Cookery - Elizabethan 1540s to 1590s

Food (required)

The candidate should be able to discuss food and diet in general and should have a knowledge of the sources of foods from their own lands, imported trade etc; preparation and storage methods, the equipment used (see habitat for kitchen description), fast and feast days and customs to their persona, restrictions on diet, any philosophy of food common to the era or culture. Cooking or food preparation can form part of the candidate persona but is not required.

Christiana Elizabeth Constable, as mention in Chapter One learned under the kitchen staff of Thomas while she was very young. Afterwards she progressed to been the lady of the household and was only concerned with special treats for her or John’s special friends. The cooking staff did the majority of the cooking, where Christiana would only be involved in the menu, especially on holidays and special events. Christiana would be fed the food of the wealthy, however the servants would feed themselves with meals similar to meals that the peasants would eat.

The staff would be of a head cook, along with a couple of servants that would look after the needs of the household. The ladies gentleman servant also known as a reeve would be responsible for looking after the wines, and brews common to Christiana’s, and John’s Household.

Ye Banquets and feast enjoyed by the royalty, nobility and the upper classes were sumptuary and lavish. New foods and spices being imported and unusual recipes created which made use of the finest foods and ingredients. The royal banquets of the Elizabethan age were of course the most magnificent. The Tudor Dynasty, especially King Henry VIII was always in competition with the French King. The mother of Queen Elizabeth, Ann Boleyn had spent her early years as a lady in waiting with the French Queen Claude.

For two hundred years, food has been the center of development of society. It was dictated population growth and urban expansion: influenced economic, social and political theory: separated the royalty and peasantry; widen the horizons of commerce; inspired was of the dominion; played no small role in the creation of empires; and precipitated the discovery of new worlds. It has been very important in relations between people, particularly in the social gathering of a diverse group of people such as the banquets that were popular in the Elizabethan age. Elizabethan banquets only the royalty and the wealthy could afford to have such a feast because a peasant obviously could not afford roasted peacock or swan

One of the menus of Elizabethan feast usually consist of such for as these:

First Course

Miniature pastries filled with cod liver or beef marrow

A cameline meat “brewet,” pieces of meat in a thin cinnamon sauce

Beef marrow

Fritters

Eels in a thick spicy puree

Loach in cold-green sauce flavored with spices and sage

Large cuts of roast or boiled meat

Saltwater fish

Second Course

Frumenty

(hulled wheat boiled in milk, with flavored sugar and spices)

Freshwater fish

Broth with bacon

A meat tile

Carpon pastries and crisps

Bream and eel asties

Bancemange

Third Course

Venison

Lampreys with hot sauce

Flitters

Jellies

Roast bream and darioles

(a dariole is a small cream tart with puff pastry, in a circular mold)

Sturgeon

Dessert

Spiced wine (for digestion

Wafers

Banquets of these times that the hosts would employ servants for the oddest job task – one of these positions would be the bread trencher, whose job was to get fresh bread and replace the old bread that have gone stale during the meal.

People of this time did not use the utensils that we use today, but thought of using their hands to scoop the food was much more efficient. Several table manner books came out at this time because it was quite obvious that one did not want to eat after his or her neighbor scratched himself and then scooped the food with the same hand.

Elizabethan people were very visual about their food; they loved strange shapes and particularly enjoyed dishes of unusual colors. Some of the unusual dishers, which would include such treats as mall birds in a pie, roast peacock, hedgehops, or roast swan. Even though the Elizabethans did not eat such dishes as swan or peacock, they were used as centerpiece decorations among the royalty. An example of one such feast is a lavish French banquet and feast described by a historian of French cookery, Legrand d’Aussy. This feast was given in 1455 by the Court of Anjou, third son of Louis II the King of Sicily’

The Dining table

On the table place a centerpiece, which represents a green lawn,

Surround with large peacock feathers and green branches,

Violets tied and other sweet smelling flowers.

In the middle of this lawn a fortress was placed, covered with silver.

(This was hollow and formed a cage, in which several live birds were contained, their tufts and feet being gilt)

On its tower, which was gilt, three banners were placed, one bearing the arms of the count, the two others those of Mesdemoiselles de Chateaubun and de Villequier in whose honor the feast is given

.

First Course

Civet of hare,

Quarter of stag, which had been a night in salt,

Stuff chicken, covered with German Sauce, with gilt sugarplums and pomegranate seeds

Loin of veal, cover with German Sauce, with gilt sugarplums and pomegranate seeds

Setup:

At the end, outside the green lawn, was an enormous pie; surrounded with smaller pies, which formed a crown. The crust of the large ones was silvered all round and gilt at the top; each contained a whole roe-deer, a gosling, three capons, six chickens, ten pigeons, and one young rabbit.

To Serve as seasoning or stuffing,

A minced lion of veal, two pound of fat,

And twenty-six hard-boiled eggs, covered with saffron and flavored with cloves.

The Second Course

A roe-deer, a pig, a sturgeon cooked in parsley and vinegar, and

Covered with powdered ginger;

A kid, two goslings

Twelve chickens,

As many pigeons, six young rabbits, two herons, a leveret, and a fat capon stuffed.

Four chickens covered with yolks of eggs and sprinkle with power de Due (spice),

Wild boar;

The Third Course

Some Wafers (darioles), and stars:

A jelly, part white, and part red,

(Representing the crests of the main guests

The Fourth Course

Cream with Duc powder, covered with fennel seeds preserved in sugar,

A white cream,

Cheese in slices,

Strawberries, and lastly, plums stewed in rose water.

The Fifth Course

Entirely composed of the prepared wines in vogue and of preserves

(These consisted of fruits and various sweet pastries – the pastries represented stags and swans, to the necks of which were suspended the arms of the Count of Anjou.

Food and Drink - Many different things were ate by the people of the 16^th century during the Elizabethan ages. Many of the foods were spiced with cinnamon, pepper, ginger, cloves, garlic, and galingale. People added herbs and spices to all kinds of foods like meats and puddings and pies to bring out the flavor. Some of the meats were not fresh, fish being one, so to bring out the flavor by adding herbs and spices. People of the Elizabethan age ate eggs a lot wherever was possible. Eggs were use to make omelets, fitters, pancakes, stuffing and used as thickeners in sauces and stews. People ate different types of meat like beef, mutton, pork, veal, carp, pile, eels and other fish. They ate dried fruits, such as raisins, prunes and dried apricots. Elizabethan people were not keen on vegetable and there during this time period they did not eat many vegetables, but when eating salads, these were made from onions and herbs. People of the Elizabethan age baked and ate bread a lot as bread was the staple of life. The darker breads were called cheat, cocket, or whole grain; sometimes the people would use oats for bread making.

The Elizabethan people drank different things like ale, cider, perry, beer, red and white wine and metheglin. In earlier times, water was the main beverage, however as farmers became more important, other drinks came along. Milk was known for building healthy bones and giving a refreshing taste after a dessert. Farmers milked cows and nanny goats for the source. Other sources of liquid were a part of stews and potages and other beverages were created from a wine base. An example of one of these beverages is a hot wine recipe as follows from this time.

½ cup (275ml) water

1 ½ cups (850 ml) white wine

8 oz (225g) ground almonds

½ tsp (5ml) ground ginger

1 tsp (5ml) clear honey or white sugar

A good pinch of salt

A good pinch of Powdered Saffron

Bring the water and wine to a boil in a sauce pan. Put in almonds and add the ginger, honey, or sugar and salt. Stir in the saffron and leave off the heat to stand for 15-30 minutes. Bring back to a boil and serve very hot in small heatproof bowls.

