What to Drink? Four Drink Syrups for Recreation Feasts

When recreating an event at a site that is dry what do you drink? I prefer drink syrups which can be diluted to taste with water.  They are easy to make, easily transportable, and do not require special storage. I have two that I use regularly at events; Sekanjabin (oxmel) and Syrup of Pomegranites.  I have also recently discovered two new favorites which are destined to become regular syrups to bring with me camping or at events;  Syrup to Cool the Stomach and Allay Chollor and Apple Syrup, a syrup based off of "An Apple Drink with Sugar or Honey".  I hope you try these out and respond back with your own opinions of them.

Syrup of Simple Sekanjabin (Oxymel) - Persian Mint Drink "An Anonymous Andalusian cookbook of the 13th Century" as translated by David Friedman.

Sekanjabin refers to the "family" of drinks made with vinegar, sugar and water (Meade, 2002). I prefer to use red wine vinegar as the base of my drink. I have also used flavored vinegars and omitted the mint. I prefer a stronger drink, so I usually dilute 5:1 ratio of water to syrup.

Take a ratl of strong vinegar and mix it with two ratls of sugar, and cook all this until it takes the form of a syrup. Drink an ûqiya of this with three of hot water when fasting: it is beneficial for fevers of jaundice, and calms jaundice and cuts the thirst, since sikanjabîn syrup is beneficial in phlegmatic fevers: make it with six ûqiyas of sour vinegar for a ratl of honey and it is admirable.

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... and a ratl of sugar; cook all this until it takes the consistency of syrup. Its benefit is to relax the bowels and cut the thirst and vomiting, and it is beneficial in bilious fevers (Friedman, 2000).

Sekanjabin Recipe (Courtesy of David Friedman)

Dissolve 4 cups sugar in 2 1/2 cups of water; when it comes to a boil add 1 cup wine vinegar. Simmer 1/2 hour. Add a handful of mint, remove from fire, let cool. Dilute the resulting syrup to taste with ice water (5 to 10 parts water to 1 part syrup). The syrup stores without refrigeration.

Syrup of Pomegranites - Spiced Pomegranate Syrup -Take a ratl of sour pomegranates and another of sweet pomegranates, and add their juice to two ratles of sugar, cook all this until it takes the consistency of syrup, and keep until needed. Its benefits: it is useful for fevers, and cuts the thirst, it benefits bilious fevers and lightens the body gently (Friedman, 2000).

Spiced Pomegranate Drink (Courtesy of David Friedman)

1 quart pomegranate juice
4 cups of sugar
1-2 cinnamon sticks*
Up to a tablespoon of cloves*

As the recipe from Al-Andulus suggests, equal parts of juice to sugar, heated until it boils and then lower the heat and cook until it becomes thick syrup. I dilute my syrup with a 4:1 ratio of water to syrup.

A syrupe to cool the stomach and to allay chollor - A Booke of diuers Medecines, Broothes, Salves, Waters, Syroppes and Oyntementes of which many or the most part have been experienced and tryed by the speciall practize of Mrs Corlyon.

Take the juyce of Oranges six spoonefulles*, the like quantity of the juyce of Lemmons and so much of the juyce of Pomegranetts (if you can goff it) putt to it so much redd Rose ayer as all those juyces doe amounte unto, and putt likewise so much faire water as will equall the foresaid juyces and Rose water. Then moasure all togoathor and to half pinte putt halfo a pound of Sugar fynelye boaton and so boil altogoathor till it commoth to a syrupe. Then putt it into a glasse and keepe it for your use. And when you will use it take some borrage water or rose water or faire running water boiled, mingle it with so much syrupe as you will take, so as you may drink it

Equal amounts of orange juice, lemon juice, pomegranate juice, distilled water
1/2 pound of sugar per 1/2 pint of juice
*Opt. Rosewater

Place juices into a pan with sugar and boil until they become a syrup (approximately ½ an hour) Dilute 1:4 syrup to water, or to taste.

Image result for Medieval Drinking

Apple Drink with Sugar, Honey - The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened ~1669

A very pleasant drink is made of Apples, thus; Boil sliced Apples in water, to make the water strong of Apples, as when you make to drink it for coolness and pleasure. Sweeten it with Sugar to your tast, such a quantity of sliced Apples, as would make so much water strong enough of Apples; and then bottle it up close for three or four months. There will come a thick mother at the top, which being taken off, all the rest will be very clear, and quick and pleasant to the taste, beyond any Cider. It will be the better to most taste, if you put a very little Rosemary into the liquor, when you boil it, and a little Limon-peel into each bottle, when you bottle it up.

