pie

Artist: Clara Peeters

How to Eat in the 16th Century

Meals change over time. What we eat, and how much we eat changes. In the 16th century we see the transition from the medieval context of two main meals a day, with the first one happening sometime after 10 am, to a more modern concept of three meals a day. However, even still, they were not the same style of meals we’re used to.

How to put together a basic set of food for a day, not a feasting day, but a standard day. For some of this I’ll be using previous work I’ve done, the OED, and I double checked a few various texts. Think of this one not so much of an article as a set of guidelines for making things more period for those of us who are 16th century.

In Tudor England the three meals of the day were called Breakfast (brekfast, brekefast, breckfast), though this was not eaten by everyone, however it did gain in promenence through the 16th century; Dinner (diner, dyner, dinere, dener, dynnor, dennar) was the meal eaten around the middle of the day, from what I can tell it could be eaten as early as ten or as late as two, this also tended to be the larger meal of the day; Supper (soper, sopper, soupier, suppare, suppair, super) was the final meal of a day. There is the implication that this meal was a lighter meal than dinner and probably generally consisted of either soup or pottage.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Mushroom Tart

This month the theme of Montengarde Culinary Night is “Italian Night”. I’ve been wanting to research mushrooms for a while and thought this was a good opportunity.

I love mushrooms, but there aren’t a lot of medieval recipes for them. In fact I’ve only found about a dozen recipes that call for mushrooms, only one English (to my sorrow), six Italian, four German, and two French.

I’ve seen what might possibly be mushrooms in period art, but on closer examination they are might just as easily be eggs:

Market Scene by Joachim Beuckelaer

Market Scene by Joachim Beuckelaer (baskets left and right)

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Minced Meat Pie

48.

This month the Montengarde Culinary Group is hosting a winter feast themed night. Since I’ve been wanting to do a hand raised pie for a while I figured this was a good occasion.

With that in mind I thought I’d do a minced meat pie. Yep, with actual meat. Though in the 16th century they’d just call it a Pye of Beefe. So I’m looking at six recipes from England in the 1590s.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Coffins Redux

Updated April 4, 2017.

I was inspired to look back at some of my coffin work by a question from Don Caiaphas. Wow, has it been six years since I did this at Tir Righ A&S? Ok, I think it’s time to go back to this, especially since I have a bunch of research that I did in 2013 on it and never got around to writing up.

Coffins, as discussed in my previous work, are a pastry case which has a bottom, sides and a top (with exceptions where referred to in the recipe) which is able to hold its shape without supports in the oven and can be filled with other items.

The earliest I’ve found a coffin recipe is in Fourme of Curye from 1390 and the recipes continue throughout the SCA time period all the way to the 17th century, though they change in composition.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Formed Fish

39. 40.
image

Montengarde Culinary Group’s April theme is April Fools. My wife (Kayleigh de Leis) is cooking for it this month and she asked me to find the apple pie in the shape of a fish recipe we had been meaning to make for so long.

For this we’re going to the Netherlands via Gent KANTL 15 also known as Nyeuwen Coock Boeck from 1560. Many thanks to Christianne Muusers the person behind Coquinaria for translating the recipe.

1.63. To make stuffing for formed fish when it is not Lent
For four ground apples, take two or three raw eggs, two ground cooked eggs, a small handfull of ground almonds and some melted butter. Take spices, sugar and a little saffron as follows. With this stuff the formed fish and then colour it and let it bake in the oven for about half an hour.

1.64. To make formed fish during lent and also calf ears
Crush in a mortar five or six apples, peeled and cored. Add sugar, ginger and cinnamon, and add some pound almonds or toasted gingerbread with some saffron. Bake this in oil. Or make a big fish: bake this in the oven, painted and with some holes in it.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Daryoles

37.

Pi Night spread

Pi Night spread

As Culinary Night is on March 14th this year we’re celebrating Pi day. In honor of that I’m making Daryoles. There’s some debate about this with some saying it’s a type of proto-quiche and others that it’s a proto-custard. I’m in the proto-custard camp myself.