Another popular wine base drink was a caudle, a hot-drink, thickens with eggs and drank at breakfast or at bedtime.

The Elizabethan breakfast in England consisted of bread, beer, wine, hearing or sprats, boiled beef or mutton. In eating breakfast many Elizabethan people wanted a fine diet. Instead of eating normal bread, many ate manchets a browner than normal bread, which is a round load which weigh six pounds after it was cooked. Children often ate butter in lent however adults who kept the fast strictly avoided butter during this time. Eggs were ate at breakfast either sunny side up or beaten to make scrambled eggs. The eggs were also mixed with breadcrumbs to fry foods such as fish. Another popular food for breakfast was pancakes, which were made from flour and egg batter, served quite often as a treat for Sunday mornings along with jams such as grape, strawberry and sometimes powder sugar on them for a sweeter taste. Breakfast, the hardiest meals gave a healthy start to the Elizabethan people’s day.

For dinner was served different meats, salads, and fruits. For dessert or to top the dinner off, they would eat sweets like jellies, different cakes and pies, or pears with caraway. The people of Elizabethan age would make different types of recipes for the meals they ate for breakfast and dinner. Some were even on diets, which consisted of black bread, milk, cheese and eggs. An Elizabethan dinner usually severed between the hours of 10:00 to Noon usually consisted of several kinds of fish, half a dozen different kinds of game, venison, various salads, some vegetables, sweet meats and fruits. Rick men usually served food that suited them of which most had noted French chefs to prepare the meal. Many had a very moderate diet. Guest at a pleasant dinner table would be served with oysters and brown bread, salt, pepper and vinegar.

Guest was able to choose between roast beef, salted (powder) beef, veal and a leg of mutton with a “galandine sauce.” There was often turkey (introduced in the 15 century Spain), boiled capon a hen boiled with leeks, partridge, pheasants, larks, quails, snipes, and woodcock, in addition to the other foods. Salmon, sole, turbot, and whitings, with lobster, crayfish, and shrimps would be set before dinner guests. Young rabbits, leverets, and marrow on toast tempted those who did not care for the gross meats. Artichokes, turnips, green peas, cucumbers and olives were provided as vegetables. Attractive salads, including one of violet buds were served as vegetables. In Elizabethan times time the word herb stood for all things that were green. This included things from the grasses to trees. One popular vegetable of the time was turnip, which were usually either boiled or roasted, however the poor usually ate them raw. Artichokes were eaten raw with added salt and pepper. , which was know as “sperage” during this time was boiled and eaten with salt oil and vinegar. The sweet potato, a popular dish was roasted in ashes, sopped in wine, or topped with oil and vinegar. Sometimes sweet potatoes were even boiled with prunes for flavor. When the potatoes came from the New World they were also either boiled or roasted. Finally he host or hostess would offer their guests, quince pie, tart of almonds and various fruit tarts, several kinds of cheese and desserts, including strawberries and cream.

The midday meal in the Elizabethan period consisted of certain coarser foods like sausage, cabbage (usually badly cooked) and porridge for the children. It was customary to spend two to three hours over this chief meal of the day. Nobility, gentleman, and merchantmen commonly sat the board till 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon. Country fare was given with fat capon or plenty of beef and mutton. They also received a cup of wine or a beer to wash it down along with a napkin to wipe their lips. During the holiday season, rich and poor alike indulged in the leisure time of feasting.

People of the middle and lower classes ate lots of potages and stews along with vegetables and fish at dinner. Behind the first cooked potages was the tradition of food processing which consisted of soaking the roots, leaves, seed, nuts and berries in cold water for several hours in order to soften them, which made the food easier to digest. Nest the potboiler method was used for cooking meat in water to make it tenderer. Potage was made primarily from cereals and large weed seeds, which were roughly ground into bits and pieces.

The two main parts of a normal Elizabethan diet were bread and meat. Bread was the most important component of their diets. The wealthy ate manchet, a loaf made of wheat flour. Also in the country districts a lot of rye, and barley bread was eaten. The most important component of the average diet was meat. England was noted for it meats and the means of preparing them. The English had a way of making tainted meats edible by removing the bones from the meat, and then wrap it in an old coarse cloth and burying it at least three feet underground where it was left for twelve to twenty hours. The meat was dug up, and found it sweet enough to eat. The English also used a lot of spices to add flavor to the un-refrigerated meat. Also soaking the meat in vinegar and adding sauces added flavor to the meat.

One particular meat dish was polonian sawsedge, usually eaten from Novmber to February when fresh meat was scarce. This dish was make from the fore part of a one or two year old tame boar and was heavily spiced. Here is the recipe as follows

Polonian Sawsedge

Take the fillers of a hog: chop them very small with a handful of red

Sage; season it hot with ginger and pepper, and then put in a great

Sheep’s gut; then let it lie three nights in brine; then boil it and hang it up in a chimmey where fire is usually kept; and these sawsedges will last a whole year. They are good

For sallades or to garnish boiled meats, or to

Make one relish a cup of wine.

Hedgehogs (Yrchouns)

Take piggish mawys, & skalde hem wel; take groundyn porke, and knede it with Spicerye, with pouder gyngere, and salt and sugre; do it on the awe, but fille it nowe to fulle; then sewe hem with a fayre threde, and putte hem in a spete as Men don piggys; take blaunchid almaundry, and kerf hem long, small, and scharpe, and frye hem in grece and sugre; take a litel prycke and prykke the Yrchouns, an putte in the holes the almaoundy, every hole half, and eche fro other; ley hem then to the fyre; when they ben rostid, dore hem sum whyth whete flower, and mylke of almaundry, sum grene, sum blake, with blode and at hem nowt brone to moche and set fourth.

Modern Translation

2 lbs (4 cups) minced (ground) pork 2 tbs breadcumbs

½ tsp ginger ½ tsp mace

2 tsp salt ¼ tsp pepper

2 tbs sugar ½ oz (1Tbs) softened butter

2 egg yolks 2 oz (4Tbs) butter

4 tbs vegetable stock or water 2 oz slivered almonds

vegetable coloring

Mix the pork, breadcrumbs, spices, seasonings, and softened butter. Bind with the beaten egg yolks and form ball. Place in buttered pan. Cook, covered, for I hr, basting at intervals with the rest of the butter melted in vegetable stock or water. Stick the slivered almonds, dyed with vegetable coloring, all over the pudding, so that they look like the quills of a hedgehop or a sea urchin. Serve 6 –8 _{(From Seven Centuries of English Cooking)}

Elizabethans did not eat and drink what would constitute as a good balanced diet and especially the rich. The rich ate few vegetables and little fresh fruit – unprepared food of this variety was viewed with sub suspicion. Fruit was generally served in pies or was preserved in honey. The poor would eat vegetables and fresh fruit – vegetables often found in some form of stew, soup, or pottage. Food items that came from the ground were only considered fit for the poor. Only vegetables such as radish, onions, garlic, and leeks graced a Nobles table. Dairy products were also deemed as inferior foods therefore only to be eaten by the poor. Little is known about the nutrition and the diet of the Nobles, which lacked Vitamin C calcium and fiber. Because of the lack of these items in their diet an assortment if health problems happen, including bad teeth, skin diseases, scurvy and rickets. Sugar was an expensive commodity and was known to blacken teeth. In the Elizabethan are it was fashionable to have blackened teeth and cosmetics were applied to achieve this effect if enough quantities of sugar was not available.