Apple Drink with Sugar or Honey

1/4 cup sugar
5 cups water
1-2 sliced and peeled apples

Place peeled, cored and sliced apples into a pan and add water. Bring to boil and reduce heat, simmering until apples are mushy and water is strongly flavored. Drain the apples through a collander that has been lined with coffee filters, stir in sugar and allow to cool before drinking.

As an alternative,  you can make an apple syrup using the same instructions as the Spiced Pomegranite Drink

For more excellent ideas on non-alcoholic beverages that were enjoyed, and can be used at  recreation events (or camping) please visit HL Ronan Meads Non-Alcoholic Beverages of the Middle Ages, the inspiration for many of the syrups you see on this post, and my starting point to continue researching  appropriate drinks. 

An apple a day---Use of Apples in Cooking in the 15th and 16th Century

Apples belong to the Rosaceae family along with pears, quince, loquat, medlars and yes, roses. It is believed that there has been over 10,000 different apple cultivars that have been developed, many of which are now lost.It is generally believed that domesticated apples has their origins in Central Asia. Apples are documented as early as 6500 B.C. in Jericho and the Jordan Valley. Theophrastes records in 323 B.C the process of budding, grafting and general tree care of six different varieties of apples that were known at the time. Here I present five recipes featuring apples; A candy made of apples simmered in sugar syrup and allowed to dry, Apple Muse, and apple and rice milk sauce or pudding, Apple Moyle, a similar recipe to Apple Muse resulting in a sweet apple porridge, Applade Ryalle-three different versions of apple soup, creamy and delicious an unusal starter for any meal, and lastly A Potage of Roysons, apples and raisins are offset by spicy ginger in this simple porridge of rice.




To candy any roote, fruite or flower. - a method for preserving fruit, roots such as carrots, parsnips or beets and flowers in sugar syrup. Delicious to make for every day use.  Pictured at left are sugared plums, but apples are just as delicious.





lxxix. Apple Muse. - Apples and honey are simmered in almond milk, seasoned lightly with saffron, and colored a delicate pink with sandalwood, this early version of apple sauce is fit for a king.









Cxxxiiij - Apple Moyle. - Apple moyle, similar to apple muse creates a delicious porridge of apples, sweetened with sugar and the warmth "Good powder", a spice mix that usually contains ginger, cinnamon, mace, clove and pepper.  A warming treat on a cold day. 










.Cxxxv. Applade Ryalle. - Three versions of an apple soup, easy on the pocket but  fit for a king! For Nede, wine and honey, warmed spices and apples create a velvety soup. On Fysshe Day (Lent), almond milk and sugar, cinnamon, ginger, pepper, grains of paradise and apples create a creamy delight. On a Flesshe Day, beef broth and apples marry together in a soup that will leave you wanting more.










.Cxxxvj. A potage of Roysons. - Rice Porridge with Apples and Raisins - a comforting dish made of rice flour and almond milk, apples, raisins sweetened with honey. Another medieval comfort food that would serve well as a camp or event breakfast treat, or the sweet ending of a feast.

Winged Hills Collegium & South Oaken A&S Feast

Winged Hills Collegium 
And
South Oaken Arts and Sciences Faire

March 10 A.S. LII (2018)
Abiding Christ Lutheran Church
326 E Dayton Yellow Springs Rd.
Fairborn, OH 45324

On table

Brawn with Mustard, pickled grapes, red and yellow wine jellies, red beets and jagged oranges
A Grand Sallet - Lettuce, Olives, Capers, Pickled Mushrooms, Raisins (or currents), Almonds, Figs, Peas, Aparagus and Artichoke Hearts drizzled with a dressing of olive oil & vinegar


First Course

A Hash of Beef, Otherways
A Savory Oatmeal Pudding
A made dish of chicken, sausages, cabbages, turnips, cauliflower and chestnuts.


Second Course

A Made dish of Curds
To make a Peasecod Dish in puff Paste, two ways.
Gingerbread, White Gingerbread
Comfits and other sweetmeats - Manus Christi, Rock Candy, Anise, Caraway and Fennel in comfit, Candied Ginger, Orange and Lemon Peels

VegetarianAlternatives

On Table

Salmon Marinated to be eaten cold, garnished with lemons and beets

First Course

Onion Pottage

A made dish of fish and shrimp served with cauliflower, turnips and chestnuts


Beverages

Sekanjabin - A Syrup made with vinegar and mint - Fihrist of al-Nadim c10th c.
A Syrupe to cool the stomach - A Syrup of Orange, Lemon and Pomegranate juices - A Booke of Diuers Medecines, Broothes, Salves, Waters, Syroppes and Oyntements, 1606
An Apple Drink with Sugar & Honey - The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened 1669 


Brawn with Mustard

To souce a Pig.

