Note: This was translated from the French edition of Jerome Pichon published in 1846. Footnotes marked JP are by him; those marked JH are by Janet Hinson, the translator; those marked DDF and EGC are by David Friedman and Elizabeth Cook, respectively.
(c) Janet Hinson
After these matters it is desirable to tell you of various general terms relating to cookery of any quality, and then you will be shown how to know and choose the foods with which you will work, as follows :
First, when you grind spices and bread for any sauces or soups, you must grind the spices first and remove them from the mortar, for as you grind the bread it will gather up any spices remaining; thus you do not lose any speck which would be lost otherwise.
Item, sauces and thickening agents for soups should never be strained, whereas for sauces they should be so that the sauces be clearer and also more pleasing.
Item, you should know that it is unlikely for peas or beans or other soups to stick to the bottom of the pot, if the burning logs do not touch the underside of the pot while it is on the fire. - Item, before your soup sticks, and so that it will not stick, stir the bottom of the pot often getting your spoon down to the depths, so that the soup does not lump there. And note that as soon as you see your soup is sticking, do not stir it at all but take it immediately off the fire and put in another pot.
Item, note that commonly any soup which is on the fire will boil up and over on to the said fire until you add salt and grease to the pot, and then it will not.
Item, note that the best soup there is, is cheek of beef washed in water two or three times, then boiled and well skimmed.
Item, you can tell if a coney is fat by feeling a tendon in the neck between the two shoulders, for there you can tell if it has much fat by the large tendon; and if it is tender, you can tell by breaking one of the hind legs.
Item, note that there is a difference between sticking and larding, for the first is with cloves and the other with bacon.
Item, with pike, the soft roe is better than the hard roe, unless you want to make rissoles, as you use the hard roe for rissoles, ut patet in tabula. With pike, we speak of "lanceron", the smallest, "pike" in the middle, and then "quarrel", the biggest.
Item, shad comes into season in March.
Item, carp must be well-cooked otherwise there is danger in eating it.
Item, plaice feel smooth to the hand, sole do not.
Item, in Paris the goose-sellers fatten their geese on wheat-flour, not the finest flour nor bran, but that which falls between the two, namely fine or double-milled: and to this flour they add an equal amount of oats, and mix it together with a little water, and this holds together like a paste, and they put this food in a four-legged feeding-trough, and nearby, water and litter fresh each day, and in fifteen days they are fat. And note that the litter enables them to keep their feathers clean.
Item, to age capons and hens, you should bleed them through their beaks and immediately put them in a pail of very cold water, holding them all the way under, and they will be aged that same day as if they had been killed and hung two days ago.
You can tell young ducks from old ones, when they are all the same size, by the quills which on the young ones are more tender.--Item, you have to know which ones are from the river, with delicate black toe-nails and red feet, while those from the stable-yard have yellow feet. Item, the crest of the head, that is to say the top, is green throughout its length, and sometimes the males have a white patch across their necks at the nape, and they all have very changeable plumage, including that on top of the head.
Item, wood-pigeons are good in winter, and you can tell the old ones in that the secondary wing-feathers are all black, whereas those of the young ones of a year old are grey and the remainder black.
Item, you can tell the age of a hare from the number of openings under its tail, for there will be as many openings as years.
Item, partridge whose feathers are tight and well joined to the flesh, and are neatly and well joined and are in excellent order, are freshly killed: and those partridge whose feathers lift up crosswise and fall out and lose their hold on the flesh and go every which way, were killed less recently.--Item, when pulling the feathers from the belly, smell it.
Item, carp with pale-coloured scales and no yellow or red, are from good water. One with large eyes starting out of its head, and whose tongue and the roof of the mouth are smooth and oily, is fat. And note, if you wish to carry a live carp for a whole day, wrap it in damp hay and carry it belly up, without giving it any air, that is to say in a sack or a bag.
Trout season begins in[1] ... and lasts till September. The white are good in winter, and salmon-trout in summer. The best part of the trout is the tail, and of the carp, the head.
Item, an eel with a small head, slender mouth, shiny, shimmering, sparkling skin, small eyes, a large body and pale belly, is the finest sort. The other sort has a big head, yellow belly, and coarse brown skin.
Hereafter follow some dinners and suppers for great lords and others, with notes on those you might choose, to collect and learn about those dishes which please you, according to the seasons and the foods available in the country where you will be, whether you have to serve dinner or supper.
I. Meat-day Dinner, Thirty-one dishes in Six Platters.
First platter. Grenache wine[2] and toast-rounds, veal pies, pompano[3] pies, black-puddings and sausages.
Second platter. Hare stew and ribs, strained peas, salted and coarse meat, smoked eels 12[4] and other fish.
Third platter. Roast: coneys, partridge, capons, etc., eel-pout, brill, and a soup of chopped meats 35,36,37.
Fourth platter. Water-fowl a la dodine[5], smothered rice 37, and a mold of eels with hot sauce 26.
Fifth platter. Shad pies, rissoles, sugared milk 41, sugared flans.
Sixth platter. Pears and~sugared almonds, medlars and shelled nuts. Hippocras and wafers[6].
II. Another Meat Dinner of Twenty-four Dishes with Six Platters.
First platter. Pies of veal chopped small in grease and marrow of beef, pompano pies, black-puddings, sausages, forcemeat, and rich pies de quibus[7] 41.
Second platter. Hare soup 16 and eel broth; strained beans, salted meats, coarse meats, that is to say beef and mutton.
Third platter. Roast: capons, coneys, veal and partridge, freshwater and saltwater fish, any chopped 36 and browned 39 [vegetables].
Fourth dish. River ducks a la dodine, tench both in soups and molded with hot sauce[8] 26, fat capons in soup with chicken-fat and parsley.
Fifth dish. A bacon gruel, smothered rice, jellied eels, any roast saltwater or freshwater fish, rissoles 41, thin pancakes and much sugar [or sugared sea-wife, a fish (JH)].
The sixth and last remove to be served. Little sugared tarts and sugared milk, medlars, shelled nuts, cooked pears and sugared almond. Hippocras and wafers.
III. Another Meat Dinner.
First dish. Beef pies and rissoles, black beet, lampreys in cold sage soup, a German meat soup, a white sauce of fish and an abarlester[9], and the coarse meat of beef and mutton.
Second dish. Roast meat, freshwater fish, saltwater fish, meat cracklings, little tarts, a roast of young rabbits and forcemeat in hot sauce, Pisan tarts of small birds--that is, from Pisa in Lombardy, and sometimes called Lombard tarts, and there are small birds amid the stuffing, and in several places hereafter they are called Lombard tarts.
Third dish. Tench soup, decorated fricassee, sugared milk with bread-crusts, boar's tail in hot sauce, capons a la dodine, salmon and bream pies, plaice in water and fried bread-slices and meat tarts.
Fourth dish. Frumenty, venison, roast fish, cold sage soup, jellied eels, fish jellies, capon pies with thick broth.
IV. Another Meat Dinner.
First dish. Rich pasties 40, a stew of meat, beef marrow fritters, smoked eels, loach in water and cold sage soup, coarse meat and saltwater fish.
Second dish. The best roast you can make and freshwater fish, a bacon gruel, a slab of meat, capon pies and thin pancakes, bream pies, eel pies, and fricassee.
Third dish. Frumenty, venison, lamprey in hot sauce 26, fried bread slices, bream roasted and meat tarts, sturgeon and jelly.
V. Another Meat Dinner.
First dish and platter. Beef and marrow pies, hare soup, coarse meat, a white broth of coneys, capons and venison in soups, white beet, turnips, salted olives and sciaenas [an edible fish (JH)].
Second dish. The best roast etc., a grill of shad, a fricassee, numbles and tail of boar with hot sauce 26, fat capons in pies, fritters and rich pasties.
Third platter. Frumenty, venison, browned [vegetables] of various kinds, olives and fat capons a la dodine, cream fritters and sugared fried bread slices, forcemeat in hot galantine 26, a jelly of capons, coneys, chicks, young rabbits and pigs.
Fourth platter. Hippocras and wafers to finish.
VI. Another Meat Dinner.
First dish. Fresh beans, a cinnamon broth 13, a stew of black hare 16, a green soup of eels 17, smoked herring, coarse meat, turnips, tench soups, salted sciaenas and olives, beef marrow rissoles 4 and skewers (kebabs) of beef ut pa[10].
Second dish. Roast the best that you can, sweetwater fish, saltwater fish, plaice in water, forcemeat in hot sauce like lampreys- 26, a shad soup g. i. g.[11] peach flower, portioned fricassee, Lombardy tarts, pies of venison and small birds, sweet chestnuts, fresh herring.
Third dish. Frumenty, venison, browned [vegetables], fish jellies, fat capons a la dodine, roast of fish, fried bread slices and meat tarts, jellied eels, crayfish, thin pancakes and little sausages.
VII. Another Meat Dinner.
First dish. White beet, beef kebabs, coarse meat, veal stew, marrow-bone soup.
Second dish. Roast meat, freshwater and saltwater fish, Lombardy tarts, sweet chestnuts.
Third dish. Lampreys, shad, a roast, sweetened milk with crusts in it, Pisan that is Lombardy tarts, cream fritters.
Fourth dish. Frumenty, venison, browned vegetables, bream and gurnard[12] pies, jellied eels, fat capons a la dodine.
The end is Hippocras and wafers.--Extra drink; wine and spices.
VIII. Another Meat Dinner.
First dish. Coarse meat, rich pasties, beef-marrow fritters, meat broth, smoked eels, loach in water, saltwater fish and cold sage soup.
Second dish. Roast the best that you can, freshwater fish, a slab of beef, bacon gruel with chervil [or with kid (JH)], capon pies, thin pancakes, pies of bream and eel and fricassee.
Third dish. Frumenty, venison, browned [vegetables], lampreys in a hot sauce, fried bread slices and meat tarts, roast bream, gruel with verjuice, sturgeon and jelly.
IX. Another Meat Dinner.
First dish. White beets, beef pies, olives and sciaenas, soup of hares and coneys, a pie of shad, coarse meat.
Second dish. Roast: boar's tail with hot sauce 26, decorated fricassee, olives, sweetened milk with crusts in it, venison, browned [vegetables], jellies, crusts in milk a la dodine, capon pies, cold sage soup, pies of cow and talemouse[13].
X. Another Meat Dish.
First service. Strained peas, herring, salted eels, black oyster broth, an almond broth, napkins, a gruel of pike and eels, cracklings, a green stew of eels, pies of silver.
Second service. Sea fish, freshwater fish, pies of bream and salmon, jellied eels, a brown arbalester, tench in a bacon gruel, a fricassee, thin pancakes, lettuce, lozenges, little ears and rich pasties, stuffed salmon and loach.
Third service. Frumenty, venison, browned apples and Spanish peas and young lampreys, roast of fish, jelly, lampreys, congers and turbot with green sauce, bream in verjuice, fried bread slices, meat tarts and a large side-dish.
XI. Another Dinner.
First service. Beef pies and rissoles, black beet, a stew of lampreys, a German meat broth, a Georgian meat broth, a white fish sauce, an arbalester.
Second service. Roast meat, sea fish, freshwater fish, meat cracklings, little tarts, a grill of young rabbits and small birds, forcemeat in hot sauce 26, Pisan tarts.
Third service. Tench in soup, portioned fricassee, bread-crusts in milk with sugar, boars' tails in hot sauce 26, capons a la dodine, salmon and bream pies, plaice in water, fried bread slices and meat tarts.
Fourth service. Frumenty, venison, browned [vegetables], roast fish, cold sage soup, jellied eels, fish jelly, capon pies.