Fasting – People of the Elizabethan era were highly religious and at certain times the eating of meats was banned. Certain religious observances banned the eating of meat on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays and during the religious seasons of Lent and Advent. Meat was also declined on the eve of many religious holidays. Note – fasting and abstaining from eating meat was practiced for over half the days in the year.

Food Preservation – It was not economical to feed animals during the winter, therefore animals were slaughtered in the autumn and preserved in salt. The problem was that the food had a constant salt taste, which brought about methods to disguise the salty taste by adding spices to the recipes. These spices included pepper, mustard, saffron, cloves, cardimon and cinnamon and a variety of sauces. Potages and stews formed an important element in the diet of the middle and low class Elizabethans. Food processing was introduced to soften meat and vegetables. Salted meats and fish were generally rinsed in several changes of liquid before these foods were added to a dish. Other methods that were developed was pickling, desiccation, and smoking for preservations. Flowers and herbs used to flavor winter dishes were preserved in the Stillroom. In the stillroom distillations, preserves and delicate floral syrups were prepared along with medicinal tinctures and herbal potions. The most famous use of the stillroom was to produce alcoholic beverages.

When the expanded use of Sugar was feature as an upper class food, but was still more expensive than honey, honey was used in many of the recipes as a sweetener. Jams, marmalades, and curds were enjoyed by the Elizabethans and made from a variety of fruits some home grown while others imported.

Elizabethan Foods from the New World – During the Elizabethan time the spice trade was extremely important. Oriental spices constituted the most profitable and dynamic element in European trade and this drive for profit through new spices encouraged the explorations by seamen Raleigh and Drake although there were other quest as well such as gold and silver. Until the discoveries by the Elizabethan explorers, Italy played the most dominant role in the supply of spices to England from the far east countries. The voyages of the Spanish and the Portuguese to the Americas ensured that they would play an important part in the spice trade from the New World. It was essential for the economy of England that they would also be included in the search for new spices and other treasures that the new world had to offer.

The demand for the spices and new foods were huge but only from the upper class. The price of spices and sugar were extremely high and could only be afforded by the upper class not the lower. Therefore the use of spices in cooking recipes became a matter of both social fashion and social prestige, therefore were a sign of wealth and high social status. The reason for the high prices was due to the cost of transportation and distribution and for the monopolies held by various countries. This spun on hope that similar spices could be found in the new lands of the Americas.

Imported sugar, and spices including pepper, cloves and cinnamon explains the taste for sweet and spice favors of Elizabethan food. The early Crusaders brought to England the elements of eastern cookery, requiring the spices such as cinnamon, ginger, cloves, raisins, and sugar. During the exploration of the New World brought a whole new range of foods to satisfy the Elizabethan taste of sweet and spicy foods. Some of the New World foods as follows;

Tomatoes Turkey Potatoes Maize Vanilla

Kidney Beans Pineapples Lima Beans Peanuts Tapioca

Corn Pumpkin Avocado Pecan Cashew

Squash * Coffee * Chocolate

* Tea (introduced by Jesuit priest who traveled to the Far East

Chilli peppers including red peppers, cayenne, paprika, and chilli

Any of the above mark with * Elizabethan did not drink their beverages hot. Chocolate, coffee and tea were used as medicines in the Elizabethan period.

Potent ground spices used in Medieval cooking recipes were called “Good Powders”. Pungent spices such as ground ginger or a blend of cinnamon and mace, cubeb, pepper or cloves was called “Strong Powder” (Pouder Fort). Ground sweet aromatic spices such as aniseed, fennel seed, and nutmeg were referred to as “Sweet Powder” (Pouder Douce), Ground ginger blended with powdered sugar was called White Powder (blanch pounder).

Manners and Dining Utensils – There were many differences between the meals of the higher and lower classes. Ploughmen were well scrubbed and usually ate at bare tables. Country table manners were not the daintiest. In the well to do household, a greater ceremony was observed. There was a cloth placed on the table – Elizabethans loved fine linens, next a trencher, a napkin, and spoon were set at every place. A pepperbox and a silver chafing dish were among the table accessories. The wine was kept cool and fresh in a copper tub full of water. When a guest handed back an empty glass or goblet it was rinsed in a wooden tube before being refilled. Texture of the food was important because of the limited number of eating tools used. Most people carried a general purpose dagger shaped knife and spoons. Spoons were rarely used as any liquid food such as soups, was drank from a cup. King Henry VIII introduced the fork England but for most English the dinner fork was an oddity. In some places such as the Navy, knives and forks were regarded as being prejudicial to discipline and manliness. The absence of the fork would have few repercussions on table manners, had it not been for the way in which the service of food was organized. Very high ranked men had their own dishes, plates, and drinking cups. No napkins were used at this time. Men had to remember to clean their hands before their meal and keep them clean during the meal. Other table manners were not to blow one’s nose with the fingers and not scratch at any anatomical parts at the table. Poking at the meat or any dish was considered unpleasant and annoying to others. When dinner guest were finished with the meal, the bones were thrown of the floor, not on the plate. This was the custom in an elevated household. Finally to finish the meal right, a delicate burp was acceptable, whether one was a member of the high or low class, manners were the same for everyday life. Elizabethan royalty, upper class and Nobles would eat their food from silverware. Lower class would eat their food from wooden or horn dishes.

Kitchens in large houses or castles were usually situated some distance from the Great Hall and therefore food was generally served cold.

Plants, Herbs & Roots used in Old Elizabethan Recipes

Avens – this herb was used in salad recipes

Borage – a blue flowered plant with hairy leaves that tasted like cucumber used in salad recipes

Clary – a plant of the sage family which cuts the grease of fatty meats and fish

Dittany – a plant of the mint family with oval leaves and clusters of purplish flowers were used

in salad recipes

Galingale – an aromatic root and the main ingredient of galyntyne which was a pungent

Medieval sauce

Hyssop – a blue flowed plant of the mint family whose leaves were used in salad recipes

Laver – an edible purple seaweed use in salad recipe

Orach – a garden plant with red and green leaves used as a vegetable and salad herb

Pellitory – a climbing plant of the nettle family whose leaves were used in salad recipes

Purslane – a plant with a pinksh fleshy stem and small, round leaves, the leaves were

Used as a potherb or in salads

Rocket – mildly pungent plant grown like spinach and eaten in salads

Rose Hips – the fleshy bright colored fruit of the rose plant

St John’s Wort – a plant with brownish stalks & narrow leaves which were used in salad salad recipes

Southernwood – a shrubby fragrant plant with yellowish flowers and bitter tasting leaves

Unusual Fruits and Vegetables used in Dessert Food Elizabethan Recipes

Blaunderelle – a variety of white apple used in dessert recipes

Bullace – a purple wild plum used in dessert recipes

Chibol – a type of small onion

Cubeb – a berry from Java which resembles peppercorns and tasting like allspice

Damson – also called bullace is a bluish black plum is named for the place of its orgin –

Damascus

Medlar – a small brown apple like fruit used in dessert recipes

Porret – a young leek or onion

Skirret – a species of water parsnip

Verjuice was a form of white vinegar or soured lemon jucice made with the juice of green or un-ripened fruits such as crab apples. Verjuice was a popular ingredient in cookery which often replaced vinegar.

Warden – a hard pear with blackish bruises used in dessert recipes

Thickening Agents

Almond milk – a cloudy liquid prepared by steeping ground almond on water, broth or wine. Almond milk acted as the liquid base and or thickening agent in a wide variety of medieval and Elizabethan dessert dishes

Coloring Agents used in Elizabethan Recipes

Alkanet – a group of plants whose roots produced a red dye and used primarily as a coloring agent in the recipes.

