“In the kitchens the famous cooks were preparing menus which included, for one course alone: ballock broth, caudle ferry, lampreys en gelantine, oysters in civey, eels in sorré, baked trout, brawn in mustard, numbles of a hart, pigs farsed, cockintryce, goose in hoggepotte venison in frumenty, hens in brewet, roast squirrels, haggis, capon-neck pudding, garbage, tripe, blaundersorye, caboges, buttered worts, apple mousse, gingerbread, fruit tart, blancmange, quinces in comfit, stilton cheese, and causs boby.”
T. H. White, The Once and Future King Liber Tertius: The Ill-Made Knight, p.446, Wyman and Sons Ltd, 1930, 1940, 1958.
It’s always tough when a go-to site shuts down, especially one like MP3sFinder, which was a reliable and fast resource…
Garbage is 15th c for giblets.
That was the indeed one that jumped out! “Numbles” is also offal; “Causs boby” is baked cheese; “Caudle ferry” is some kind of spicy sugary mulled wine or ale i i think; what is “blaundersorye”?
I can find it referenced in a (single, scanned page of a) dutch book, which claims it to be porridge/gruel with almond milk, chicken stock and pieces of chicken-in-wine.
Caudle ferry is a hot, spiced, thickened wine-ish drink, I think – pretty much a mulled wine with some arrowroot, I guess, in for texture.
I NEED MORE ANCIENT COOKBOOKS!
Ballock Broth doesn’t sound too appetising either…tee hee!
Blaundersorye sounds rather appealing then, in a rather soporific heavy soothing way. Recipe please!
How does one farse a pig?
farse is a savoury* stuffing — as in the modern term “forcemeat” i guess
*tho savoury is understood rather differently then, and may well include cinnamon, honey, almonds or sugar
That is the correct and modern understanding of ‘savoury’ if you are in my kitchen.
@5 you know as much as I do, and less than any competent reader of Dutch does.
‘numbles’ is the origin of ‘humble pie’ (cf Steve Marriott, Peter Frampton et al circa 1970).
a numble pie ==> an ‘umble pie
That’s given me an idea, I could warm some honey and lemon juice with a cinnamon stick to pour over my pancakes tonight.
yes, you see numbles as humbles or umbles, as well
my plan tonight is to make CRYSPES = Frankish medieval pancakes
i have discovered why they are called “cryspes” — maybe because of the fraction of yeast, they adhere to the pan, will not toss and need to be levered off with a spatula, by which time they are indeed crispier, if not burnter, than modern pancakes…
I don’t know why yeast should make it stick. From time to time I make Staffordshire Oatcakes, aka Tunstall Tortillas, which I’ve heard described as fried porridge but are actually a mixture of flour, oatmeal, milk and water fermented with yeast and fried as a pancake. They only stick if the pan (a Lodge cast iron skillet bought ten years ago from John Lewis in Reading for £15, much better than any non-stick rubbish and a lot cheaper than Le Creuset) wasn’t completely clean, which is not at all if I’m careful.
My pancakes tonight turned out very well indeed. I used Jersey milk and an extra egg yolk and they were the nearest I’ve ever managed to proper French crèpes.
I don’t either! The other difference — I only remembered this when you mentioned eggs — is that the medieval version uses two whites for every whole egg the modern version uses: maybe it’s that? The consistency was subtly different — every so slightly more rubbery. And it didn’t really STICK — it came away fine when you slipped the spatula under — but it didn’t loosen itself when you shuggled the pan about, the way normal pancakes would.
Re: blaundersorye – the OED has “blaundsore – a dish in cookery”, which isn’t very helpful, but a Google search for blaundsore reveals it’s a dish of eels. See uncut’n’pastable text in link:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qn-DASgdhiAC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=blaundsore&source=bl&ots=Kb1K_zORiL&sig=bYyg0Rem5A-fq4AQFZ2jqxksfqo&hl=en&ei=2FZ3TZDvMYywhAfnx62DBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAA
cheers DM: that suggests it’s not much different from “eels in sorré”, which is also on white’s list