XII. Another Dinner.
First service. Tender beans, a cinnamon broth, a stew of black hare or a green eel broth, smoked herrings, coarse meat, turnips, tench in soup, olives and salted sciaenas, beef-marrow rissoles.
Second service. Roast the best that you can get, freshwater fish, sea fish, plaice in water, forcemeat in hot sauce, a shad stew the colour of peach blossom, portioned fricassee, Lombardy tarts, pies of venison and little birds, Spanish crackling, fresh herrings.
Third service. Frumenty, venison, browned [vegetables], fish jelly, fat capons a la dodine, fish roast, fried bread slices and meat tarts, jellied eels, crayfish, thin pancakes and little sausages.
XIII. Another Meat Dinner.
First service. A German broth, a head of cabbage, smoked eels, turnips, beef pies, coarse meat.
Second service. Roast the best you can get, fat geese a la dodine, freshwater fish, fricassee, an arbalester, rich pasties, thin pancakes, sugared milk, milk tarts.
Third service. Capon pies a la dodine, smothered rice, boar's tail in hot sauce, fried bread-slices and sugared meat tarts.
Fourth service. Frumenty, venison, browned [vegetables], jellied eels, a roast of bream.
Boar's head as the side-dish.
XIV. Another Meat Dinner.
First service. White beets with capons, roast goose with sciaena and chitterlings, pieces of beef and mutton, a Georgian stew of hares, veal, coneys.
Second service. Capons, partridge, coneys, plovers, stuffed pigs, pheasants for the lords[14], jelly of meat and fish.
Side-dish. Loach and carp.
Raised side-dish. Swan, peacock, bittern, heron and other things.
The end. Venison, smothered rice, capon pies, cream flans, meat tarts, jellied eels, fruit, wafers, waffles and claret[15].
XV. Another Dinner of Twenty-four Services[16] with Three Platters.
First service. Strained peas, salted eels and herring, leeks with almonds, coarse meat, a yellow broth, a game stew, sea fish, oyster stew.
Second service. Roast, freshwater fish, saltwater fish, a Savoy broth, a larded gruel of jellied eels.
Third service. Roast of bream, galantine, swan, caponized falcon, jelly, portioned fricassee, plaice in water, turbot with cypress [herb], cream tarts, lampreys in hot sauce, browned [vegetables], smothered rice, etc,
XVI. Meat Supper with Four Platters.
First platter. Game stew, hens with herbs, a broth of verjuice and mint, a [?something with spikes or spines, possibly a sea-cucumber(JH)] of [or in (JH)] a bacon gruel, pike and loach in water, salted young lampreys and red mullet.
Second service. Roast as well you can meat and fish, and dredge with parsley and vinegar, fish galantine, a white sauce over fish, and mesentery of calf or lamb.
Third service. Capon pies, pike and eels in a crust, lettuces, tubers and an arbalester, fish, thin pancakes and little sausages.
Fourth service. Jelly, crayfish, plaice in water, various small freshwater fish in cold sage soup, numbles in hot sauce, tailemouse and cow pies.--Soup to finish, known as jelly.
XVII. Another Meat Supper.
First platter. Capons with herbs, a cominy, daguenet [?Danish (JH)], peas, loach in yellow sauce, venison in soup.
Second service. Get the best roast you can, jelly, portioned fricassee, little cream tarts well sugared.
Third service. Capon pies, cold sage soup, stuffed shoulders of mutton, pike in broth, venison with boar's tail, crayfish.
XVIII. Another Meat Supper.
First service. Three sorts of soup, whole capons in a white broth, a cauldron of [things dug up--root vegetables?(JH)], venison in soup, loach and eels cut lengthwise on top.
Second service. Roast, capons, coneys, partridge, plovers, whiting, small birds, kid, a sweet fricassee, etc., loach, carp and sea-perch, etc., jellied eels.--Pheasants and swans as side-dishes.
Third service. Venison with frumenty, pies of turtle-doves and larks, tarts, crayfish, fresh herrings, fruit, claret, small pastries, wafers, pears, shelled nuts.
XIX. Fish Dinner for Lent.
First service and platter. Cooked apples, large roasted Provence figs with laurel leaves [bay leaves] on them, cress and sorrel with vinegar, strained peas, salted eels, white herring, sauce over a grill of saltwater and freshwater fish.
Second service. Carp, loach, sole, mullet, salmon, eels.
XX. Another Fish Dinner for Lent.
First service. Cooked apples, etc., as above.
Second service. Carp, loach, sole, mullet, salmon, jellied eels a la boue[17] and an arbalester.
Third service. Roast pompano, fried whiting, porpoise sprinkled with water and frumenty, thin pancakes and rich pasties. To end: figs and grapes, hippocras and wafers, as is told above.
XXI. Another Fish Dinner.
First service. Strained peas, thick soup, oyster stew, a white sauce of pike and perch, thick soup of cress, herring, fat peas, salted eels, loach in water.
Second service. Freshwater and saltwater fish, turbot with cypress, chopped[18], crisp pastry, eels in a galantine.
Third service. The finest and best roast that you can get, white pies, "larras"[?][19], loach with "waymel"[20], crayfish, perch in parsley and vinegar, tench in soup, jelly.
XXII. Another Fish Dinner.
First service. Strained peas, herring, thick soup, salted eels, oysters, a salmi of pike and carp.
Second service. Freshwater fish, smoked eels, rich pasties and portioned fricassee, an arbalester, pies, fritters.
Third service. Roast the best, etc., smothered rice, tarts, fried bread slices and meat tarts, salmon and bream pies, a hotpot.
Fourth service. Chopped [vegetables], thin pancakes, little sausages, endive, fried loach, browned [vegetables], congers and turbot with sugar [or cypress, depending on which version of the manuscript you like]; Lombardy tarts, jellied eels.
XXIII. Another Fish Dinner.
First service. Cooked apples, fat figs, Grenache wine, cress and mint, strained peas, shad, salted eel, herrings and fat peas, a white broth over perch, and dried perch in a sauce over fried fish.
Second service. Freshwater fish the best you can get and saltwater fish, jellied eels, stuffed fish in hot sauce, tench in soup, crayfish, bream pies and plaice in water.
Third service. Frumenty with porpoise, rich pasties and roast mackerel, pompano in a roast and thin pancakes, oysters, fried dried fish with a crisp pastry of pike.
XXIV. Another Fish Dinner.
First service. Strained peas, herring, salted eels, a stew of black oysters, almond broth, napkins, a gruel of pike and eels, cracklings, a green stew of eels, silver pies.
Second service. Saltwater fish, freshwater fish, bream and salmon pies, jellied eels, a brown arbalester, tench in a larded gruel, a fricassee, thin pancakes, lettuces, lozenges, little ears and rich pasties, stuffed salmon and loach.
Third service. Frumenty with porpoise, browned apples and Spanish peas and young lampreys, a roast of fish, jelly, lampreys, congers and turbot in green sauce, bream in verjuice, fried bread slices, meat tarts and the side-dishes: then Dessert, the Final Service and the Extras.
First, the display which the priest of Lagny had prepared for a dinner he gave for Monseigneur de Paris, the President, Procurator and Advocate of the King and the other members of the King's Council, amounting to eight bowls[21].
First, array of cloths to lay, dishes for cleaning and for the kitchen, may, green herb to put on the table, ewers and footed goblets, two bowls for sugared almonds, silver salt-cellars, two-day-old bread for bread-crumbs and trenchers. For the kitchen: two large pans, two water-vats and two brooms.
Note that Monseigneur de Paris had three squires of his people to serve him, and was served alone and with covered dishes[22]. And the President, one squire, and was served alone but from uncovered dishes. Item, by order of the said President, the King's Procurator was seated above the King's Advocate.
The platters and dishes follow: Grenache, two quarts, that is two persons per half-pint[23], but that is more than ample, for one half-pint suffices for three and there would be enough for seconds. Hot canary-bread, roasted oak-apples and white sugared almond on top, one quarter-pound: fat roast figs, five quarter-pounds: sorrel and cress, rosemary.
Soups, that is to say salmis of six becket [a fish (JH)] and six tench, green leek, and white herring, a quarter-pound: six freshwater eels salted the day before and three cod soaked overnight.
For the soups: almonds, six pounds; powdered ginger, half a pound; saffron, half an ounce; small spices, two ounces; powdered cinnamon, a quarter-pound, sugared almonds, half a pound.
Sea fish: soles, gurnards, congers, turbot, salmon. Freshwater fish: mild-flavored[24] loach, mild-flavored carp from the Marne[25], bream.
Side-dishes: plaice, lamprey in clay. Roast: other slabs [of fish? or perhaps trenchers here (JH)] and sixteen[26] oranges, porpoise in its sauce, mackerel, sole, bream, shad with cameline or in verjuice, rice with fried almonds on top; sugar for rice and for apples, one pound; little towels.
For dessert: compete, with red and white sugared almonds placed on top: rissoles, flans, figs, dates, grapes, nuts [specifically nux abellana: JP.]
Hippocras and the wafer dish to finish. Hippocras two quarts, and this is more than enough as is said above of the Grenache, two hundred wafers and supplications [another sort of wafer or waffle (JH)]. And note, for each bowl one takes eight wafers and four supplications and four stirrups [yet another wafer (JH)], which is plenty; and cost eight deniers per bowl.
Wine and spices are the extras [actually a sort of hors-d'oeuvre at the end of a meal: JP] To the washing, the thanksgivings and go to the dressing-room; and then the servants dine, and quite soon after wine and spices; and then farewell.
Platter: butter, none because it is a meat day. Item, cherries, none, because none could be found; and so no platter.
Soups: capons in fricassee, pomegranate and red sugared almonds on top.
Roast: on each plate a haunch of kid: haunch of kid is better than lamb; a gosling, two young chickens and sauces for them, oranges, cameline, verjuice, and for this fresh towels or napkins.
Side dish: crayfish jelly, loach jelly, small rabbits and pigs. Dessert: frumenty and venison. End: hippocras and wafers. Extras: wine and spices.
The arrangements for supper done this day are for ten bowls.
Cold sage soup of halves of young chickens and little geese, and a vinaigrette of this same dish for supper on a plate. A pie of two young rabbits and two flans - it is said that at French weddings you must have meat pies - and on the other dish the kids' mesenteries and the half-heads, browned.
Side-dish: jelly as above. End: apples and cheese without hippocras, because it is out of season[27].
Dancing, singing, wine and spices and torches for light.
Now we shall talk about the quantities of the things spoken of above and what goes with them and the prices, and who provides them and sells them.
At the baker's, ten dozen flat white bread baked one day ahead and costing one denier each[28].
Trencher bread, three dozen of half a foot in width and four fingers tall, baked four days before and browned[29], or what is called in the market Corbeil bread.
Vintner: three pairs of wines.
At the butcher, half a sheep to make the soup for the companions and a quarter of bacon for larding; the master bone of a leg of beef to cook with the capons so as to get broth to make the fricassee; a forequarter of veal to serve in the fricassee. For the seconds[30] a hind leg of veal or veal feet, to make the liquid for the jelly. Venison, a hefty leg.
At the pastry-cook order: first, to serve the young women, a dozen and a half conical wafers stuffed with cheese, three sous; a dozen and a half long wafers, six sous; a dozen and a half porte[31] wafers, eighteen deniers; a dozen and a half stirrup wafers, eighteen deniers; one hundred sugared cakes, eight deniers.
Item, they shopped for twenty bowls, for the wedding-day dinner, and for six bowls for the servants, and this cost six deniers per bowl, and served each bowl eight wafers, four supplications and four stirrup wafers.
At the poulterer, twenty capons, two Paris sous[32] each; five kids, four Paris sous; twenty young geese, three Paris sous each; fifty young chickens, twelve Paris deniers each; that is to say forty to be roast for the dinner, five for the jelly and five for supper in the cold soup. Fifty young rabbits, that is to say forty for the dinner, which will be roasted, and ten for jelly, and cost twelve Paris deniers each. A thin pig, for the jelly, four Paris sous; twelve pairs of pigeons for the supper, ten Paris deniers the pair. One may enquire of him for venison.
In the market, trencher bread, three dozen. Pomegranates for fricassee, three costing... Oranges, fifty costing... [33] Six new cheeses and one old, and three hundred eggs.
You must realise that each cheese must furnish six tartlets, and also for each cheese you need three eggs.
Sorrel to make verjuice for the chickens, sage and parsley for the cold soup, two hundred pommes de blandureau.
Two brooms and a shovel for the kitchen and salt.
At the sauce-maker's, three half-pints of cameline for dinner and supper and a quart of sorrel verjuice.
At the grocer's: ten pounds of almonds, forty deniers a pound. Three pounds of blanched wheat, eight deniers a pound[34]. - One pound of columbine ginger, eleven sous. - one quarter-pound of mesche ginger, five sous[35]. - A half-pound of ground cinnamon, five sous. - Two pounds of ground rice, two sous. - Two pound of lump sugar, sixteen sous. - A quarter-pound of cloves and seed of garlic, six sous. Half a quarter-pound of long pepper, four sous. - Half a quarter-pound of galingale[36], five sous. - Half a quarter-pound of mace[37], three sous four deniers. - Half a quarter-pound of green laurel leaves [bay leaves], six deniers. - Two pounds of tall thin candles, three sous four deniers the pound, making six sous eight deniers, - Torches at three pounds apiece, six; smaller torches at one pound apiece, six; that is to say a cost of three sous a pound, and six deniers less per pound on the returns[38](l2).
For chamber-spices [goodies served in the drawing-room or dressing-room (JH)], that is to say, candied orange peel, one pound, ten sous. - Candied citron, one pound, twelve sous. - Red anise, one pound, eight sous. - Rose-sugar (white sugar clarified and cooked in rose-water (JP), one pound, ten sous. - White sugared almonds, three pounds, ten sous a pound. - Of hippocras, three quarts, ten sous a quart, and all will be needed.
These spices amounted to twelve francs, including returns on the torches[39], and a few spices left over; this works out to half a franc per bowl[40].
At Pierre-au-Lait, a sixth of full-cream milk without water added, to make the frumenty.
In the Place de Greve, a hundredweight of coal from Burgundy, thirteen sous two sacks of charcoal, ten sous.
At the Forte-de-Paris: may, green herb, violet, bread-crumbs, a quarter of white salt, a quarter of coarse salt, a hundred crayfish, a half-litre of loach, two clay pots, one of six quarts for the jelly, and the other of two quarts for the cameline.
Well, first we have the service in general, and secondly where things can be found: so it is meet, thirdly, to find out about the administrators and officials.
First you need a clerk or varlet to shop for the green herb, violet, bread-crumbs, milk, cheese, eggs, fire-wood, coal, salt, vats and tubs for the dining-room as well as for the pantry, verjuice, vinegar, sorrel, sage, parsley, fresh garlic, two brooms, shovel and such small things.
Item, a cook and his varlets who will cost two francs to hire, without their other rights, but the cook will pay the varlets and porters, and as they say: the more bowls, the more to hire.
Item, two bread-slicers, of whom one will crumb the bread and make trenchers and salt-cellars out of bread, and will carry the salt and the bread and the trenchers to the tables, and will provide for the dining-room two or three strainers for the solid leftovers such as sops, broken breads, trenchers, meats and such things: and two buckets for soups, sauces and liquid things[41].
Item, you need one or two water-carriers. Item, big strong sergeants to guard the door.
Item, two kitchen equerries and two helpers for the kitchen sideboard, one of whom will do the purchasing for the kitchen offices, for pastry and for linens for six tables; you will need two big copper pots for twenty bowls, two boilers, four drainers, a mortar and pestle, six large kitchen towels, three large clay pots for wine, a large clay pot for soup, four wooden bowls and four wooden spoons, an iron pot, four large buckets with handles, two trivets and an iron spoon. And also they will shop for pewterware: that is to say, ten dozen bowls, six dozen small plates, two and a half dozen large plates, eight quart pots, two dozen pints, two alms pots[42].
Item about the townhouse; on this head you should know that the Beauvais[43] house cost Jehan de Chesne four francs; tables, trestles benches and the like, five francs; and flowers for headdresses cost him fifteen francs.
And the other kitchen equerry or his helper will go with the the cook to the butcher, the poulterer, the grocer, etc., to shop, choose, arrange and pay for portage; and he will have a cupboard locked with a key for the spices, etc., and will distribute all by reason and measure. And afterwards, they or their helpers will retrieve and keep the surplus in packets, closed up in the cupboard to avoid spoiling or excessive use by the menials.
You need two more equerries for the dining-room sideboard[44], who will give out spoons and retrieve them: they will give out goblets, and pour out such wine as will be asked of them for those at table, and they will retrieve the vessels.
Two other equerries for the cellar, who will get the wine to be carried to the sideboard, to the tables and elsewhere; and they will have a varlet to draw the wine.
Two of the most honest and knowledgeable servants, who will accompany the bridegroom all day and will go to table with him.
Two butlers to order the service and seating of the guests, a seater and two servers for each table, who will serve and clear: they will pour out the leftovers into the baskets, the sauces and broths into the buckets or the tubs, and will retrieve and carry the rest of the dishes to the kitchen equerries or others who will be designated to take them, and will carry nothing elsewhere.
The job of the butler is to provide salt-cellars for the high table; goblets, four dozen; goblets, covered, gilded, four; ewers, six; silver spoons, four dozen; silver quart mugs, four; alms pots, two; candy dishes, two.
A florist to make the floral head-dresses for the inspection day[45] and the wedding day.
The job of the women is to make provision for the hangings, to order and tend them, and especially to prepare the chamber and the bed which is to be blessed[46].
A washerwoman for braiding[47].
And note that if the bed is covered with broadcloth, you need a quill with fine hair: but if it is covered with serge, embroidery-work or pettypoint, it is not needed.
Platter: Grapes and peaches in little pies.
Soups: broth, four hares and veal; or for fricassee twenty capons, two sous four deniers apiece, or hens.
Roast: five pigs, twenty starlings(?), two sous four deniers apiece; forty partridge, two sous four deniers apiece.
Jelly: ten young chickens, twelve deniers; ten young rabbits, a pig; crayfish, one and a half hundred.
Frumenty, venison, pears and nuts. Note that for the frumenty you will need three hundred eggs.
Tartlets and other things, hippocras and wafers, wine and spices.
Supper. - Soup of twelve dozen goslings or of ten ducks, or sweet gruel of fresh venison. Pies of forty young rabbits, twenty young chickens, forty pigeons; forty meat tarts or sixty tartlets.
Note that three goslings in one bowl are enough; always when you have capon gizzards, put three goslings and half a gizzard in the bowl.
At the baker, as above in the other preceding wedding.
At the pastrycook, as above.
At the vintner, as above.
At the butcher, three quarters of mutton to make the soups for the companions, a quarter of bacon for larding, a forequarter of veal for the fricassee; for the servants, venison.
At the waferer, a dozen and a half stuffed wafers, that is to say fine flour kneaded with eggs and thin slices of cheese placed inside, and eighteen other wafers kneaded with eggs and without cheese. Item, a dozen and a half large rolled wafers, that is to say flour kneaded with eggs and powdered ginger beaten together and made into the shape of cylinders, and as large as a sausage: and then put between two irons on the fire. Item, a dozen and a half other rolled wafers and as many flat ones.
Item, it is appropriate in this regard (besides the products of the said waferer) to send for fifty pommes de blandureau, headdresses and fiddlers.
Item, as to the said waferer, service on the wedding day as above in the preceding wedding.
At the poulterer, roasts and game and venison as above.
At the market and at Forte-de-Paris, the required things as above.
At the sauce-maker, a quart of cameline for the dinner, and for supper two quarts of mustard.
At the grocer, chamber spices: sugared almonds, rose sugar, candied nuts, citron and "manus-Christi" ("hand of Christ")[49], four pounds for all. Item, hippocras. Kitchen spices: white powder, one pound; fine powder, half a pound; powdered cinnamon, half a pound for fricassee. Small- spices, two ounces. Loaf sugar, three pounds; three
pomegranates; red and white sugared almonds, half a pound; almonds, six pounds; ground rice, one pound; a quart of blanched wheat.
At the chandler get torches and candles at three sous a pound, with two sous six deniers on returns.
Item, for rental of linens, including six tables, three big copper pots, for six dozen bowls, two boilers, two strainers, a mortar, a pestle, six big kitchen towels, three big clay pots for wine, one big clay pot for soup, four wooden bowls, four wooden spoons, an iron pot, four large iron pots with handles, two trivets and a pierced iron spoon; for this, fifty-six Paris sous.
Pewter vessels: ten dozen bowls, six dozen small plates, two and a half dozen large plates, eight quart mugs, two dozen pints, two alms pots; for this sixteen sous.
At Greve, as above in the other wedding.
Note that if they are widowed[50], they should marry in the morning in their black clothing and then change into others.
Note extraordinary expenses for the wedding of Jehan du Chesne. To the cook four and a half francs, and helpers and porters, one franc: for all, five and a half francs. To the Beauvais concierge, four francs: for tables trestles and such, five francs. To the headdress florist, fifteen francs. Water, twenty sous. Minstrels eight francs, without the spoons and other gifts to them during the meal; and they will play also on the day of inspection and acrobatics[51]. Sergeant two francs. Green herb, eight sous. Torches and candles, ten francs. Kitchen vessels, towels, napkins, and glassware, seven francs. Pewter pots, four francs.
So it is now appropriate to demonstrate the mechanics of the above foods, but, first, you should know some general terms which you can gather more broadly by various additions from here and there in this book, that is to say thickeners for soups, such as bread, eggs, starch, flour, etc., and all binding agents for soups.
Item, to keep your soup from sticking, stir it to the depths of the pot and watch that the burning logs do not touch it, and if it has already begun to stick, you must immediately change it into another pot.
Item, with milk, keep it from turning.
Item, that the pot does not boil over on to the fire.
In soups, you must add spices very well ground and not sieved, and at their sharpest. In sauces and in jelly the contrary.
To know spices, as in the fifth article above[52].
Item, to kill hogs. - They say that the males should be killed in November, and the females in December; and thus it is their season, as for example where they say: February pullet.
Item, to make black pudding, have the pig blood collected in a fair basin or pan, and when you intend to see your pig destroyed, have the lights washed very well and put on to cook, and as soon as it is cooked, take from the bottom of the pan the sticky lumps of blood and take them out; and then, have onions peeled and chopped to the amount of half the blood, with the amount of half the suet which is among the guts, which is called the "entrecercle" of the guts, chopped as small as dice, together with a little ground salt, and throw it in the blood. Then, have ginger, clove, and a little pepper, and grind it all together. Then, have the small guts well washed, turned inside out and all blood removed in a running river, and to remove the dampness, have them placed in a pan on the fire, and stir; then, add salt; and do this a second time, and yet a third time: and then wash, and turn inside out and wash them, then place to dry on a towel; and squeeze and wring them to dry. (They say the "entrecercle" and these are the large guts which have suet inside which you get out with a knife). After you have added and adjusted by the right amounts and quantities, so that you have half as much onions as blood, and a quarter as much suet as blood, and then when your black puddings are filled with this, put them to cook in a pan in the water from the lights, and prick with a pin when they swell, or otherwise they will burst.