Sandalwood – the pulverized wood of an East Indian tree used primarily to color food dark red.

Turnsole – A plant cultivated primarily for its use as a purple dye and used primarily as a coloring agent in the recipes.

Foods of the Elizabethan times

A note the in the Elizabethan times, cookery is generally sweeter than our mundane cookery of today. It should be noted that meats were often cooked with fruits producing a mix of sweet and savory. There is also in some text advising against eating raw vegetables as engendering wind or evil humours. (gas). It should be noted that while many things were period somewhere, not everything was eaten in every part of the world. Things in which are common in Constantinople may had never make their way to England. The potato is still a novelty, and it was the turnip, which was honor and follow closely by the parsnip. Tomatoes was consider doubtful, if not actually poisonous. Chocolate has not yet come to be as we know it of today mundane world as was known as been used in medicinal purposes. Chocolate of the Elizabethan time was a thin, bitter drink probably flavored with chiles. To much touted St. John’s bread (carob) may taste somewhat like chocolate, but it not being used as a flavoring in bake goods. Any brown cake served at your table must surely be gingerbread. Almond is the most common flavoring in sweets, followed by cinnamon, clove, and saunders also known as sandalwood. Almond milk, which ground almonds steeped in honey and water or wine, then strained, was used as a flavoring and thickener. Coffee is period in the strictest sense

But has not arrived in England.

There were laws to; the law says we nay not eat meat on Fridays and Saturdays. This is not a religious fast, but a way of supporting the fishing industry in England. Exceptions to the law were made by a special license for the old, the very young, and the infirm, and anyone else who applies for license; with a typical fish day meals can include eggs, butter, cheese, herring, cod, or other whitefish, etc. Sugar is available but was consider more expensive than honey and must be imported. Sugar is grown as sugar cane, and comes as a 3 or 4 pound square or conical loaf, and has been grated or pounded into useful form. The finest sugar (from Madera) is white and melts easily as a liquid. The next grade is Barbary or Canary sugar, and the common, a coarse sugar is brown and rather gluey, good for syrups and seasoning meats.

This is a list of vegetables available in Europe.

Garlic Asparagus Peas Spinach

Eggplant Onions Cabbages Carrots

Mustard Leeks Lettuce Endives

Lentils Celery Parsnips Beets

Broad beans Turnips Radishes Artichokes

Parsley

This is a list of fruits and nuts available in Europe

Apples Plums Quinces Sloes

Currants Lemons Oranges Dates

Apricots Melons Sesame Wardons

Almonds Strawberries Limes Grapes

Prunes Gooseberries Figs Olives

Mulberries Pomegranates Cherries Raisins

Hazelnuts

A list of meat and fowl available in Europe

Domestic animals

Meat

Beef Veal Pork Goat

Rabbit

Fowl

Chicken Swan Peacock Doves

Goose Pigeon

Swans were fairly common in the Thames, and not especially an upper class item.

Fish:

Eels Pipe Perch Trout

Stugeon Cod Haddock Ling

Conger Plaice Roche Carp

Salmon Porpoise Herring

Wild meats and fowl;

Meat:

Deer Boar Rabbit (or coney) Badger

Hedgehog Woodchuck

Fowl:

Curlew Plover Heron Crane

Pheasant Cormorant Partridge Quail

Bustard

This food list was obtained from: mhtml:file://D\Life%20in%20Elizabethan%20England%2047%20More

Breads:

Manchet: A very fine white bread made of wheat flour. Average weight of a loaf of this

bread was weigh in around 6 ozs.

Cheat: A wheaten bread with the coarsest part of the bran removed

Ravelled Bread: A kind of cheat but with more bran left in. This bread makes a “brown

household bread agreeable enough for the laborers.”

Drink:

Perry: A (very) slightly alcoholic pear cider

Verjuice: A very sharp vinegar made from grapes, used for cooking or as a condiment.

Wines: Includes malmsey, canary, rhenish, claret, sack, and sherry.

Sack: Sherry, sometimes called “Jerez wines.”

Aqua vitae: Any strong wines such as brandy

Brandywine: A distilled wine.

- Most wines are sweet and rather heavy and probably have to be strained before one can drink them, and may have solid matter and even beer.

- Sugar and spices were often added to wine and even beer. The spices of choice were cinnamon and ginger, nutmeg and clove.

- Rhenish is a German wine and very strong.

- Claret comes from southern France from the region known as Gascony

- Canary is a white wine from the Canary Islands

- Sack comes from spain, and us popularly sweeten with sugar.

In measuring out wines a beers a tun is qual to 2 butts (as in malmsey) or 4 hogsheads as in wine or 252 gallons. A puncheon equals 84 gallons. A runlet is various smaller amounts.

Snack Foods

As with mundane snack foods, in the Elizabethan era they also had snack foods. The sweet tooth is not a new invention. Marzipan or marchpane is an almond paste that is sweetened and colored and made into elaborate shapes. Gingerbread, both crisp, cookie kind and cake. The cake form may be German (in Germany, gingerbread is popular foir breakfast, accompanied by brandy). Fruit pies, sweeten with sugar and thicken with almond milk. Sweet cakes (or cates) of various kinds. Puddings, more than just desserts. Daryole – cheesecakes and custard; Pretzels and bagels.

Sweets are commonly flavored with ginger, nutmeg, mace, cloves, anise, coriander, rose water, sherry (sack), almonds and or saffron.

Food cost based on a sample grocery list for London from 1558.

6 Chicken 4 pence each 24 d

Rabbit, ½ lb. Sugar, a ¼ of pepper 8 d

One pie 4 d

Meal Times

Food and the life style of John and Christiana:

In general, people ate two meals a day

Dinner, at midday around 11:00 AM or 12:00

Supper, in the evening about 6:00 PM

Breakfast is a simply a matter of breaking one’s fast on arising and is not consider a formal meal, and is also not consider to be the most important meal of the day. When Christiana was in the service of Thomas she would likely be in charge of duties of a servant and would be require top get up earlier and eat in the servant’s hall.

Credits

Internet:

Mhtml:file://D:\Banquets.mht

Mhtml:file://D:\Elizabethan%20Banquet%20&%20Feast.mht

Mhtml:file://D:\food%20&%20drink02.mht

Mhtml:file://D:\Elizabethan%20Dauly%20Meals.mht

Mhtml:file://D:\Elizabethan%20Foods%20from%20the%20New%20World.mht

Mhtml:file://D:\Elizabethan%20Food%20and%20Diet.mht

Mhtml:file://D:\Elizabethan%20Food%20Preservation.mht

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/recipes.htm

http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/old-elizabethan-recipes.htm

Further Reading materials:

Mhtml:file://D:\A%20Renaissance%20Cookery%20Book.mht

Mhtml:file://D:\Tales%20of%20the%Middle%20Ages%20-%20Christmas.mht.

Mhtml:file://D:\Glossary%20of%20Medievel%20Cooking%20Terms.mht

Mhtml:file://D:\All%20Gode%20Cookery%20Recipes.mht

Mhtml:file://D:\Medieval%20Recipe.mht

Mhtml:file://D:\Byzantine%20Recipes.mht

Mhtml:file:file://D:\Medieval%20Gingerbread.mht

Books for further reading:

Pleyn Delit Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks (second edition)

Constance B. Hieatt, Brenda Hosington and Dharon Butler ISBN 0-8020-7632-7

Seven Centuries of English Cooking; a collection of recipes by

Maxime de la Falaise ISBN 0-8021-3296-0

Glossary

Coffin- roaster pan

Brest-Breast

Claret Wine – the name given in England to red wines of the Bordeaux district

Limon – Lemon

Liquor – the liquid resulting from boiling something

Museles - mussels

Oisters - Oysters

Pipkin- a small earthen boiler.