Daryoles show up in English culinary books early,  1390s early. But by the 17th century they are synonymous with small custards, and by the 19th century they refer to a specialized mould for making custards.

In favour of the proto-quiche side there is cheese and meat in several of the dishes. But as you will see the major factor seems to be the sweetness.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Spinach Tart

32.

I was doing the prep work on January’s Culinary Group and I realized I never posted the Spinach Tart. Now this is an easy dish we usually use for potlucks. It’s fast, takes very little time to make, and everyone loves it. We’ve done it as a big tart, we’ve done it as individual tarts, we’ve even done it gluten free.

We originally found the recipe at Medievalcookery.com and went back to the source then worked from there, but we have also made it the way Daniel Myers described and it’s just as good.

The recipe is from one of my go-to cook books Le Menagier de Paris as translated by Janet Hinson.

TO MAKE A TART, take four handfuls of beet-leaves, two handfuls of parsley, one handful of chervil, a bit of turnip-top and two handfuls of spinach, and clean them and wash them in cold water, then chop very small: then grate two kinds of cheese, that is one mild and one medium, and then put eggs with it, yolk and white, and grate them in with the cheese; then put the herbs in the mortar and grind them up together, and also add to that some powdered spices. Or in place of this have first ground up in the mortar two pieces of ginger, and over this grate your cheeses, eggs and herbs, and then throw in some grated old pressed cheese or some other such on to the herbs, and carry to the oven, and then make it into a tart and eat it hot.

 

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

An Examination of Coffins

(Note Sep 6, 2016: I have done more research on various types of coffins and you can see it here)

22. 23.

As promised a month ago, here is my documentation for late 14th and late 16th century coffins.

Summary

An examination of pastry coffins from the ends of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.  I am making coffins from two cookery books, one from 1390 (Fourme of Curye) and one from 1597 (The The Second part of the good Hus-wiues Jewell).

My goal here is to compare and contrast the earliest and the latest coffin recipes I have found and to see if their similarities will allow me to assume that they function as a baseline from which to measure other coffin recipes.

Introduction

When I began this project it was because I had read in too many places[1] that there weren’t any coffin recipes in existence, while others say that there aren’t any from before the latter part of the sixteenth century.[2] I felt that as coffins are a key part of English cookery there had to be a few recipes somewhere.  I examined fifteen Middle English and Early Modern English cookery books from 1390 CE to 1597 CE and found references to coffins in eleven of them.  Of those eleven, six of them had actual recipes.  In total I found fourteen separate coffin recipes.

Although there are a number of general similarities they are exceptional for how often they are not followed.  Most of the coffin recipes seem to be prebaked, though there is the occasional exception[3], and some are baked half way, removed, filled and baked again.[4] Most of them seem to have lids, though there is the occasional recipe without a lid.[5] Many of them have the lid raised up by blowing into it.  Some have the lid prebaked and a hole cut in it so a gelling agent (like eggs) can be poured into it.[6] Some of the coffin recipes seem to be designed to be eaten, containing sugar or other flavorings,[7] [8] some would probably taste very bad and so do not seem to be designed to be eaten.[9] Most are baked, but some are fried.[10] They seem to be used for all sorts of menu items including desserts. The biggest similarities I could find were: a coffin is a pastry case designed to hold other food for baking or frying, it is often prebaked, it often has a lid.  The term “coffin” in this context means a chest, case or box,[11] so I suspect it has more to do with the shape than anything else.  Because of this I will use the term “coffin” to mean: a pastry case which has a bottom, sides and a top (with exceptions where referred to in the recipe) and that it will be at least partially prebaked so as to hold its shape.

For this entry I decided to compare the earliest and the latest coffin recipes; I will examine and redact the recipes from Fourme of Curye and The Second part of the good Hus-wiues Jewell and compare them.

More after the break:

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago