[Sca-cooks] Quail eggs in gelatin?

[Johnna Holloway]

I think Constance Hieatt and I had a side conversation about these when we were working on the Concordance of English Recipes. I shall have to check my files.

There is a note about them in the the "Appendix" to the article Royal Feasts by Janet Laurence.
Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery, 1990: Feasting and Fasting : Proceedings
 edited by Harlan Walker.
{The entire feast is outlined and described there.}

Eyroun engele

A note on the menu for this feast as given in 2 15th Cent. Cookery Books, p. 58, suggests these are iced eggs. The index corrects this to jellied Eggs. There is a complicated recipe of Eyren Gelide given in Warner's Antiquitates Culinariae. p. 89, in which milk of almonds and cooked fish is pounded and spiced with cloves, heated and used to fill egg shells, a clove with a gilded head being stuck in the top. When cold and set, the shells are removed and the eggs set between slices of Leches Lumbard strewn with ground ginger and sugar. page 147

[That note in the index reads: " WARNER, p. 89, 
has a recipe for "Eyren Gelide," 
see the dish on page 58 of this 
volume, which means Eggs in 
Jelly, not Iced eggs ; he has also 
" Eyryn in bruet," II. No. 23. See 
Egges." 


"Eyren Gelide" is an Arundel 334 recipe. Doc has it posted on medieval cookery.com

This is an excerpt from Ancient Cookery [Arundel 334]
(England, 1425)
The original source can be found at R. Warner's "Antiquitates culinariae" (1791)

Eyren Gelide. Take mylk of lib of almondes drawen up thik, and set hit over the fire, and put therto sugre, and when hit is boyled, set' hit on fide ; and then take foundes of stokfysshe, and of codlygne, and one gobet of thornbag, and fethe hom altogedur; and .when hit is fothern, thricche oute the water, and bray hit, and in the brayinge alay hit with the fame mylk, and cast therto clowes; and when hit is brayed, draw hit thik thurgh a straynour, and hete hit over the fire. And take eyrenavoided al oute that is therin, and save the zolkes als hole as thow may (as whole as you can), and washe hom clene; and then put in the stuff als hote in the fhelles, and take clowes, and gilde the heddes, and plant hom aboven there hit is voyde, and set hom upright; and when the stuff is colde, pille away the shelles, and take leches lumbard cut on leches, and lay hit in chargeburs, and strawe above pouder of ginger, and sugre, medeled togeder; . then set the eyren betwene, and serve hit forthe.


A bit more research--

Hieatt in her last book The Culinary Recipes of Medieval England has a recipe for Eggs in Lent with a footnote describing the Arundel 334 recipe. See page 185.


Hope this helps

Johnnae


On May 25, 2015, at 7:49 PM, Alexander Clark <alexbclark8 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Any ideas what might have gone into the "eyroun engele" in the coronation
> menu of Henry IV?  I'm reading it as "en gele" = in gelatin, and guessing
> that quail eggs might be the right kind to put in a royal nibble near the
> end of a big feast, but beyond that I don't know any period recipes that
> come close to saying how to make this and what ingredients to use.
> 
> -- 
> Henry/Alex
> _______________________________________________