+ molds 
for making decorative pastry. These appear in the wills of the time as 
part of the inventory of the deceased’s possessions.

By this point, the primary talk was finished, but Ivan asked if he could 
continue and we certainly didn’t object! Among the snippets were these:

•	Information that a contemporary of Hanna Glasse was Ann Cook, who was 
an actual cook as opposed to Hannah, who wasn’t.
•	Martha Washington’s cookery book which was said to date from later in 
the 1600s, actually has recipes from the 1608 edition of “Closet for 
Ladies and Gentlewomen” which Johnna Holloway edited in 2010.
•	“The Accomplish’t Ladies Delight” was probably a publisher’s 
compilation, not something done by Hannah Wooley.
•	John Murrell’s “New Book of Cookery” is commonly said to be from 1618. 
Ivan has a copy from 1615 and EEBO’s copy is also 1615, which pushes the 
date earlier than 1618.

Reluctantly, we let Ivan stop. Everyone departed to the dessert table, 
to chat with SCA folk, and to corral Ivan for personal questions.

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/