Pork Custard (Charlette) – Medieval Meat-and-Milk Dish from Harleian MS. 279 (c.1430)

“.lvj. Charlette” – Pork Custard, Harleian MS. 279 (c.1430)Photo: Give It Forth

Originally published 1/16/2017 Updated 10/31/2025

Among the most puzzling entries in Harleian MS. 279 is “.lvj. Charlette” — a firm, sliceable custard of milk, pork or veal, eggs, and ale. It sits at the edge of pudding, cheese, and meat pie: a now-rare style sometimes dubbed a “hard custard.”

The name is often glossed as “meat-milk” (with char “flesh/meat” and –lette “milk”), and similar “milk-meat” recipes turn up in The Forme of Cury and A Noble Boke off Cookry. Medieval diners would have found it robust and nourishing; to modern eyes it can look… challenging. But as a piece of culinary archaeology, it’s priceless.

🥕 Dietary notes: contains meat & dairy; not vegetarian. Gluten-free if using GF ale. Try a mushroom variant for testing.

Lost Techniques Spotlight: Curds-by-Ale & the “Hard Custard” Family

• Ale-curdling, not sweet-setting: Here, hot milk is curdled by adding beaten eggs and a little ale as the acid; the eggs help bind fine curds around minced meat.
• Kin to egg-cheese & posset: The method sits between fresh cheese (acid + heat) and early egg-thickened drinks (posset). Pressing the curds overnight makes a sliceable loaf.
• Savory custards fade: By the 16th–17th c., European tastes shift toward sweet, cream-based, gently baked custards. Savory “hard custards” like charlette mostly vanish.
• Service tip: Medieval directions say to press the loaf and reheat slices in hot broth. This keeps texture tender and adds flavor.

Feast planning: Make a day ahead so it presses and chills fully. Slice cold; reheat in beef or capon broth at service.

Fukujinzuke – “Seven Lucky Gods” Pickles for Japanese Curry

Fukujinzuke (red pickles for curry) 福神漬け
Photo courtesy of Avelyn Grene (Kristen Lynn)

Originallypublished 10/29/2029 Updated 10/31/2025

Fukujinzuke (福神漬け) is a sweet–salty soy-pickled relish traditionally served with Japanese curry rice (kare-raisu). Its name honors the Shichi Fukujin—the Seven Lucky Gods—each symbolizing a different virtue. A classic preparation uses seven vegetables such as daikon, lotus root, cucumber, eggplant, carrot, shiitake, and burdock.

Though curry and fukujinzuke date from Japan’s Meiji era (1868–1912), these pickles trace their roots to far older preservation arts. Including them in the Crown Tournament Feast provided guests with a glimpse of how Japanese foodways evolved from the Muromachi period’s elegant honzen ryōri to later, modern tastes.

Tsukemono—Japanese pickles—form an essential part of nearly every meal. They cleanse the palate, add color and texture, and reflect regional produce and technique. Methods range from simple salt cures (shiozuke) and vinegar brines (amasuzuke) to soy-based (shoyuzuke), miso (misozuke), rice-bran (nukazuke), and sake-lees (kasuzuke) fermentations.

Our fukujinzuke is a shoyuzuke: vegetables simmered briefly in a soy–sugar–vinegar brine for a glossy, gently candied finish. Commercial versions are often tinted red; traditional homespun ones remain soy-brown. A sliver of beet can replace the food dye for color if desired.

🥕 Dietary Notes: Vegan & vegetarian. Contains soy. For gluten-free, use tamari. Omit candied ginger for low-sugar or allium-free adaptation.

Capon Farced – Medieval Chicken Stuffed with Sausage, Onions & Grapes (Harleian MS 279, 1430 | Baronial Twelfth Night Feast)

Twelfth Night Feast: Spatchcocked roast chicken with “farce” balls and giussel, plus pickled blueberries (a barberry stand-in).

Originally published 12/31/202 Updated 10/30/2025 

Capon Farced (stuffed capon) is a showpiece bird from Harleian MS. 279 (c. 1430): parsley and suet are parboiled, then mixed with hard-boiled egg, spices, and fruit (grapes “in time of year,” or onions), sometimes with minced pork, to stuff and roast the bird. For our Baronial Twelfth Night Feast, I adapted the recipe using a modern spatchcock roast and served the farce as sausage balls on the side for even cooking and speed at scale.

Feast Course	Companions on the Table
Second Course — Highlight	Capon Farced (this dish), Guissell, Pickle for the Mallard, Roasted Chestnuts, Turnips & Sage, Pickled Barberries

🌟 Explore the full menu: Baronial Twelfth Night Feast Hub

Humoral Balance & Kitchen Technique

In medieval dietetics, poultry was considered warm and moist—suitable to winter. Sweet fruit and fragrant spices (ginger, cinnamon, cloves—optionally saffron) moderated the richness of suet and meat. Historically, stuffing kept birds moist at a hearth; for modern feast service, spatchcocking (removing the backbone to flatten the bird) ensures fast, even roasting and crisp skin without drying the meat.

How to Spatchcock (Butterfly) a Chicken

With sturdy kitchen shears, cut along both sides of the backbone (around the “parson’s nose”) and remove it. Flip the bird breast-side up and press firmly over the breastbone until it lies flat. It’s easiest when slightly firmed from the chill; expect a few crunches—normal!

Homemade Vegetable Stock Powder – DIY Bouillon with Historical Tips

Homemade Vegetable Stock Powder – DIY Bouillon & Historical Tips

Learn how to make vegetable stock powder, vegetable stock, and homemade bouillon from scratch. Perfect for medieval-inspired cooking, camp meals, and budget-friendly feasts.

Originally published: 8/9/2025  |  Updated: 10/30/2025

Dietary Notes 🥕: Vegan • Vegetarian • Gluten-Free. Low-sodium: see tips below. Allergen-friendly: no nuts, dairy, soy; skip nutritional yeast if sensitive and sub mushroom powder.

To Make Callishones – Elizabethan Coriander Marchpane Candies (John Murrell, 1621)

Callishones drying on the stovetop — fragrant marchpane sweets gilded with coriander and gold dust.

Updated: October 30, 2025 | Originally Published: 9/17/2015

Part of the Baronial 12th Night series.

To Make Callishones – Coriander-Scented Marchpane Candies

This elegant sweetmeat comes from John Murrell’s A Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen (1621), a household guide filled with refined banqueting recipes — comfits, marchpanes, fruit pastes, and perfumed lozenges meant to close an Elizabethan feast. Callishones (or calysons) were pressed from almond paste and spiced with coriander and musk, then dried into aromatic lozenges.

The Elizabethan Banqueting Course

In the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, a banqueting course was a distinct final act of a feast — a separate table laden with sugarwork, spiced wines, candied fruits, comfits, and perfumed pastes. These dishes were not meant to fill the stomach but to delight the senses and demonstrate refinement.

The fashion for such displays began in the Tudor court and reached its height under Elizabeth I, when sugar was imported from Madeira, the Azores, and later the Caribbean. Wealthy hosts commissioned sugar plate sculptures and marchpane castles, while smaller households imitated them with printed or molded sweets like callishones. The very word “banquet” came to mean not a meal, but a ceremonial table of confections.

Surviving accounts from royal and noble households show that banqueting rooms were sometimes separate from dining halls — built atop towers or in garden pavilions — so that guests could “walk to the banquet” after dinner and admire both the view and the artistry of the table.