Medieval Cookery
A Very Good Stargazy Pie
I’ve been thinking that I should revive this, at least long enough to get through my folder of oddities, and what better day to delude yourself with good intentions? Last spring I cooked a fish pie from the classic 1654 cookbook by Elizabeth Talbot Grey, Countess of Kent, A True Gentlewoman’s Delight. Wherein is contained [...]
The First English Curry Recipe
Hannah Glasse’s enormously successful 1747 cookbook contained the first curry recipe to appear in an English cookbook. It didn’t make a notable splash in the moment, but 264 years later, curry is far and away the most popular dish on that flavor starved island, and the English and curry are inextricably linked. My copy of [...]
Marzipan: It’s out there
Marzipan recipes have been around, and essentially unchanged for 1000 years – an ancient version is in Al-Baghdadi’s Kitab al-Tabikh or “Book of Dishes”. Crush almonds, add sugar, egg whites – I also added a little cream of tartar (Potassium bitartrate – which forms in wine casks during fermentation) which increases the heat tolerance of [...]
Eating Chaucer: The Cook
Just came across this nice engraving of Chaucer’s Cook in Urry’s 1721 edition of Chaucer (the first edition not printed in black letter or “gothic” style type). Chaucer, and my notion that I should eat every food mentioned in the Canterbury Tales, was the genesis of cruditas, and Chaucer’s cook, and his jakkes of Dover, [...]
Candie Carrots vs. Deadly and Stinking Carrots
More from Gerard’s Herball. In 1597 there were candie carrots “soveraigne remedy against…poison” not to mention that you could drink water fixed up with the seeds in it to prevent “the strangurie” (which, regrettably, is difficulty peeing. Still, it would be considerably more entertaining to go to the doctor and say “I’ve got a touch [...]
Turkey Wheate from John Gerard’s Herbal
The first in a series of posts celebrating Gerard’s 1597 masterpiece The Herball or Generall historie of plantes. Gerard’s Herball was one of the first publications to discuss the New World food basket that had been imported over the last century. Gerard, like most European farmers, was skeptical: These kinds of Graine were first brought [...]
Blomæth Høns – Chicken Dressed As Chicken
Neither chicken, nor something disguised as chicken, it’s chicken disguised as something disguised as chicken; a sort of entremet for the third estate.
Quail Stuffed Grape Leaves
Game birds are more difficult to find for a reasonable price than you’d like – makes you think about buying a shotgun – but I turned up some lovely frozen quail at my local market (The Roslindale Fish Market for those in the Boston area) and did them up with a sort of composite recipe [...]
Mukaffan – Almond Candy from Baghdad
From A Baghdad Cookery Book translated by Charles Perry from Kitab al-Ṭabīḫ, “The Book of Dishes” by Muḥammad bin al-Ḥasan bin Muḥammad bin al-Karīm al-Baghdadi, mid 13th century. Take a pound of sugar and a third of a pound of almonds or pistachios [we used almonds] and pound everything finely. Knead it hard with rose-water. [...]
Octopus is a vile fish of little worth – Martino di Como
People have been eating octopus for at least the better part of 4000 years. At some point the popularity of the dish waned outside of the Mediterranean and Africa (or, as in the U.S., never caught on), leaving it as bit of a curiosity in Northern Europe and the Americas. It’s an important member of [...]
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