Note that the blood keeps well for two days, in truth for three, since the spices are inside. And some for spices, have pennyroyal, great savory, hyssop, marjoram, gathered when they are in flower and then dried, ground, for spices. And as for the lights, put in a copper pot to cook on the fire, complete and without salt, and put the
length of the groove (throat) outside the pot, so that the liquid may be skimmed; and when it is cooked, take it out and consider it for making soup.
To make black puddings with liver, take two pieces of liver, two pieces of lung, a piece of suet, and place in a gut with blood: and with the remainder as above.
Note that you can make nice black puddings from a goose, but it will be thin, and because of the thinness the guts are bigger than the suet.
One may ask how the guts may be turned inside out for washing; I reply: with a linen thread and a piece of brass wire as long as a gauge-rod.
Note that some hang their pigs in the Easter season and the air yellows them; and it would be better for them to keep them in salt as they do in Picardy, even though the flesh is not so firm, it seems; nevertheless you get better service from bacon which is fair and white than from yellow, because however good the yellow may be, it is too repulsive and causes disgust when viewed[53].
To make chitterling sausages. Note that chitterling sausages are made with the lower gut and other large guts, the large ones are filled with the others to make regular sausages; and those small guts, when you want to make them into chitterling sausages, are split into four parts. Item, of the bits which are split into narrow slices, make them into chitterling sausages; item, of the meat beneath the ribs; item faggots and other things told above of guts for black puddings. And the other things told above, of the said lower gut and others with which chitterling sausages must be filled, will be first immersed and sprinkled with half an ounce of pepper, and with a sixth of (turnip-tops? withered- flowers? hay?), ground with a little salt and dampened, all ground small, with the spices; and when these chitterling sausages are thus done and filled, you take them to be salted with the bacon and on top of the bacon.
Shortribs freshly salted, roasted on the grill.
Backbones and hams salted for three days, natural, with peas.
Note that if a ham has been salted for as long as a month, it is appropriate to put it to soak the evening before in cold water, and the next day to scrape it and wash it in hot water before cooking it, or cook it first in water and wine, and throw out this first cooking-liquid, and then cook it in another water.
Here follow all the special names for the offal of a pig, which are sold at the triper's for seven blancs.
First when the pig is prepared, the blood and the guts come out first, and are made into black puddings if wanted. Item, first the lights and the upper abdomen, the short-ribs and then the lower abdomen.
The upper abdomen is that part which is between the guts and the short-ribs. The lights, these are the liver, the lungs, the heart and the tongue. The short-ribs is the spleen: and to this belongs half the liver and the kidneys; and the other half of the liver goes with the lights, between the heart and the lungs. The lower abdomen is the bowels called the "entrecercle", and are also the small bowels with which one makes black puddings and sausages, and here also is the pancreas.
To sheep lights belong the pancreas and the last stomach, the four feet and the head; and these all cost two Paris blancs at the triper's.
Veal innards cost at the triper, two blancs, that is to say the lights, along with the head, the crow, the pancreas and the four feet.
Note, the crow includes the last stomach, the pancreas and the guts, which the tripers sell all clean, washed and prepared, rinsing in good clean water; but those who buy them should not worry about the triper's work, but wash them in two or three changes of hot water, and again in hot salt water; and then put them to cook in unsalted water, until they are nice, then nourish with sheep's water, and add herbs, water, and saffron in a dish with the crow, and eat as tripe, with salt and verjuice.
Note, this great diversity of language, for what we call the lights of a pig is the liver, the lungs and the heart; and what we call the lights of a sheep, is the head, the pancreas, the last stomach and the four feet; and what we call the lights of a calf, is the head, the crow, the pancreas and the four feet; and what we call the lights of a beef, is the pancreas, the stomach, second stomach, spleen, lungs and liver and the four feet; and with venison, yet other words. (One wonders the reason for this diversity on the single word lights.)
Venison of Deer or Other Beast, If you wish to salt it in summer, it is appropriate to salt it in a wash-tub or bath[54], ground coarse salt, and after dry it in the sun. Haunch, that is the rump, which is salted, should be cooked first in water and wine for the first boiling to draw out the salt: and then throw out the water and wine, and after put to partly cook in a bouillon of meat and turnips, and serve in slices with some of the liquid in a dish and venison.
Item, if you have small young turnips, you should cook it in water and without wine for the first boiling, then throw out the water, and then partly cook in water and wine and with sweet chestnuts, or if you have no chestnuts, some sage: then serve as above.
In June and July, pieces of salted beef and mutton are good cooked in water and with scallions; salted from morning to evening or for a day or more.
The Paris butchers[55] hold that a cow, according to their style of talk, only has four principal members: that is to say the two shoulders, the two thighs, and the body at the front along its length, and the body at the rear along its length. For, with the shoulders and thighs removed, they cut the cow in two and make of the front one piece, and of the rear another; and thus the body of the cow is carried to the stall, if the cow is small or medium: but if it is large, the front part is cut in two lengthwise, and the rear part also, to carry it more easily, Thus we now have six parts of a cow,
from which the two briskets are removed first, and then the two supports that hold it which are a good three feet long and half a foot broad, coming from below and not from above. And then they cut the flanks: and then to the sirloin which is not much over three fingers thick or two. Then, to the loin which is closest to the spine, which
is as wide as a big fist; then to the fillet which is called the numble, which is about a foot long and no more; and one end is at the neck and the other is at the kidney, and it is the right of him who has the feet of the cow to flay it, and sell it in a little stall below the large Butcher's; and it is of small value.
Item, according to how large the cows are, they cut and sell at the Porte[56] more pieces from one section than from another. And they do not know the exact tally of the townspeople in account with the butchers, for the good beef costs twenty pounds where the other costs but twelve.
Item, beef offal costs at the triper's eight sous: that is to say the lights in which are included the pancreas, the stomach, the second stomach, the spleen, the lungs, the liver and the four feet.
Item, at Besiers, from St. Andrew's day [November 30] which is before Christmas, sheep are salted in quarters, by rubbing well with salt, and rubbing again, and so on and so on, and then piling the quarters on top of each other for eight days and then putting in the fireplace.
If you want to salt beef or sheep in winter, have coarse salt and dry it well in the pan, then grind it well, and salt.
And note that in June and July mutton should be soaked, then salted.
To Salt Beef Tongues. In the right season for salting, take a quantity of beef tongues and parboil them a little, then take them out and skin them, then salt them one after another, and lay them in salt for eight days or ten, then hang them in the fireplace, leaving them there for the winter: then hang them in a dry place, for one year or two or three or four.
Goose must be salted naturally for three days.
Coot salted for two days are good with cabbage.
Wood Duck also; note that they come every three years.
If a hare is taken two or three weeks before Easter, or at some other time when you want to save it, gut it and take out the entrails, then cut the skin on its head and break it, and make an opening in the head and remove the brain and fill the hole with salt and sew up the skin: it will keep for a month if hung by the ears.
Note that the best part of beef, whether for roasting or for cooking in water, is the kernel; and note that the beef kernel is that part below the neck and the shoulders. And also this piece is sovereign when sliced in strips, put in pastry; and when the pastry is cooked, throw on lamprey sauce.
Eel. Kill it in salt and leave it naturally for three whole days then it should be taken out of the pan, the mud removed, cut into chunks, cooked in water and with scallions. And if you want to salt it from evening to morning, skin it and gut it, then chop in chunks, and salt and rub well each piece with strong salt; and if you want to
advance it further, grind salt and rub each chunk and smother in salt between two bowls. Cook as above and eat with mustard.
Keg Herring should be put in fresh water and left three days and three nights to soak in plenty of this water, and at the end of three days should be washed and put to soak for two days in more fresh water, and each day change the water two times. And always the small herring need less soaking, and also there are some herring which by nature need less soaking than the others.
Red Herring. You know the good ones from the thin ones by their thick backs, round and green; and the other is greasy and yellow with a flat dry back.
And first a SOUP of OLD PEAS. It is appropriate to shell them, and to find out from the people the place the nature of the peas of the area (for commonly peas do not cook well in well-water: and in other places they cook well in spring-water and in river water, as in Paris, and in other places, they do not cook at all in spring-water, as at Besiers) and this known, it is appropriate to wash them in a pan with warm water, then put in a pot with warm water on the fire, and boil them until they burst. Then separate the liquid from the solid, and put the liquid aside, then fill the pea-pot with warm water and put on the fire and separate a second time, if you wish to have more liquid: and then put back without water, for they will produce enough. and boil in it; and it is not appropriate to put the spoon in the pot after the separating, but shake the pot and the peas together, and little by little feed them with warm water or a little more than warm but no cold, and boil and cook completely before you add anything except hot water, be it meat or anything else: do not add salt, nor bacon, nor absolutely anything whatsoever until they are fully cooked. You can add bacon water or meat stock, but you must not add any salt, nor even the tip of the spoon, until they are well cooked; you can always stir them by moving the whole pot.
On meat days, you should, after the separating, add water from bacon and from meat, and when it is almost cooked, you can put bacon in; and when you remove the bacon from these peas, you must wash it with meat-stock, so that it looks nicer to put in slices on the meat and so that it does not appear to have peas stuck to it.
On a fish day, when the peas are cooked, you should have onions which have been cooked as long as the peas in a pot and like the bacon cooked separately in another pot, and as with the bacon water you may nourish and serve the peas, in the same way; on fish days, when you have put your peas on the fire in a pot, you must put aside your minced onions in another pot, and with onion water serve and nourish the peas; and when all is cooked fry the onions and put half of them in the peas, and the other half in the liquid from the peas of which I spoke above, and then add salt, And if on this fish day or in Lent there is salted whale-meat, you must do with the whale-meat as with the bacon on a meat day.
When you have NEW PEAS, sometimes they are cooked on a meat day both in meat stock and with ground parsley, to make green soup, and this is on a meat day; and on a fish day, you cook them in milk, with ginger and saffron in them; and sometimes "a la cretonnee" of which I shall speak later.
With all these peas, whether old or new, you can force them through a sieve, or a fine or horsehair mesh; but the old peas must be yellowed with ground saffron of which the water may be put to boil with the peas and the saffron itself with the liquid from the peas.
There are other peas which are left in the pod with bacon added.
Item, cretonnee of new peas, you will find it in the next chapter.
The liquid from the peas on a meat day is of no account. On a fish day and in Lent, fry the onions as is told in the preceding chapter, and then put the oil in which the onions were fried and the onions in along with bread-crumbs, ginger, cloves and grain, ground: and sprinkle with vinegar and wine, and add a little saffron, then adorn the bowl with slices of bread.
Item, with the liquid make a broth on fish days. Do not stir it and take it soon from the fire, etc.
Item, mix the liquid with beet-leaves and it will be a very good soup, but do not add any more water; and this is for Lent.[57]
Note that if you see that your soup is sticking, make it thinner, because it sticks from being too thick; and stir it constantly to the bottom of the pot in which it is sticking, before you add anything else.
See here how onions are cooked: in water for a long time before the peas, and until the water is all used up in cooking; then add some pea-liquid to cook and to take away the flavor of the water.
Also oysters are first washed in hot water, then parboiled, then they must be partially cooked in the pea-liquid so that their flavor will stay in the liquid, and not allowed to froth, then remove the oysters and fry them if you wish, and put some of them in the bowls, and with the rest make a dish.
OLD BEANS which are to be cooked with their pods must be soaked and put on the fire in a pot the evening before and all night; then throw out that water, and put to cook in another water, then strain them like peas, to remove that first strong taste, and then cook in meat stock and with bacon as is told earlier of the liquid from the peas, or on a fish day in fresh water, and then afterward add oil: to the onion water and to the onions. And if you wish, do with them as with the peas.
Item, beans may be shelled at Easter in this wise, that is if you want them shelled, it is necessary to shell them; wash, and without soaking put the beans with the pods in a pot on the fire in simmering water, and let them boil until the pods are wrinkled and thin; and then place at the back of the fire, and dip them out with a spoon, and skin and scrape them while they are hot, one spoonful after another, and throw into cold water. After this, you must wash them in warm water like the peas, then put them to cook in cold water, and when they have boiled till they split open, separate them, and throw out the liquid, and fill with meat bouillon if it is a meat day, or with other water if it is a fish day; add oil and well-cooked onions, then fry: or add butter. And they can be garnished with chopped fresh bean leaves, wilted in hot water and drained; then do like the others, be it a meat day with bacon, or a fish day.
Item, a "cretonnee" of new beans is made as you will find in the next chapter.
Item, if you wish to eat beans having the smell and taste of new beans in every month of the year, have and plant beans each month, and of those which are the tenderest as they grow up from the soil take a handful, and chop and put with your beans, and your beans will lighten and have the color and taste of new beans.
Item, NEW BEANS must first be cooked until they burst, then separate them, and then boil in the liquid large pieces of brown bread two fingers thick, then put in each (bowl) two of these sops and salt over it.
Item, when they are burst and separated, you can fry them in the grease from meat, then put a little powdered spices on them.
You can tell beans from the marshes as they are flat, and those from the fields are round. - Item, in the mouth you will find them sweet and the pod tender, and the others the opposite.
Item, if you wish to shell new beans, you must first cut them lengthwise with a knife, and when completely cut, peel them by hand.
Note that in August people begin to eat strained beans and peas with salt meat; and note that a ham must be salted for three whole days, and then it is good.
BEET SOUPS. There are three kinds of beet-leaf soups according to cooks who speak of them, white, green, and black.
White beet-leaves soup is so-called because it is made from the white part of the beet-leaves, with backbone, with sausages, and with ham, in the seasons of autumn and winter, on meat days; and know that no other fat than that of pork is good with it. And first you clean, wash, and mince them, and blanch them, that is in summer when the beet-leaves are young: but in winter, when the beet-leaves are older and tougher, they should be parboiled instead of blanched, and if it is a fish day, after the above you must put them in a pot with hot water and so cook them, and also cook minced onions, then fry the onions, and then fry the beet-leaves with the onions which have already been fried; then put all to cook in a pot with cow's milk, if it is a fish day not in Lent; and if it is Lent, use milk of almonds. And if it is a meat day, when the beet-leaves are blanched, or winter beet-leaves are parboiled as told above, put them in a pot to cook in salted water, with pork and bacon in it.
Note that never with beet-leaves, do you add bread.
Item, WHITE SOUP of Beet-Leaves is made as above in mutton and beef stock together, but not with pork; and on a fish day, with milk of almonds or cow's milk.
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. Anyway, if you add parsley, it does not have to be blanched.
A species of beet is called spinach and has longer leaves, slender and greener than common beet, and it is eaten at the beginning of Lent.
New and First Beet-Leaves [probably means spinach: JP] Clean it, and while cleaning it remove the coarse leaves as you do with cabbage, then put into simmering water without chopping, and have in a pot clear bubbling water, and salt, and put the leaves in this pot to cook, and then arrange them and add olive oil or verjuice to the bowl, and no parsley.
At other times and most often you fry the raw leaves, and when they are well fried, add a little water, as though making a stock from the oil.
Again, soup of new beet-leaves may be made with blanched beet-leaves in summer when they are young, or parboiled in winter when it is right for old beet-leaves, never mind how old they may be.
Soup from beet-leaves washed, then minced and parboiled, is greener that those which are first parboiled and then chopped. But the greenest and best is that which is cleaned, then washed and then minced very small, then blanched in cold water, then change the water and moisten in another water then squeeze out handfuls and put in a pot to boil in a stock of bacon and mutton; and when it has boiled a little and you wish to garnish it, put in a little cleaned parsley, washed and chopped, and a few yellow turnip-tops, and boil only till it bubbles.
Everything considered, the beet boiled least and not parboiled is the greenest, and parsley must not be boiled at all, however slightly, for in boiling it loses its flavor.
GREEN BEET SOUP on a fish day. Have it cleaned, chopped, then washed in cold water without parboiling, then cook in verjuice and a little water, and add salt, and let it boil and thicken without clarifying it, then put in, at the bottom of the bowl, under the soup, butter either salted or fresh as you will, or cheese, or soft cheese or [or "with"] old verjuice.
Chopped beet-leaves are in season, from January to Easter, and after.
And note that to make beet soup using milk of almonds, the milk should not be strained; and for other soups or for drinking, it should.
BLACK BEET SOUP is made with bacon riblets; that is to say, the beet-leaves are cleaned, washed, then chopped and blanched in boiling water, then fried in bacon grease; and then hot simmering water is added to them (and some say who wash them with cold water, that they will be more ugly and black), then you should put on each bowl two strips of bacon.
CABBAGES are of five kinds: the best are those which have been touched with frost, and are tender and soon cooked; and in times of frost there is no need to parboil them, but in rainy times, yes. (And we start with these because they are the first grown of the year, then April, and then down through the year to grape-harvest, Christmas and Easter[58].)
White cabbage is at the end of August.
Heads of cabbage, at the end of grape-harvest. And when the head of this cabbage, which is in the middle, is removed, pull and replant the cabbage stalk in new ground, and there will come out large spreading leaves: and a cabbage holds great place, and these are called Roman cabbages, and eaten in winter; and from the stalks, if they are replanted, come little cabbages called sprouts which are eaten with raw herbs and vinegar; and if you have plenty, they should be well cleaned, washed in hot water, and put to cook whole with a little water: and then when they are cooked, add salt and oil, and stir it up thick without water, and put olive oil on in Lent. Then there are other cabbages known as Easter cabbage because they are eaten at Easter, but they are sown in August; and when after sowing they are seen to be of half a foot in height, you pluck them and replant elsewhere, and they should be frequently watered.
Also all the above cabbages are first sown, then when they are grown to half a foot in height, they are taken up and replanted.
And first the cabbage-heads, that is to say when these heads are defoliated, cleaned and chopped, you should parboil them very well, and longer than other cabbages, for Roman cabbages should have the green of the leaves torn into pieces, and the yellow, that is to say the backs or veins, crushed in a mortar, then all together blanched in hot water, then squeezed and put in a pot with warm water, which has a
little meat stock: and then serve with more grease and meat stock, and several pieces of bread ground up.
And know that cabbages like to be put on the fire early in the morning, and cooked very long and longer than any other soup, and with a good strong fire, and should be moistened with beef fat and no other, whether they be heads of cabbage or whatever, except for the sprouts. Know also that fat of beef and mutton are proper, but do not use pork; pork fat is not good except for beets.
Then, have the cabbages, on fish days, after they have been parboiled, cooked in warm water: and add oil and salt.
Item, with this, some add finest wheat flour. Item, in place of oil, some add butter.
On a meat day, you can add pigeons, sausages and hare, coot and plenty of bacon.
TURNIPS are hard and difficult to cook until they have been in the cold and frost; you remove the head, the tail and other whiskers and roots, then they are peeled, then wash in two or three changes of hot water, very hot, then cook in hot meat stock, pork, beef or mutton.
Item, in Beausse, when they are cooked, they are sliced and fried in a pan, and powdered spices thrown on.
SMALL FEET. Take gizzards and livers and put to cook in wine and water, first the gizzards and last the livers, then put in a dish with minced parsley and vinegar. Item, feet of beef, mutton and kid.
GRAMOUSSE is made from the cold meat of the hare left over from dinner and the stock of this meat also left over, in the following manner: first, beat four or six eggs, that is both white and yolk, and beat and beat until they flow like water, for otherwise they will curdle; and add as much verjuice as the eggs, and boil with the stock; and elsewhere cut the meat into strips, and put two pieces per bowl, and the broth over them.
UNPREPARED SOUP. Have parsley and fry it in butter, then throw boiling water on it and make it boil: and add salt, and garnish as any soup.
Again, if you have cold beef, cut it very small, then grind a little bread dampened with verjuice and put through a strainer; put on a dish with powdered spices on top. Heat over the coals. It is enough for three people.
Again, on a fish day, take water and make it simmer with almonds in it; then skin the almonds and grind them and moisten with warm water, strain and put to boil with powdered ginger and saffron, and arrange in bowls; and in each bowl, a piece of fried fish.
Again, on a meat day, take some meat from the cauldron, and have bread moistened with the non-greasy part of the meat stock, then grind, and six eggs: then strain and put in a pot with greasy stock, spices, verjuice, vinegar and saffron; boil till bubbling, then pour into bowls.
Item, and if you are in an inn, in a hurry, find meat stock and you can make soup, you can throw in spices and boil, then, at the last, add some eggs and serve.
Again, on a fish day, grind bread, and moisten with water, verjuice and vinegar, and put on the fire; and when it simmers, take off the fire, and add yolks: then put on the fire and keep the fire low and heat just till it boils, and add powdered spices, and garnish as you like.
Again, make a little bacon boil in a pot, and when it is half cooked, have a fresh mackerel, and cut it up and put it in to cook, and then take it all out, and add chopped parsley to boil till it bubbles and serve.
TO KNOW Good Cheese. Good cheese has six conditions. Non Argus, nec Helena, nec Maria Magdalena, sec Lazarus et Martinus, respondens pontifici.[59]
Not white like Helen,
Not weeping like Magdalene,
Not Argus, but completely blind,
And as heavy as an ox:
It is firm against the thumb,
And its coat is fine.
Without eyes, without weeping, not white,
Handsome, firm, well-weighted.
In July, ham or fresh pork cooked in yellow water and in grain verjuice, a little ginger and bread: with a grated sauce.
Item, at supper, meat salted in the morning, cooked in water and scallions, be it beef or mutton.
In new peas cooked to be eaten in the pod, you must add bacon on a meat day: and on a fish day, when they are cooked, you separate the liquid and add underneath melted salt butter, and then shake it.
First, note that all spices which are to be put in soups must be well ground and not sieved, except if for jelly; and in all soups you must use the sharpest spices you can, for they lose their savor when not used quickly: and bread crumbs must be sieved.
SOUP for a Fish Day, see the next preceding page.
Again, take almonds, blanch and skin and grind: mix into warm water; put to boil with fine powdered spices and saffron, and in each bowl put one half of fried sole and the soup over it.
GOURDS.[60] Let the rind be peeled, for that is best: and always if you want the insides, let the seeds be removed, though it is said that the rind is worth more, then cut up the rind in pieces, then parboil, then chop lengthways, then put to cook in beef fat: almost at the end yellow it with saffron or throw saffron thread by thread, one here, another there; this is what cooks call 'fringed with saffron'.
HARICOT of MUTTON. Cut it into small pieces, then bring it just to the boil, then fry in bacon grease, and fry with onions chopped small and cooked, and mix in beef stock, and add mace, parsley, hyssop and sage, and put it on to boil together.
Item MUTTON PIE in a POT. Take a thigh (of mutton), and grease or marrow of beef or veal chopped small and onions chopped small, and set to boil and cook in a well-covered pot in a small amount of meat stock or other liquid, then put to boil in it spices, and a little vinegar to sharpen it, and arrange it in a dish.