Rost – Roast

Roul Rowl – roll

Sippets – a little bit of something eatable

The Hunter’s Feast

The menu of the feast the eve of John’s Willard death that was served to his guest at the Manor of Pheasant Hollow. For those that wish to use this feast I have cut the servings down and included the recipes to make these dishes.

John Willard’s and Hunting Party visit to Pheasant Manor Feast

Centerpiece

Thy colors of the Manor of Pheasant Hollow linens

Ye floral piece to represent lawn,

Surrounded by large peacock eye feathers,

And green branches, with violets, and lavender, and heather and Cedar blows.

I Course Removed

Saffron Broth

Maqluba al Tirrikh

Oysters in Bruette

Vyaunde de Cyprys in Lent

Jannaniyya

II Course Removed

Baked Goose with melted butter,

Serve with mustard and sugar and bay leaves

Cress in Lent with Milk of Almonds

Armored Turnips

Stawberye

III Course Removed

Bourbelie of Wild Boar with Asparagus with meat stuffing

Tye Flesh of Veal

White Tharidah of al Rashid

Frictella from Apples

IV Course Removed

Mushroom Oastries

Forced Rabbit with Fine Sauce For a Rossted

Veal in Bokenade

Green Pesen Royal

Quinces in Pastry

Desert Course

Fruits in season, Raspberry Cream, Almond Tart and Preserves

Recipes of the feast with translation:

1^st Course Removed

Saffron Broth

Put thirty egg yolks, verjuice, the juice of veal or capon, saffron, a little cinnamon together into a bowl and blend. Pass them through a strainer into a pot. Cook it down slowly and stir it continuously with a spoon until it begins to thicken. For then it is taken from the hearth and served to ten guest. While in the dishes, sprinkle with spices

(Platina book 6)

Translation:
7 egg yolks
2 T verjuice (or 1 T vinegar + 1T water)
21 ounces chicken broth
1/8 teaspoon loose saffron
½ teaspoon cinnamon
“spices” ¼ teaspoon black pepper,
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Maqluba al Tirrikh

Take tirrikh and fry in sesame-oil: then take out, and place in dish to cool. When cold, cut off heads and tails, remove the spine, bone, and scale with the greatest care. Crumble and break up the flesh, and sprinkle with dry coriander, cumin, caraway and cinnamon. Break eggs, throw on, and mix well. Then fry in sesame-oil in a frying pan as maqluba is fried, until both sides are browned: and remove.

(al-Baghdadi p. 204/12 {Good})

Translation:
1 T sesame oil (initial frying)
½ lb perch or catfish
1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon caraway
½ teaspoon coriander, ground in a
1 large egg

mortar
2 T sesame oil

Fry fish in sesame oil: let it cool. Bone and crumble it. Add spices and eggs. Fry like pancakes in more sesame oil. Tirrikh is a kind of Middle Eastern freshwater fish.

Oysters in Bruette

Take and shell oysters, and keep the water that cometh of them and strain it, and put it in a pot, and ale thereto, and a little bread thereto; put ginger, canel, powder of peper thereto, saffron and salt; and when it is enough almost, put in thine oysters; look that they been well y-washed for the shells; and them serve forth.

(Two fifteenth century p. 23/56)

Translation:

1 ¼ cups oysters

¾ cups liquid from oysters

¾ cups ale

2 slices bread, broke into small pieces

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

3/16 teaspoon ginger

¼ teaspoon salt

a few shakes of pepper

a pinch of saffron

Mix liquids and bread and heat; add seasonings and simmer until the bread has come apart and the sauce is fairly thick. Add oysters, let simmer until oysters are done and serve forth.

Vyaunde de Cyprys in Lent

Take good thich milk of almonds, and do it on a pot; nym the flesh of good crabs, and good salmon, and bray it small, and temper it up with the foresaid milk; boil it, and lye it with flour of rice or amyndoun, and make it chargeaunt; when it is yboiled, do thereto white sugar, a gode quantite of white vernage pimes with the wine, pomegranate. When it is ydressed, strew above the grains of pomegranate.

(Two fifteenth Century p. 28/57)

Translation

White vernage pimes – apparently a wine like muscadine)

Almond milk: 2 oz blanched almonds, 1 cup water
7 oz crabmeat
7 oz salmon
2 T rice flour
3 T sugar
4 teaspoons Rhine wine
2 T pomegranate juice

Pomegranate seeds

Almond milk: Grind almonds, mix in ½ cup water and grind more, squeeze liquid out through thin cloth, add residue to ¼ cup water and grind again, squeeze again, repeat with another ¼ cup water

Remove skin and bones from salmon, cut salmon and crab into cubes and shred. Mis fish and almond milk and cook over medium heat; add sugar, wine, and pomegranate juice after 5 minutes, add rice flour after 11 minutes, cook, stirring, another minute, remove from heat and keep stirring another half minute. Garnish with pomegranate seed.

Jannaniyya

It was the custom among us to make this in the flower and vegetable gardens. If you make it in summer or fall take saltwort: Swiss chard, gourd, small eggplants, “eyes” of fennel, fox grapes, the best parts of tender gourd and flesh of ribbed cucumber and smooth cucumber, chop all this very small, as vegetables are chopped, and cook with water and salt; then drain off water. Take clean pot and in it pour a little water and a lot of oil, pounded onion, garlic, pepper, coriander seed and caraway; put on a moderate fire and when it has boiled, put in the boiled vegetables. When it has finished cooking, add grated or pounded bread and dissolved sour dough, and break over it as many eggs as you are able, and squeexe in the juice of tender coriander and of mint, and leave on the hearthstone until the eggs set.

(Andalusian p. A-52)

Translation:
1 oz fennel leaves
2 cups frozen or fresh fava beans substitute lima
beans, although they are from the new world, they are the
closest to the fava beans.

3 oz spinach
¼ lb chard, or beet leaves
2 carrots sliced
1 cup water

½ cup oil
2 medium onions

2 large cloves garlic
½ teaspoon pepper

½ teaspoon coriander
¼ teaspoon caraway seeds

½ cup breadcrumbs
2 eggs

1 teaspoon green coriander mashed
½ teaspoon mint, mashed to juice

3 oz grated cheese

4 T green coriander

Chop greens, slice carrots, put with beans into boiling salted water for about 5 minutes (if frozen beans, put them in first and wait until water comes to boil again before adding greens), and drain. Mix water, oil, sliced onions and garlic, and seasonings in clean pan, boil about 10 minutes and add greens. Cook about 3 minutes and add bread crumbs, eggs, coriander and mint juice, and cheese. Cook over low heat until eggs sets and cheese melts.

2^nd Course Remove

Baked Goose with melted butter, served with mustard, sugar, and bay leaves.

Bone your goose and parboil it, and season it with pepper and salt, and lay it into a deep coffin with a good store of butter top and bottom, then bake it well and when it is baked, fill up the pie at the vent hole with melted butter, and so serve it in with Mustard and sugar and bay leaves.

