Medieval Cookery
Crudifest, March 2010
Images from crudifest 2010 – in the excitement we seem to have missed taking any pictures of some lovely 1654 apple pyes, but so be it. I’ll give a blow by blow of the recipes and methods soon – the “wild yeast bread” was left overnight to attract wild yeasts to leaven it, but was [...]
Couscous Instructional Video
Preparing the couscous for steaming:
Ancient pasta month continues with ravioli [and rauioles and rafioules]
Ravioli appears to pre-date most of its close relatives – the dumplings, perogis and other stuffed pastas that are found all over Europe. This delicious morsel makes a somewhat surprising early appearance in the late 14th century English cookbook, Forme of Cury, written by “the chief Master Cooks of King Richard II”. Although channels were [...]
Apple Fritters, Eden, and Ale Batter
It’s basically a beer batter with apples – I used a bit of saffron for color and added a touch of active dry yeast to a 1/4 cup of warmed beer to make sure that it would rise enough. You can also make the batter the night before and it will usually rise a bit. [...]
Psychoactive Fritters? If only.
Continuing a month of fritters with Martino di Como’s Sage Fritters: Simply, sage leaves dredged in a mixture of flour, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, and saffron. Due to a combination of viscosity problems and the unforeseen characteristics of fritter batter/sage leaf adhesion, the results look more like bug fritters than sage fritters. Trying to rectify the [...]
Magnificent Imperial Fritters
XXVI. Fritelle da Imperadore magnifici. Se tu voy fare fritelle da Imperadore, toi la chiara de l’ ova e fete de formazo frescho, e battile cum la chiara de l’ ova, e mitige un pocho de farina e pignoli mondi. Toy la padella cum assay onto, falo bolire e fay le fritelle. Quando sono cocte, [...]
Christmas Goose
I’d never cooked a goose before, but figured it would be a lot like cooking a duck – it is, but with a couple of caveats: Duck is fatty enough – and the fat is well distributed enough – that it’s pretty hard to dry it out. Goose probably produces more fat when you cook [...]
Marx Rumpolt and Christmas Goose (and lobsters)
I’ve been slogging through Marx Rumpolt’s lovely Ein new Kochbuch (1581) looking for a goose recipe (the problem is a combination of too many goose recipes and my nearly non-existent German). There are 29 recipes (though many are just the barest bones of hints on cooking a goose). It’s maybe the loveliest cookbook I’ve seen [...]
Ypocras
This from my lovely mother, culinary inspiration, and Ypocras devotee (who, as you can tell, is significantly more precise with her measurements than I am): Ypocras, Ipocras, or Hippocras, this spiced wine takes its name from the filtering device, a manicum hippocraticum, not because of its healthful properties. We recommend drinking it in abundance anyway [...]
Thanksgiving: Wherein a chicken rides a turkey to dinner and a pumpkin pie is filled with cheese
I have a very understanding family: To make various mixtures with which to stuff every sort of commonly eaten animal, quadraped and fowl. Get four pounds of pork fat that is not rancid and with knives beat it finely together with two pounds of liver of a goat kid…adding in beaten mint, sweet marjoran, burnet [...]
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