Item, if you want to salt mutton in hot weather, moisten beforehand, and sprinkle with coarse ground salt.
AUXERRE MUTTON (or Supper Mutton). Cut the mutton in pieces, then wash and put to cook in water, then grind plenty of parsley and bread, and sieve, and put in the pot with spices.
YELLOW MUTTON. Cut up the coarsest, and this is the flank; and cook it in water, then grind in a piece of ginger and some saffron, and add verjuice, wine and vinegar.
YELLOW TRIPE. If you want to cook tripe, you must not add salt while cooking, for it will turn dark. - Item, the feet, the tail and the blood, which are dark, should be cooked separately, and the pancreas and other light-colored parts separately also.
YELLOW LEG of BEEF. It should be cooked for a long time; and if you wish, poultry killed two days earlier or one day before should be boiled for a long time with it, and herbs, and then add saffron.
SOUP of SMALL GOOSE. Cook your small goose very well and fry: then grind ginger, clove, grain and long pepper, parsley and a little sage, moisten with stock from meat or from the small goose, and add grated cheese, and serve in each bowl three pieces of the small goose.
CAPON SOUP. Cook your capons in water and in wine, then dismember and fry in grease, then grind up the livers from your capons and livers and almonds, and mix with your stock and put on to boil, then take ginger, cinnamon, clove, galingale, long pepper and grains of Paradise, and mix with vinegar and put on to boil; and when serving, divide your meat among the bowls, and pour the soup over it.
HERBED CHICKEN. - VEAL with HERBS. In winter, killed chickens, dampened and then placed six days in the ice, and in summer dead for two days (without sun) or smothered under a mattress; put on to cook in water and with bacon to give appetite, and add parsley, sage, egg-shell(?) and hyssop, a little verjuice to sharpen it, and a very little ginger, and saffron to add color. This is a proper soup if it is served cold, but if served hot, you need neither chicken nor veal but only bacon and saffron.
SOUP of SMALL BIRDS or OTHER MEAT. Let them be plucked while dry, then have bacon fat cut into cubes, and put in the skillet and remove the grease from it and there fry them; then put on to cook in meat stock, then take bread browned on the grill or breadcrumbs moistened in meat stock and a little wine; then take ginger, clove, grain and powdered cinnamon and the livers, and grind them; and then sieve your bread and stock and the spices are not to be sieved but ground fine; and put on to boil with your small birds and a little verjuice. - Item, if you have no bouillon, use the water from cooking peas. - Item, it should not be too thick, but clear; so you only need the liver or bread for thickening.
SEEDED SOUP is a winter soup. Peel onions and cook them all chopped up, then fry them in a pot; it is appropriate to have your poultry split through the back and browned on the grill over a coal fire, or if it is veal, the same; and whether it is veal cut in pieces or chicken cut in quarters, put it with the onions in the pot; then have white bread browned on the grill and moistened with some other meat stock: and then grind ginger, clove, grain and long pepper, mix with verjuice and wine, without sieving, and set aside: then grind the bread and put through the sieve and add to the soup, and strain it all together and boil; then serve.
Note that we say 'sur-fry' when it is in a pot, and 'fry' in an iron skillet.
LOBSTER [or crayfish, same word (JH)] SOUP. Put your lobsters on to boil, and when they are boiled, let them be shelled as if they were to be eaten, and remove the bad parts, then have almonds peeled and ground, mixed with pea water passed through the sieve, and browned bread or breadcrumbs moistened in pea water, ground and sieved, then have ginger, cinnamon, grain and clove: grind and put all in a pot, with a little vinegar and boil together, then pour into bowls, and in each bowl should be put the lobsters fried in oil and other fried fish.
Item, if you want to make `tuile d'ecrevisses', do it thus, but shape the crayfish scales.
And if you wish to take great advantage of your mortar and pestle, dry the crayfish shells in an oven in a pot or a clay pan, then grind in your mortar, and sift through a fine mesh, then dry the pieces left over in the oven again grind and sift, and then add to soup; and believe what you will. [The l9th century editor believes this to be an aphrodisiac recipe. (JH)]
CONEY SOUP. First, Garenne coneys are known by the fact that the nape, that is to say from the ears to between the shoulders, is of a color between brown and yellow, and they are all white under the belly, and all four limbs on the inner side to the feet, and they must have no other white spot on their bodies, - Item, you will know if they are in their first year, by a little bone on the joint of the fore-leg closest to the foot, and it is sharp. And when they are too old, the bones in the joint are united; and it is the same for hares and dogs. - Item, you will know if they are freshly taken by the eyes not being sunken: you cannot open their teeth: they hold themselves straight on their feet; and when cooked, the belly remains whole. And if they have been long taken, they have sunken eyes: the mouth can easily be opened: you cannot hold them up straight; and when cooked, the belly falls to pieces: in winter, coneys taken eight days previously are good, and in summer, four days, as long as they have not been in the sun.
And when they have been well chosen and skinned, then cut them into square pieces, and put them on to parboil, then put into cold water: then on each piece, on each side, three bacon strips; then put on to boil in water and in wine afterwards. Then grind ginger, grain, a clove, and moisten in beef stock or in the rabbit stock, and with a little verjuice, and put in a pot and boil till done.
Item, a salmi is made this way, but you add fried onions, and a few bread-crumbs to thicken. And then it is a broth.
Item, in the same way make a lardy gruel of veal, kid or deer.
HARE SOUP. Note that on a hare which is freshly taken and soon eaten the meat is more tender than a kept hare.
Item, a hare taken fifteen days previously is the best, as long as the sun has not touched it; that is to say, fifteen days in the depth of winter: in summer, six or eight days or more and without sun.
Item, know that if the hare is eaten when freshly taken, its meat is more tender, and there is no need to wash it, but roast it with its blood.
SOUP of HARE or CONEY is made thus: roast the hare on a spit or on the grill, then dismember it, and put to fry in fat or bacon: then have toasted bread-crumbs moistened with beef stock and wine, and strain, and put to boil together; then take ginger, a clove and grain; moisten with verjuice and let it be dark brown and not too thick. Note that the spices must be ground before the bread.
Coney is done the same way, except that the coney is parboiled, then put in cold water, and then larded, etc.
ROSE' of YOUNG RABBITS, LARKS, SMALL BIRDS or CHICKS. The young rabbits must be skinned, cut up, parboiled, put in cold water and larded: the chicks are scalded to remove the feathers, then put back in cold water, cut up, larded, and the larks or small birds are plucked only by parboiling in meat stock; then have bacon fat cut up in cubes, and put on the fire in a pan, and remove the solid bits and leave the melted grease: and fry your meat in it, or put your meat to boil on the coals and stir in a pot with fat. And while doing this, have almonds peeled, and put in beef stock and run through a sieve, then have ginger, clove, red cedar known as alexander, put in beef stock and strain, and put the cooked meat and everything else in a pot and boil together with plenty of sugar; then pour into bowls with browned spices on top.
Red cedar is a wood sold at the spicers, and is called cedar for making knife handles.
DEER VENISON. As this meat is tougher than fawn or goat, it must be parboiled and larded all along it: and in cooking, it must be put in plenty of wine, and when partly cooked, ground mace added; and it must be eaten with cameline. - Item, in pastry, let it be parboiled, larded along its length, and eaten cold with cameline.
And if you want to salt it in summer, you should put coarse salt to dissolve in water, then soak the venison in it, and after dry it in the sun.
And if you wish to make a piece of beef taste like venison of deer or bear, if you are in bear country, take numble or leg of beef, then parboil and lard it, spit and roast; and let it be eaten with (a sauce of) wild boar's tail. Let the beef be parboiled, then lard it along its length and cut into portions, and then put the hot boar's tail (sauce) in a dish over your beef which first is roasted or boiled in boiling water and taken out soon, for this is more tender than deer.
BEEF Like BEAR VENISON. A leg of beef. Do it in a black sauce of ginger, clove, long and grain pepper, etc. And put in each bowl, two pieces, and it will taste like bear.
WILD GOAT in an Unthickened Clear Broth: let it be flayed, then boiled in boiling water and removed quickly because it is more tender than deer, and larded, then put it to cook in non-greasy meat stock, its own or another: wine, coarsely ground spices, and arrange your meat therein. - Item, wild goat, is done in the same way.
Fresh WILD BOAR is cooked in water with wine and eaten with hot pepper, and is salted as above and eaten with mustard; this is in the depth of winter, but at the beginning of winter, it is eaten with spices and garnishes.
On Lady-day in March (the 25th), the appearance of antlers begins, and they say `mid-May, a half-head' (and also 'mid-June, half fat; On Magdalene day, true venison'), because the deer's antlers are half-grown; but the true course of antlers begins on Holy Cross in May [the 3rd, ancient opening day of deer-season], and from then the deer grows into venison until Magdalene-day, and can be hunted until Holy Cross in September; and then the season is over.
Item, when gutting it, you first remove the dainties, which are the c.....ns [letters missing (JH)], which include the flesh of the nape between neck and shoulders, vein from the heart, liver, etc. And these dainties are parboiled, then cooked, and eaten with hot sauce. [These so-called dainties were reserved to the lord, who often ate them immediately after the hunt.]
Item, in a deer there are shoulders, breasts, thighs, liver, numbles, loins, the tail, actually this is the disseminator, the two flanks, and that is all.
Item, the fresh pieces of meat, it seems that without parboiling they can be put in boiling water, and quickly removed and larded, and boiled and larded, then boiled in water, and this soup is called 'lardy soup with spices and garnishes'.
Item, the numbles are roasted with hot sauce.
Item, the loins, which are the part between the flank and the spine; and they are better in pastry than otherwise.
Item, also a fresh deer is eaten with a hot sauce, when it is put on to roast.
Item, you make a gift of the head and the feet to the lords, and do not eat them: they are only to know what sort and what age the deer was; but for eating, the lords are presented with the sexual organs, the breast and the two flanks.
Item, the tail is called the sexual organ: and if you wish to salt it, you must remove all the bones you can, because it contains a large part of the back.
Item, the breast is good salted; and salt venison the same as beef.
Item, all the innards, except the liver, are used as quarry for training the dogs, and are called the hallooing.
In September they begin to hunt the black beasts until Saint Martin's day in winter. - Item, all four limbs are called hams, as with a pig. Item, of a wild boar the head, the flanks, the backbone, the numbles, the four hams; that is all. Item, of the innards none are retained except the liver, which seems to be suitable for making a Subtle English Broth.
The 'bourbelier' is the numble. (Inasmuch as in this area, one says numbles on the one hand, and bourbelier on the other.)
Item, wild boar salted is eaten with frumenty. The head is cooked whole, in half water, half wine. Its jowls are good sliced on the grill.
WILD DOE in an Unthickened Clear Broth: let it be flayed, then boiled in boiling water and removed quickly, as it is more tender than the deer; and lard it; then put to cook in the non-greasy part of its own stock, or another, with wine, ground spices; and arrange your meat therein.
Hog Lights Soup. Grind up ginger, clove, grain, etc., then stir into vinegar and wine, then have bread toasted and moistened with vinegar, grind and sieve: and put all together; and have your lights cooked, chopped in pieces and fried in sweet oil. Then put some blood puddings in a caldron, or in a pot in a caldron, with your bread ground after your ground spices, and let boil; then throw into your pot the fried pieces and heat till boiling, and serve.
NEW BEANS. Boil till they split, then take plenty of parsley and a little sage and hyssop, and grind very fine; and after this grind up some bread, and a handful of these same beans which should be peeled and ground with the bread for thickening, then put through a sieve: then fry the rest of your beans in bacon fat, if this is a meat day, or in oil or butter, if this is a fish day; then put your beans in meat stock, if this is a meat day, or in the water from the beans, if this is a fish day.