(mhtml:file://D:\Baked%20Goose%20Old%20Elizabethan%20Recipe.mht)

Translation
1 Boned Goose
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 lb butter
¼ teaspoon mustard
¼ teaspoon sugar

bay leaves

Boil Goose till tender to remove bones, season with pepper and salt. Bake in rooster with butter on breast, and bottom and in vent hole. When cooked add mustard, sugar, and bay leaves and serve.

Cress in Lent with Milk of Almonds

Take your cress and parboil it with a handful of chopped beet leaves, and fry them in oil, then put to boil in milk of almonds; and when it is not Lent, fry in lard and butter until cooked, then moisten with meat stock; or with cheese, and adjust it carefully, for it will brown, if you add parsley, it does not have to be blanched.

(Menagier p. M14)

Translation:
2 ¼ cups cress
1 ½ cups beet leaves
2 T lard and/or butter
1 ½ mild brick cheese
3 sprigs parsley
1/8 teaspoon salt.

Meat stock

Chop the cress and beet leaves. Dump them into boiling water, let the water come back to boil, them drain them. Heat oil or lard or butter in a skillet, add drained greens, and chopped parsley, stir fry for about 3 minutes. Add meat stock and cook down 2-3 minutes. Add salt, serve.

Armored Turnips:

Cut up turnips that have been either boiled or cooked under the ashes. Likewise do the same with rich cheese, not too ripe. These should be smaller morsels than the turnips, though. In a pan greased with butter or liquamen make a layer of cheese first, then a layer of turnips, and so on, all the while pouring in spice and some butter from time to time. This dish is quickly cooked and should be eaten quickly, too.

(Platina book 8)

Translation:
1 lb turnips
10 oz cheddar cheese
2 T butter
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon pepper

Boil turnips about 30 minutes, peel and slice thin, layer turnips and sliced cheese in 9 inch x 5 inch baking pan and bake for 30 minutes at 350 F.

Strawberye

Take strawberys, and waysshe hem in tyme of yere in gode red wyne; + an strayne + orwe a clo+e, and do hem in a potte with gode Almaunde mylke, a lay it with Amyndown o + er with + e flower of Rys, and make it chargeaunt and lat it boyle, annd do + er-in Roysonys of coraunce, Safroun, Pepir, Sugre grete plente, pouder Gyngere, Canel, Galyngale; poynte it with Vynegre, and a lytil white grece put + er-to; coloure it with Alkenade, and froppe it a bowte, plante it with graynys of Pomegarnad, and + serue it forth.

(Two fifteenth century p. 29)

Translation:
1 pt strawberries
¼ cup red wine (burgundy)
1 ¾ cups almond milk
½ cup almonds
1 ½ cups water

(see recipe for ‘Cress in Lent with Milk’ of Almonds for almond milk recipe)

4 T wheat starch
¾ cups currents
8 threads saffron
1/8 teaspoon pepper
¼ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon galingale
¼ teaspoon cider vinegar
¾ teaspoon lard
coloring, and pomegranate seeds

Wash strawberries in water, then mix with wine and force through wire strainer using a pestle. Mix with almond milk and wheat starch, then boil about 10 minutes, until thick enough to stick to the spoon. Add currents, then remaining ingredients as it cooks. Make sure spices are ready when you start boiling it. If using strawberries that are less than sweet one might use more sugar or less vinegar. If the berries are sweeter reverse the trend by less sugar more vinegar.

3^rd Course Removed

Bourrbelie of Wild Boar with Asparagus with meat stuffing

Bourrbelie of Wild Pig (Wild Boar)

First you must put it in boiling water, and take it out quickly and stick it with cloves; put in roast, and baste with a sauce made of spices, that is ginger, cinnamon, clove, grain, long pepper and nutmegs, mixed with verjuice, wine, and vinegar, and without boiling use it to baste; and when it is roasted, it should be boiled up together. And this sauce is called boar’s tail, and you will fine it later (and there it is thickened with bread; and here, not.

Menagier pg. M-23

3 lb. Pork roast
about 60 whole cloves
¼ teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cloves
¼ grains of paradise
½ teaspoon pepper (rounded)
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
(verjuice) 1 cup wine
½ cup vinegar

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Stud roast with whole cloves, baste with a mixture of the remaining ingredients them put into oven. Immediately after putting it in, turn oven down to 350 degrees. Roast meat 1 hour 45 minutes (for 3 lb. Roast) basting every 15 minutes.

Preparing Asparagus with Meat Stuffing

Take asparagus, the largest you have, clean and boil, after taking tender meat and pounding fine: throw in pepper, caraway, coriander seed, cilantro juice, some oil and egg whites: take boiled asparagus one after another, and dress with this ground meat, and do so carefully. Put in earthenware pot on the fire, after putting in it in water, salt, a spoon of mjurri and another of oil, cilantro juice, pepper, caraway and coriander seed; little by little while the pot boils, throw in the asparagus wrapped in meat. Boil in the pot and throw in it meatballs of this ground meat, and when it is all evenly cooked, cover with egg, breadcrumbs and some of the stuffed meat already mentioned and decorate with egg, got willing.

Andalusian pg. A-41

1 lb. Asparagus (before trimming)
¼ lb. Ground meat (lamb?)
1/8 teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon caraway
1/8 teaspoon coriander seed
1/3 cup crushed fresh coriander
½ Tablespoon oil
1 egg white

water
¼ teaspoon salt

murri
1/3 cup more fresh coriander
1 cup breadcrumbs
3 eggs

1/8 teaspoon more coriander seed

It has not yet been figured out how one ought to dress the asparagus with the meat; one possible solution is one could split the asparagus down the center and lay the meat inside.

Verjuice; Sour juice, usually from specially grown unripe grapes. Can also be made from crabapples, sorrel, gooseberries, or any other item according to the season. Flandrin et al has mention the addition of salt as a preservative. Lemon juice is a modern substitute

Tye Flesh of Veal

From the haunch of veal take the lean meat and slice it into long thin slices; stroke them with the back of the knife so that they do not break; right away sprinkle them with salt and ground fennel, then on the meat spread marjoram and parsley, with finely diced lard, and sprinkle aromatic herbs over the slices and immediately roll them up and put them on a spit near the fire, taking care that they do not dry out too much. When they are cooked serve them immediately to your guests.

Platina book 6

¾ lb. Veal (leg or rump: lean)
1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon fennel seed, ground
2 teaspoons fresh marjoram

3 tablespoons parsley
1 tablespoon lard

aromatic herbs; ¼ teaspoon dry thyme,
2 tablespoon fresh basil

Chop parsley, marjoram and basil coarsely. Sprinkle salt and fennel onto the meat slices, dot with lard, sprinkle on herbs. Roll meat up in the direction that the fibers run, since otherwise it will tear. Bake 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

White Tharidah of al Rashid

Take a chicken and joint it, or meat of a kid or lamb, and clean it and throw it in a pot, and throw on it soaked chickpeas, clean oil, galingale, cinnamon sticks, and a little salt. And when it boils, skim it. Take fresh milk and strain it over the pot and throw in onion slices and boiled carrots. And when it boils well, take peeled almonds and pound them fine. Break over them five eggs and mix with wine vinegar. Then throw in the pot and add coriander, a little pepper and a bit of cumin and arrange it and leave on the fire and serve.

Islamic Collection – translated by Charles Perry from 9 – 10^th c.

