[Sca-cooks] Surviving medieval sauces?

[JIMCHEVAL at aol.com]

It looks like the French might be the only ones NOT to use it as a sauce.  
Taillevent has one recipe for instance which uses jance sauce, after which 
one  is to eat the dish with mustard.

The Menagier calls it a "sauce", but has  it prepared to "keep a long time".

_http://books.google.com/books?id=DRFRAAAAcAAJ&dq=intitle%3Amenagier%20raifo
rt&pg=PA229#v=onepage&q&f=false_ 
(http://books.google.com/books?id=DRFRAAAAcAAJ&dq=intitle:menagier%20raifort&pg=PA229#v=onepage&q&f=false) 
 
Personally, I would consider anything kept on hand for general use a  
condiment, as opposed to a sauce made for use in a specific dish. Either way,  
mustard is in a special class, going as it does back to the Romans. Still, 
yes,  it certainly is a culinary survival. I think what we eat today probably 
owes  more to the eighteenth century version (Le Grand d'Aussy actually knew 
Maille  and consulted him on the subject). But the instruction here to use 
the same  spices one would use for hypocras is not too far from that.


Horseradish was hardly unknown in France in general; it was one of  the 
substances recommended for monks' drinks (probably for medicinal purposes).  
But the only reference in a recipe appears to be an ambivalent one in the  
Menagier:
 
_http://books.google.com/books?id=DRFRAAAAcAAJ&dq=intitle%3Amenagier%20raifo
rt&pg=PA246#v=onepage&q&f=false_ 
(http://books.google.com/books?id=DRFRAAAAcAAJ&dq=intitle:menagier%20raifort&pg=PA246#v=onepage&q&f=false) 

The  word isn't quite right, but the text seems to be describing it. But 
even here,  the objective seems to be to create a condiment to keep on hand.
 
Jim  Chevallier
 (http://www.chezjim.com/) www.chezjim.com

Les Leftovers: sort of a food history  blog
leslefts.blogspot.com  

 
In a message dated 2/17/2014 8:51:55 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
dmyers at medievalcookery.com writes:

There  are recipes in the English corpus for "Lombard Mustard" that  are
essentially honey  mustard.