CRETONNEE of New Peas or new beans. Cook them almost to a puree, then remove from the liquid, and take fresh cow's milk, and tell her who sells it to you that she will be in trouble if she has added water to it, for very often they extend their milk thus, and if it is not quite fresh or has water in it, it will turn, And first boil this milk before you put anything in it, for it still could turn: then first grind ginger to give appetite, and saffron to yellow: it is said that if you want to make a liaison with egg-yolks poured gently in from above, these yolks will yellow it enough and also make the liaison, but milk curdles quicker with egg-yolks than with a liaison of bread and with saffron to color it, And for this purpose, if you use bread, it should be white unleavened bread, and moisten it in a bowl with milk or meat stock, then grind and put through a sieve; and when your bread is sieved and your spices have not been sieved, put it all to boil with your peas; and when it is all cooked, then add your milk and saffron. You can make still another liaison, which is with the same peas or beans ground then strained; use whichever you please. As for liaison with egg-yolks, they must be beaten, strained through a sieve, and poured slowly from above into the milk,after it has boiled well and has been drawn to the back of the fire with the new peas or new beans and spices, The surest way is to take a little of the milk, and mix with the eggs in the bowl, and then a little more, and again, until the yolks are well mixed with a spoon and plenty of milk, then put into the pot which is away from the fire, and the soup will not curdle. And if the soup is thick, thin with a little meat stock. This done, you should have quartered chicks, veal, or small goose cooked then fried, and in each bowl put two or three morsels and the soup over them,
CRETONNEE on a fish day; fry tench, pike, sole or dab.
HOG OFFAL, actually using the entrails, which should be emptied in the river, then washed twice in warm water, and put them in a pan and rub thoroughly in salt and water, then wash again in warm water. Some wash them in salt and vinegar, and when they are thoroughly washed be it with vinegar or without vinegar, cut them up, and put on spits and roast on the grill and eat with grain verjuice. And if you want to make soup, you must put them to cook whole in a clay pot and set them to drain on a dish, then cut up in small pieces, and fry in bacon fat; then grind up first bread, then mace, galingale, saffron, ginger, clove, grain, cinnamon: moisten with stock and set to one side; then grind toasted breadcrumbs, and mix with offal and put through a sieve and put in meat stock or stock from the offal itself, or half of one and half of the other, and boil all together with red wine, verjuice and vinegar. In winter it must be brown and served as above, and in summer clearer and more yellow; and have grain verjuice cooked in water in a cloth, or gooseberries, and when you prepare your bowls, put six or eight morsels of the offal, then the soup over, and then six or eight grains of verjuice, or gooseberries on each bowl. And some make the soup with spices and milk as above and call it 'cretonnee'.
Note that the salt and vinegar remove the freshness. And what I call offal for eating in July, and for the kebabs which are made in December, includes all the parts such as liver, lung and other parts of the offal, and this is what the poor cook in washbasins along the roadsides[61].
CHICKEN COMINY. Put pieces in water and a little wine to cook then fry in fat, then take a little bread, moisten in your stock, and first take ginger and cumin, mixed with verjuice, grind and sift and put all together with meat or chicken stock, and then add color with saffron or eggs or egg-yolks strained and poured from above into the soup after it has been removed from the fire, Item, the best way is use milk as I said before, then grind your bread after your spices, but you must boil the milk first so that it does not curdle; and when the soup is done, the milk should be added to wine, though I see no reason for this, and fried, Some do not fry it, but it is said to be better fried.
(Bread is a liaison, and he says after that eggs are another liaison, and one or the other is enough, as he said in the section on 'cretonnee'.)
(Verjuice and wine. - If you want to make soup with milk, you do not need wine or verjuice.)[62]
Cominy for a Fish Day, Fry your fish, then skin almonds and grind, and mix liquid or fish stock and make almond milk, but cow's milk is more appetizing although they say it is not as healthy for sick people; and with the surplus do as above. Item, on a meat day, if you cannot find cow's milk, you can use almond milk, and do with the meat as above.
CAPON Game Soup. Cut it up in quarters, then cook it in water, then fry in bacon fat; and meanwhile grind ginger, cinnamon, clove and grain, and brown bread on the grill, grind after the spices, and moisten with verjuice, then pass the bread through the sieve and put it all to boil. And at the serving, put your meat in bowls and the soup all hot over it.
GAMEBIRD Hotpot is made thus and should not be clarified. You must cut them up in pieces; do thus with goose when it is tough and skinny, for roasting removes what grease there is. - Item, old ducks. Tough beef the same.
Cinnamon Soup[63]. Cut up your poultry or other meat, then cook in water and add wine, and fry: then take raw almonds with the skin on unpeeled, and a great quantity of cinnamon, and grind up well, and mix with your stock or with beef stock, and put to boil with your meat: then grind ginger, clove and grain, etc., and let it be thick and yellow-brown.
George Soup, Parsley-laced Soup. Take poultry cut into quarters, veal or whatever meat you wish cut into pieces, and put to boil with bacon: and to one side have a pot, with blood, finely minced onions which you should cook and fry in it. Have also bread browned on the grill, then moisten it with stock from your meat and wine, then grind ginger, cinnamon, long pepper, saffron, clove and grain and the livers, and grind them up so well that there is no need to sift them: and moisten with verjuice, wine and vinegar. And when the spices are removed from the mortar, grind your bread, and mix with what it was moistened with, and put it through the sieve, and add spices and leafy parsley if you wish, all boiled with the blood and the onions, and then fry your meat. And this soup should be brown as blood and thick like 'soringue'.
Note that always you must grind the spices first; and with soups, you do not sift the spices, and afterwards you grind and sieve the bread.
(I don't think wine and vinegar are necessary.)
Note that this is only called parsley-laced soup when parsley is used, for as one speaks of 'fringed with saffron', in the same way one speaks of 'laced with parsley'; and this is the manner in which cooks talk.
Russet Soup is made like George Soup above, except that you do not add any saffron, wine, or vinegar, and you should be more heavy-handed with the cinnamon, and the onions are sliced.
A Vinaigrette. Take short-ribs of pork, which have been well washed and scalded, then half roasted on the grill: then mince by pieces, then put them in a clay pot, with blood and sliced onions, and put the pot on the coals, and shake often. And when it is all well fried or cooked, add beef stock, and make it all boil, then grind toasted bread, ginger, grain, saffron, etc., and moisten with wine and vinegar, and set it all to boil, and it must be brown. (Brown. How will it be brown, if there is no toasted bread? - Item, I believe that it must be thickened, for I find it in the chapter on thickened soups; and for these two reasons, I believe that you must have toasted bread for thickening and to keep the color brown.)
White Soup. Take capons, hens or chicks killed beforehand at a convenient time, either whole or in halves or quarters, and pieces of veal, and cook with bacon in water and wine: and when they are cooked, take them out, and take almonds, peel and grind them and mix with water from your fowls, that is to say the dearest, without scrapings or any bits, and strain them through a sieve; then take white ginger prepared or peeled, with grain of Paradise, prepared as above, and strain through a very fine sieve, and mix with milk of almonds. And if it is not thick enough, strain fine flour or rice, which has been boiled, and add a taste of verjuice, and add a great amount of white sugar. And when it is ready, sprinkle over it a spice known as red coriander and some seeds of the pomegranate with sugared almonds and fried almonds, placed at the bottom of each bowl. More may be seen on this subject below, under fricassee.
Capon Fricassee for invalids. Cook it in enough water until it is well cooked, then grind a large quantity of almonds and capon liver, and let it be well ground and mixed with your stock, and passed through a sieve: then set it to boil well, until it is smooth and thick; then grind white prepared ginger and the other spices contained above in the recipe for white soup.
German Soup. Take coney flesh, fowls or veal, and cut in pieces: then half cook in water, then fry in bacon fat; then have finely minced onion in a pot, on the coals, and some fat in the pot, and shake the pot often: then grind ginger, cinnamon, grain of Paradise, nutmegs, livers roasted on a spit on the grill, and saffron mixed with verjuice, and this is the yellow coloring and the liaison. And first bread browned on the grill, ground and sieved; and at serving, put three or four pieces of your meat in the bowl and the soup over, and sugar on the soup.
(Note that he is at fault; for no cooks say that German Soup should be yellow, yet this fellow says it should. And anyway, if it should be yellow, should not the saffron be put through a sieve, but it is to be ground and mixed and put thus into the soup; when it is sieved, it is to give color: when it is sprinkled on, it is called fringing.)
Subtle Broth from England. Take cooked peeled sweet chestnuts, and as many or more hard-boiled egg yolks and pork liver: grind all together, mix with warm water, then put through a sieve; then grind ginger, cinnamon, clove, grain, long pepper, galingale and saffron to give it color and set to boil together.
Savoy Soup. Take capons or hens and boil with very lean bacon and the livers: and when it is half cooked, take it out, then add bread crumbs moistened with stock, then grind ginger, cinnamon, saffron, and take them out; then grind the livers and lots of parsley, then sieve, and then grind and sieve the bread, then boil it all together. (Note that the parsley makes the soup green and the saffron makes it yellow, so that it ends up a bad color. But it seems to me that the color would be better if the bread was toasted, as toasted bread and saffron together make green and parsley also makes green.)
Verjuice and Poultry Soup. (This is for summer.) Cook in quarters your poultry or veal or chicks, in stock or other liquid with bacon, wine and verjuice, until the taste of the verjuice passes: then fry your meat in good sweet fat, and have egg yolks and powdered herbs well beaten together and put through the sieve; then pour your eggs into the pot into your stock, pouring from above in a fine thread, and stir briskly with the spoon, and let the pot be at the back of the fire: then have defoliated parsley and grain verjuice, boiled in meat stock, in the spoon, and let the pot be at the back of the fire, or otherwise boiled in a small pot in clear water to remove the first greenness; then serve your meat, and pour the soup over it, and on top add your parsley and grain verjuice, boiled.
Bright-green Soup. Cook whatever meat you wish in water, or in a little wine, or in meat stock, wine and bacon to give flavor, then fry your meat, then grind ginger, saffron, parsley and a little sage, if you wish, and egg yolks poured in slowly with a slotted spoon, raw, for the liaison, or ground bread moistened with stock, and put all to boil together with verjuice; and some add cheese, and it is all right.
Grated Soup. Cook your meat, then fry it in fat, then grind grain, ginger, etc., and mix with verjuice: then have bread moistened with the meat stock, ground and passed through the sieve, and add spices, bread, and all into the cauldron and boil together; then have grain verjuice or gooseberries boiled in a slotted pan, or in another water in a cloth, strainer or otherwise, that is in order to remove the first sharpness, then serve your meat in bowls with the soup over it, and, on top, your grain verjuice.
GENISTA is so-called because it is yellow like genista flowers (yellow broom), and it is colored with egg yolks and saffron, and it is made in summer in place of broth and is cooked as will be told hereafter, except there are no onions.
Veal Broth[64]. Do not wash nor parboil, half cook it on the spit or on the grill, then cut it in pieces and fry in fat with a great quantity of onions cooked beforehand: then take lightly browned bread or untoasted bread crumbs, as otherwise it would be too brown for veal broth; (they say that this lightly browned bread is good for hare broth.) And let this bread be moistened with beef stock and a little wine or water left from cooking peas, and while it is moistening, grind ginger, cinnamon, clove, grain of Paradise, and saffron mainly for coloring it yellow, and mix with verjuice, wine and vinegar, then grind your bread and put through the sieve: and add your spices, and the sieved bread, to the cauldron, and put it all on to boil together; and it should be more yellow than brown, sharp with vinegar, and full of spices. - And note that it needs lots of saffron, and try not to add cloves or cinnamon, as they will redden it.