2 ¾ lbs lamb with bones
or 2 ½ lb chicken, cup up

2 15 oz cans chickpeas
2 tablespoon olive oil

¾ teaspoon galingale
1 oz cinnamon sticks

5 cups water
1 tablespoon salt

1 cup milk
1 ¼ lb onion

1 ¼ lb. Carrots
5 oz almonds ground

5 eggs
1 ½ tablespoon white vinegar

1 teaspoon coriander
1 ¾ teaspoon pepper

1 ¼ teaspoon cumin

Either put meat or chicken, chickpeas with the liquid, oil, galingale, cinnamon sticks and salt with as little water as to cover it, boil for 15 minutes. Boil carrots. Use a large pot, add milk, sliced onion, drained carrots, boil another 15 minutes. Add in fine ground almonds, eggs, and vinegar and spices all mixed together. Add this to boiling mixture and boil for another five minutes them serve.

Alternative: omit the water, cook the meat in oil until partially cooked, then add the milk, onions and carrots.

Frictella from Apples

Morsels of apples that have been cleaned and cored, you fry in ligqamen or a little oil, and spread them on a board so that they dry. Then roll them to grated cheese, age as well as fresh, add a little meal, some egg whites, some milk, a bit of sugar that is prepared together in the same mortar, and fry again.

Platina Book 9

3 green cooking apples
¼ cup grated cheddar cheese

1 cup flour
1 tablespoon sugar

2 egg whites
5 tablespoon milk.

4^th Course Removed

Mushroom Pastries

Mushrooms of one night are the best, and are small and red inside, closed above; and they should be peeled, then wash in hot water and parboiled; if you wish to put them in pastry add oil, cheese, and powdered spices.

Menagier pg. M-25

1 lb mushrooms
9 oz parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon oil

Take an once and a drachm of white ginger, a quarter ounce of hand picked cinnamon, half a quarter once each of grains and cloves, and a quarter once of rock sugar, and grind to powder

Menagier pg. M-40

1 teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/8 grains of paradise

¼ teaspoon sugar

Slice mushrooms and parboil for two minutes and drain. Grate or chop cheese, grind grains of paradise and mix up spices. Mix mushrooms, 2/3 cheese, spices and oil. Put mixture into crust, place remaining cheese over. Make scant 9 inch pie. Bake about 20 to 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

Forced Rabbit with ‘Fine Sauce for a Roosted:

This recipe for this sauce comes from ‘The Good Huswives Closet published in 1591 in the reign of Henry’s daughter Elizabeth I. Page 96 Eating Like a King

For the Forcement

½ lb pig’s liver
4 oz butter

1 Tablespoon fresh parsley, finely chopped
½ teaspoon fresh thyme, finely chopped

4 oz fresh white breadcrumbs
1 egg yolk

salt and pepper
approx 2 oz stock

Chop the liver and saute’ in butter. Mince finely, combine the ingredients; season well and moisten with stock to make fairly firm consistency.

The Sauce:

1 bunch parsley, finely chopped
2 ½ oz butter

8 oz cider vinegar
2 oz water

4 oz breadcrumbs
4 teaspoons castor sugar

salt and pepper

Stew the parsley gently in the butter for a few minutes. Ass the vinegar and water and bring to boil, stirring; add breadcrumbs and seasoning stir well. Leave in warm place for 10 min. while breadcrumbs swell up, then beat the sauce thoroughly, adding a lttle more butter and water and water if the mixture is to stiff. Reheat and serve. If reheating much later add more water as the bread will make the mixture much stiff.

Clean one trussed rabbit
melt butter for basting

8 oz streaky bacon strips
1 tablespoon flour

8 oz glass red wine
½ pt. Stock made from chicken giblets

salt and pepper

Stuff rabbit with forcemeat and sew up opening. Place in a roasting pan. Brush with melted butter and cover with bacon strips. Toast in oven at 375 F. for about an hour, basting from time to time as rabbit tends to dry out. About 10 min. before rabbit is cooked remove bacon to allow the rabbit to brown. When cooked transfer rabbit to a warmed dish and keep hot. Skin excess fat off meat juices add flour to pan and cook scraping the pan until flour browns; add wine and stock and bring to boil, stirring. Keep stirring until gravy thickens: adjust seasoning and serve rabbit with the gravy, bread sauce and stuffing. Serves four.

Veal in Bokenade

Take Vele, Kyde, or Henne, an boyle hem in fayre water, or ellys in fresshe brothe, an smyte hen in pecys, an pyke hem clene; an than draw the same brothe thorwe a straynoure, an caste ther-to Percely, Sawge, Ysope, Maces, Clowys, an let byle tyl the flesshe be y-now; than settle it from tyre, and a lye it vp with raw yolkys of eyroun, and caste ther-to pouder Gyngere, Verjows, Safroun, and salt, and thane serue it forth for a gode mete.

Two Fifteenth Century pg. 13/53

Meat (1/2 chicken) or veal, or goat

2 tablespoons parsley
3 leaves of sage

½ Tablespoon hyssop
1/8 teaspoon mace

3 Tablespoon vinegar
1/8 teaspoon cloves

5 threads saffron
8 egg yolks

½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon powdered ginder

Boil meat for 20 minutes before the “smiting in pieces” and another 20 minutes after the parsley, etc was added.

Green Pesen Royal

Take green peas clean washen and let them boil awhile over the fire, and then pour away all broth, and bray a few of them with parley and mint, and in the braying allay it with almond milk and draw it up with the same milk and put it in the same pot, and let it boil with whole pesen, and cast thereto sugar and saffron, and in the setting down of the pot, if it be a pot of two gallons, take 12 yolkes of eggs and beat them, and strain them, and cast them into the pot and stir it well, and look that the pottage be running, and when it is dressed, strew sugar above, and serve it forth.

Ancient Cookery pg. 470/44

1 lb green peas shelled
2 teaspoons fresh parley

1 teaspoon mint
1/8 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon sugar
6 threads saffron

2 beaten egg yolks
2 Tablespoons sugar (sprinkled on at end)

almond milk (1/4 cup blanched almonds, ½ cup cool water)

Make the almond milk and boil peas. Once peas are boiled, mash ½ cup of the peas with the parsley and mint, and add almond milk gradually. Place back with peas, add sugar and saffron, and heat; add egg yolks and remove from heat, and sprinkle sugar before serving.

Quinces in Pastry

Again, quinces in pastry; and to give understanding to him who should prepare them let him arrange that he has his fair and good quinces and then let him clean them well and properly, and then make a narrow hole on top and remove the seeds and what they are wrap up in, and let him take care that he does not break through the bottom or anywhere else; and, this bring done, put them to boil in a fair and clean cauldron or pot in fair water and, being thus cooked, take them out onto fair and clean boards to drain and put them upside down without cutting them up. And then let him go to the pastry-cooks and order from them the little crusts of the said pastries to put into each of said little crusts three quinces or four or more. And when the said little crusts are made fill the holes in the said quinces with very good sugar, then arrange them in the said little crusts and cover and put ti cook in the oven; and, bring cooked enough, let them be served.

Du Fait de Cuisine no. 70

3 quinces
5/8 cup sugar

option 1/8 teaspoon ginger

Pie crust

1 ¼ cut flour
6 ½ Tablespoons butter

3 ½ Tablespoon water

Core the quinces without cutting through to the bottom them simmer in water for about 15 minutes. Make the piecrusts, divide in half, roll out bottom crust and put in 7 inch pie pan. Set quinces upright on top of the bottom crust, fill with sugar, then put top crust over them. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes, than reduce heat to 350 degrees and cook for 35 minutes.

There is also a similar recipe in Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books pg 51. The differences is the quinces are pealed, and they can be replaced by warden pears, there is a little powdered ginger in with the sugar, and the sugar may be replaced by honey with pepper and ginger.