Hare Broth. First, cut the hare through the breast: and if it is freshly taken, that is no more than one or two days since, do not wash it, but put it on the grill, that is roast it over a good coal fire or on the spit; then have cooked onions and fat in a pot, and add your onions to the fat and your hare in pieces, and fry them over the fire, shaking the pot very frequently, or fry them on the griddle. Then heat and toast bread and moisten in stock with vinegar and wine: and have ginger, grain, clove, long pepper, nutmegs and cinnamon ground beforehand, and let them be ground and mixed with verjuice and vinegar or meat stock; gather them up, and set to one side. Then grind up your bread, mixed with stock, and sieve the bread and not the spices, and add stock, the onions and fat, spices and toasted bread, cook all together, and the hare also; and be sure the broth is brown, sharpened with vinegar, mixed with salt and spices.
Note. You can tell the age of a hare by the holes under its tail, for it has as many holes as years.
Coney Broth as above.
Meat Tiles. Take cooked freshwater crayfish (also means lobsters:trans.), and remove the meat from the tails: and the surplus, that is to say the shells and body, grind for a very long time; and after that, have unpeeled almonds, and let them be cleaned and washed in hot water like peas, and with their skins let them be ground up with what I have said, and with this grind bread crumbs browned on the grill. Now you must have, cooked in water, in wine and in salt, capons, chicks and hens cut raw into quarters, or veal cut into pieces, and with the liquid from this cooking you must moisten and mix that which you have ground up, then put through the sieve: then ginger, cinnamon, clove and long pepper moistened with verjuice without vinegar, then boil it all together. Now your meat must be cooked in pig fat in pieces or quarters, and arrange your meat in the bowls and put the broth over it, and on the broth, in each bowl, four or five lobster (or crayfish) tails and sugar sprinkled over them.
Broth with Meat Strips is made in haste at a supper where there are more people than expected. For ten bowls, take twenty strips of the cold meat from dinner and from the leg of beef; and let the strips be small like slices of bacon, and fry them in fat on the fire on the griddle. Item, have the yolks of six eggs and a little white wine, and beat them together until you are tired, then put with meat stock and old verjuice, not new, for it will turn: and boil it all without the meat; and then arrange in the bowls, and in each bowl two strips of meat. Some put the broth in the bowls, and on a dish, before four people, five meat slices and some broth with them; and this is for when there are more people and less meat.
Broth with Strips of Fish. Have some plaice prepared and washed, then dried, pressed between two towels and fried and put in a dish and two in another: which makes two dishes. Item, have two ounces of coriander, which has not been confined in a box, and of which one ounce costs one blanc, and let it be ground and moistened with wine and verjuice, then boiled and thrown on the two dishes.
Lombard Soup. When the meat is cooked, take it out and put the stock in another pot, but be careful to strain out any pot-scrapings or bits of bone; then have egg yolks beaten for a long time with verjuice and powdered spices, and pour into the pot from above while stirring, then make your soup.
Green Eel Stew. Steam and skin, or simply skin the eels and put them to cook in water with wine in very small pieces, then grind parsley and darkly toasted bread, and put through the sieve: and have ground beforehand prepared ginger and saffron, and put it all on to boil together, and when almost done add small squares of cheese.
Saracen Broth. Skin the eel and cut in little chunks, then sprinkle with ground salt and fry in oil; then grind ginger, cinnamon, clove, grain, galingale, long pepper and saffron to give color, and[65] verjuice, and boil all together with the eels which will make the liaison of themselves.
Green Broth of Eggs and Cheese. Take parsley and a little cheese and sage and a very small amount of saffron, moistened bread, and mix with water left from cooking peas, or stock, grind and strain: and have ground ginger mixed with wine, and put on to boil; then add cheese and eggs poached in water, and let it be a bright green. Item, some do not add bread, but instead of bread use bacon.
German Broth of Eggs Poached in Oil.[66] Then take almonds and peel them, grind and sieve: slice up onions, and let them be cooked in water, then fry in oil, and put all to boil; then grind ginger, cinnamon, clove and a little saffron mixed with verjuice, and finally add your spices to the soup, and boil till it bubbles, and let it be very thick and not too yellow.
White Broth can be made from loach, carp and perch, in the way told above for poultry.
Stewed Eels. Skin, then cut up your eels: then have sliced onions and defoliated parsley, and put all to fry in oil; then grind ginger, cinnamon, clove, grain and saffron, and mix with verjuice, and take out of the mortar. Then have bread darkly browned and mixed with water left from cooking peas, and put through the sieve, then add the pea water, and set all on to boil together, and flavor it with wine, verjuice and vinegar; and it should be clear.
Gravelly Soup of loach or other cold or hot fish, be it perch or other of that nature. Fry without flour in oil, then keep it in front of the fire: but before this, have darkly toasted bread ground and mixed with a little wine, stock or water left from cooking peas, and put through the sieve, and put in a pot; then grate ginger, cinnamon, clove, grain and saffron to give color, mixed with vinegar, and have onions, chopped and cooked, and fry them in oil, then put it all together in a pot to boil with water left from cooking peas or stock, except for the fried loach of which you put six or eight in each bowl or more, and the broth over it; and let it be not yellow but red.
Pike Hotpot (Chaudree). First, to prepare the pike, you must draw its guts out through its ear, and remove the bitter parts, and then put the guts back inside, and then roast it on the grill. If the pike is small, it may be roasted whole: and if it is larger, it can be sliced across in several places, and thus roasted. Then have a lot of saffron, long pepper, clove and grain, and let it all be ground up well and mixed with verjuice, wine, and a very small amount of vinegar, almost none, ground and removed from the mortar; then have toasted bread moistened with pea water or fish stock, or half wine half verjuice, and let it be ground, then put through the sieve, and all set on together to boil and place over the pike on dishes, and it should be yellow.
In the same way you can make Cold Fish Galantine, except that you do not add water left from cooking peas, because this does not keep long, but you do add fish grease.
Oyster Broth. Scald and wash your oysters very well, cook them just until they boil, and set them to drain, and fry them with cooked onion in oil; then take toasted bread or a very large quantity of bread crumbs, and put to soak in pea water or in the water the oysters were boiled in and sweet wine, and strain: then take cinnamon, clove, long pepper, grain and saffron to give color, grind and moisten with verjuice and vinegar and set aside; then grind your toasted bread or bread crumbs with the water left from cooking peas or oyster-water and also the oysters since they will not have been cooked enough.
Egg Broth. Poach eggs in oil, then have onions sliced and cooked, and fry them in the oil, then put on to boil in wine, verjuice and vinegar, and make it all boil together; then put in each bowl three or four eggs, and pour your broth over, and let it not be thick.
Sops in Mustard. Take some of the oil in which you poached your eggs, wine, water, and boil it all together in an iron skillet: then take crusts of bread and brown them on the grill, then cut into cubes, and put on to boil; then take them out, and put in a dish to drain: and in the bouillon put mustard, and make it boil. Then put your sops in bowls, and pour your liquid over them.
Thickened Cow' Milk. Let the milk be carefully chosen, as is told above in the chapter on thickened meat soups, and let it be boiled to a simmer, then remove from the fire: then pour slowly into it through a sieve a great quantity of egg yolks, and then grind a handful of ginger and saffron, and put them in, and keep it hot by the fire; then have eggs poached in water and put two or three poached eggs in each bowl, and the milk over them.
Espimbeche of Mullet. Shoulder[67], parboil and roast your mullet: then have verjuice and powdered spices, cinnamon and parsley: boil it all together, and pour it on the mullet.
Yellow Soup or Yellow Sauce on hot or cold fish. Fry in oil, with no flour, loach, skinned perch or other similar fish, then grind almonds, and mix most of them with wine and verjuice and sieve, and put on the fire: then grind ginger, clove, grain and saffron, and stir with your bouillon, and when the soup has boiled, add your spices; and when serving add sugar, and it should be thick.
MILLET. Wash it in three changes of water and then put in an iron skillet to dry over the fire, and shake it well, so that it does not burn; and then put it in simmering cow's milk, and do not let the spoon touch it until it has boiled well, and then take it off the fire, and beat it with the back of the spoon[68] until it is very thick.
The nature of milk is such that if the milk is drawn (from the cow) and put in a very clean and fair vessel of clay or wood or tin (pewter), and not in brass (bronze) nor copper, and kept in these vessels without moving or changing from one vessel to another, nor transported hither and yon, it will keep well for a day and a half or two days, and will not turn at all when boiled, provided one stirs it when it begins to move as it is boiled; and you should not add salt to it until you take it off the fire, or at least when you add sops to it, and you can add to it sops of leavened bread or otherwise, for it will not turn so long as the milk is treated as I have said. Item, and if the milk is not fresh or if you have doubts about it turning in the pan, add a little fine flour and stir it well, and then it will not turn. And should you wish to boil it [i.e. make stock or bouillon with it: (JH)], you should mix first your flour and your milk and some salt, then put it on to boil and stir well. And if you want to make soup with it, for each pint of milk add the yolks of half a quartern of eggs, the germs removed, well beaten together by themselves, and then beaten again with the milk; and pour it all slowly into the pan, and then stir the boiling milk very well: then make sops. And if you want to add ginger and saffron, let it be done.
Fresh beef tongue should be parboiled, skinned, larded and roasted, and eaten with a cameline sauce.
Item, you should know that the tongue of an old beef is better than that of a young one, so some say; others say the opposite.
In Gascony, when it begins to get cold, they buy the tongues, parboil and skin them, and then salt them one on top of another in a salting tub and leave then eight days, then hang them in the chimney all winter and in summer, as above, dry; and they will keep thus for ten years. And then they are cooked in water and wine if you wish, and eaten with mustard.
Again, the tongue of an old beef should be parboiled, skinned and cleaned: then spitted, stuck with cloves, roasted, and eaten with a cameline sauce.
Sirloin of Beef. Cut strips of meat from the leg of beef, and wrap inside marrow and beef fat: spit, roast and eat with salt.
Roast Mutton in a little salt or with verjuice and vinegar. The shoulder is first spitted and turned before the fire until the grease has melted away, then larded with parsley: and not too soon for two reasons, one being because it is easier for the larding, the other because if you lard it too soon, the parsley will burn before the shoulder is done.
Pork should be scalded, roast on the spit: and put sweet fat in the pan, and at the end of a stick have some feathers, and anoint the skin or rind of the pork so that it does not burn nor harden, or lard it. And in the same way do to a young pig, or lard it; and it is eaten with grain verjuice or old verjuice and scallions.
Stuffed Piglet. Have the piglet killed and its throat cut and let it be scalded in boiling water, then skinned: then take some lean pork, and remove the fat and innards of the piglet and put it on to cook in water, and take twenty eggs and cook them hard, and some sweet chestnuts cooked in water and peeled: then take the egg yolks, sweet chestnuts, fine old cheese, and the cooked meat of a leg of pork, and chop it up, then grind with saffron and a large amount of powdered ginger mixed in with the meat; and if your meat is too hard, mix in egg yolks. And do not split open your piglet's stomach but cut the smallest hole possible: then put it on the spit, and then push your stuffing inside, and sew it up with a large needle; and it should be eaten either with yellow pepper if it is winter, or with a cameline sauce if it is summer.
Note that I have often seen larded piglet, and it is very good. And thus they do it now and pigeons too.
CONEYS parboiled, larded, roast, with a cameline sauce.
ROAST VEAL. It should be browned on the fire on the