Desert Course

Fruit in season: During the time of hunt in early fall, the fruit available would be applies walnuts nuts and chestnuts - roasted.

Raspberry Cream: The raspberry at this time more or less was wild. Pg 101 Eating Like a King

½ pint single cream
½ pint double cream

1 blade of mace
4 oz ground almonds

1 lb fresh or frozen raspberries
1 ½ oz castor sugar.

Bring cream slowly to boil in top of double saucepan with mace and the ground almonds, stirring constantly with a wire whisk. When cream has thickened remove from heat a let cool. Stew raspberries with sugar and very little water until they are just soft. Defrost frozen raspberries if using frozen raspberries. Allow to cool. Press through sieve to remove pips. Combine raspberry pulp with almond cream; add sugar if necessary and serve chilled. Serves eight.

Almond Tart

Almonds were being cultivated in England during Queen Mary’s rein. Pg 105 Eating Like a King.

8 oz (flour weight) puff pastry
4 oz unsalted butter

¼ pt single cream
¼ pt. Double cream

4 oz ground almonds
4 tablespoons orange flower water

½ tablespoon castor sugar
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

pinch of salt
3 egg yolks

Line an 8 inch. Flat tin with pastry. Melt the butter in the cream gently, in top of a double boiler and add almonds, orange flower water, sugar, nutmeg, and salt. Heat a little longer until mixture thickens; leave to cool. Beat egg-yolks together and beat into cooked almond cream. Pour into prepared flan case and bake at 350 F. until filling sets (approx. 45 min.) Sprinkle with sugar and serve while still warm. Serves six.

Marmalade of Cherries with Currans

Take four pounds of cherries when they are stoned and boil them alone in their liquor for half an hour very fast, then pour away the liquor from them, and put to them half a pint and little more of the juice of currans, then boil a pound of double refine sugar to a candy height, and put your cherries and juice of curran in that and boil them again very fast till you find it to jelly very well.

Preserve Goosberries

The best way to preserve gooseberries green and whole. Pick them clean and put them into water as warm as milk. So let stand close covered half an hour, then put them into another warm water and let them stand long and so the third time, till you find them very green. Then take their weight in find sugar, and make a syrup, then put them in, and let them boil softly one hour; then set them by till the next day, then heat them again, so do twice, then take them from the syrup and make a new syrup and boil them therein till you find they be enough.

Drink

Note: Some of the drinks that would have been served at this feast was or were mead, small mead (known as weak honey drink), Syrup of Simple Sikanjabin, syrup of pomegranates, syrup of lemon, and hippocras

Sources:

Internet:

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc

mhtml:file://D:\Elizabethan%20Food

mhtml:file://D:\Elizabethan%20Banquet

http://www.thousandeggs.com/grossary.html

http://www.elizabethan -era.org.uk/old-elizabethan-recipes.htm

Books:

Eating Like a King, A History of Royal Recipes – Michele Brown; Tempus Publishing Limited. ISBN 0-7524-4064-0

Recipes for food that was physically cooked and presented Golden Swan 2010

Cookery is one of the requirements for entering the golden swan persona challenge, it was by my choice to present the following foods on Saturday . Below is a copy of the documentation of the recipes.

Two items were present - Fruit Pie and Boil Duck.

Note: Secrets of cooking duck to make it taste good. This is not included in the original recipe, but from my experience in cooking, please do the following. First cook off the oil gland that is located near the vent hole. This contains the oil that the bird uses to gleam itself, and when cook can taint the flavor of the meat.

To boil a wild duck:

I substituted a domestic duck

Truss and parboil it, then half rost it, then carve it, and save the gravie, then take onions and parsley sliced, ginger and pepper, put the gravie into a pipkin with currans, mace, barberries, and a quart of claret wine, and a little salt, put your duck with all the forenamed things into it, and let the boil till it be enough, then put butter and sugar, and serve it in sippets.

To boil a tame duck

Take your duck and truss it, and boil it wit water and salt, or rather Mutton broth, when it half boiled a while, put in some whole spice and when it is boiled enogh,take white wine and butter, and good store of onions boiled tender in several waters, with a little of liquor wherein the duck hath boied, ad a little salt, put your duck into a dish, and heat these things, together and pour over it and serve it; garnsh the dish with boiled onions and barberries.
From: mhtml:file://D:\Boiled%20Duck%20Old%20Eizabethan%20Recipe.mht

1 - 3 to 4 lb duck clean (domestic works well)
dash of ginger, pepper, maceParsley (fresh preferred, but can be done with dry parsley)
1/4 cup currents
1/4 cup Barberries - substitute saskatoons if cannot get barberries
saskatoons are a small blue color berry similar to blueberries, although grows on scrubs.
1 cup Merlot wine substitute for Claret Wine (Claret Wine is a red wine from France)

2 medium size cooking onions diced

1 Tbsp sugar - I substitute 1 Tbsp honey

1 Tbsp butter - do not substitutesalt

In preparing the dish, parboil the duck (place duck on back) for about1/2 hour in water with dash of salt added to the water. Drain water and let stand. Boil onions and let stand. Place duck in rooster or a clay pot with back down, add butter through vent and neck opening, bake at 365 to done. Remove from oven, cut meat off duck into small pieces and place aside. Place juices from the rooster into a pot, add thickener (flour or cornstarch) in water to juice, bring to boil or until thicken. Place boiled onion pieces, barberries and spices within the gravy and simmer for a few minutes. Once cook add this sauce by pouring over the duck pieces in a serving bowl. Serve hot. Makes 6 servings

Fruit Pies - Pie Shells:

Note: This recipe has being transfer from mother to daughter from my father's side. With research, it appears that this recipe comes from 16 century France.

The pie crust.

5 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 egg beaten

1 lb lard (do not use shorting - the crust will not turn out). You can use 1 lb. of butter for substitution.

1 Tbsp white vinegar

1 tsp salt

water to add,

Mix all ingredients in a large pot and mix well. This will either have to done by hand or with a strong stationary commercial mixer (Kitchen Aid). Using a domestic hand held mixer will burn the unit out. After mixing roll into sheets to be placed in pie pans; make sure to keep enough aside to make the top crust. This will do 2 ten inch pie shells (deep dish).

Fruit Pie

min. 4 large apples (Spartans seem to work the best)

min. 4 large pears (not over ripe - just riping)

1/4 cup currants or raisins

1 egg beaten

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup flour

1 Tbsp cinnamon,

1/4 tsp nutmeg,

1/4 tsp cardamon

1/8 cup Merlot wine (optional)

Peel and core the fruit, than slice. Add layer of apples to each pie shell follow by layer of pear. In between each layer sprinkle a few raisins or currents. Continue layering until reaching sightly above the top of the pie plate. Mix sugar, flour eggs and spices in mixing bowl, you may have to add a bit of water or substitute 1/8 cup Merlot wine to make mixture. Add 1/2 of mixture on top of each pie and spread. Follow by placing top crust on and pinch the lower and upper pie crust together. Use a knife a punch holes in a pattern to vent steam when cooking. You may beat on more egg and use a brush and brush on pie crust, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. (option) Add 1 Tbsp of cinnamon to pie crust when mixing ingredients of pie crust together to achieve a cinnamon flavor through the crust. Bake at 375 F until fort slips easily into crust and fruit. DO NOT OVERCOOK.Hint: When cooking these kind of pies in an oven, I usually use a tray on the lower rack of the oven to catch the over spills of juices from the pies when they are cooking. This reduces the need to clean the oven after cooking fruit pies. ENJOY. Makes 16 large servings