Take a pig being scalded, cut off the head, and part it down the back, draw it and bone it, then the sides being well cleansed from the blood, and soaked in several clean waters, take the pig and dry the sides, season them with nutmeg, ginger, and salt, roul them and bind them up in clean clouts as the pig brawn aforesaid, then have as much water as will cover it in a boiling pan two inches over and two bottles of white-wine over and above; first let the water boil, then put in the collars with salt, mace, slic’t ginger, parsley-roots and fennil-roots scraped and picked; being half boiled put in two quarts of white-wine, and when it is boil’d quite, put in slices of lemon to it, and the whole peel of a lemon.

To garnish Brawn or Pig Brawn.

Leach your brawn, and dish it on a plate in a fair clean dish, then put a rosemary branch on the top being first dipped in the white of an egg well beaten to froth, or wet in water and sprinkled with flour, or a sprig of rosemary gilt with gold; the brawn spotted also with gold and silver leaves, or let your sprig be of a streight sprig of yew tree, or a streight furz bush, and put about the brawn stuck round with bay-leaves three ranks round, and spotted with red and yellow jelly about the dish sides, also the same jelly and some of the brawn leached, jagged, or cut with tin moulds, and carved lemons, oranges and barberries, bay-leaves gilt, red beets, pickled barberries, pickled gooseberries, or pickled grapes.

Brawn With Mustard
1 ½ to 2 pounds pork (loin, or shoulder)
2 cups dry white wine
2 ½ cups water or broth
1 small piece ginger chopped
2 tsp. nutmeg
1 ½ tsp. salt

*opt. 1 parsley root (sub parsnips) and 1 fennel root (sup 1 tsp. fennel), ginger, white wine and 1 whole lemon cut in slices

Brine Mixture: 1 Tbsp. Salt to 1 cup of water

Remove extra fat from the meat, season with nutmeg, ginger and salt, and roll tightly.  If you need to, wrap in cheesecloth or tie. 

Bring wine, water and to a boil, add the meat, making sure that it is completely covered and cook on low until tender.  If necessary, add additional broth, water or wine.

Create your brine, and place the meat into it. Meat should marinate at least 12 hours, but can be kept in the brine for several days depending on weight.  Add optional seasonings (parsley root, fennel, ginger, mace).  Additional wine and lemon slices can also be added.

To serve, slice thinly and garnish with red and yellow wine jellies, jagged lemons or oranges, red beets, pickled grapes, fresh grapes, bay leaves, etc.


To Pickle Grapes
The whole Body of Cookery Dissected, William Rabisha

Let not your grapes be fully ripe; their pickle is white wine and sugar
Pickled Grapes
2 pounds seedless grapes
1 1/f cups water
2 cups white wine
½ tsp salt
1 cup sugar (or to taste)

Make syrup by combining sugar and water together and simmering until dissolved. Let cool.
Wash and dry the grapes, cutting into small bundles of grapes and removing bad grapes.  Place grapes into sterilized jars filling them about ¾ full.

Add wine to syrup and fill each jar with liquid.  Additional spices can be added at this point.  Leave to steep, shaking jars once or twice a week. 



To Make Mustard of Dijon 
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

The seed being cleansed, stamp it in a mortar, with vinegar and honey, then take eight ounces of seed, two ounces of cinnamon, two of hone, and vinegar as much will serve, good mustard not too think, and keep it close covered in little oyster barrels.

To Make Mustard

1 cup mustard seeds
1 ½ cups mustard powder
¼ cup cinnamon
¼ cup honey
½ cup vinegar
1 ½ cups water

Grind the mustard seeds for a few seconds in a spice or coffee grinder, or by hand if you wish using a mortar and pestle just enough to crack.  Pour the seeds, mustard powder, honey and cinnamon into a bowl and then add cold vinegar and water.  Wait at least 12 hours before using. 

Seeds can be a mix of brown, black, or white.  Black seeds offer the most heat.

Note: I purchase whole grain and stone ground mustards and mix together, adding cinnamon and honey.



To Make a Crystal Jelly
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

Take three pair of calves feet, and scald off the hair very clean, knock off the claws, and take out the great bones & fat, & cast them into fair water, shift them three or four times in a day and a night, then boil them next morning in a glazed pipkin or clean pot, with six quarts of fair spring water, boil it and scum it clean, boil away three quarts or more; then strain it into a clean earthen pan or bason, & let it be cold: then prepare the dross from the bottom, and take the fat of the top clean, put it in a large pipkin of six quarts, and put into it two quarts of old clear white-wine, the juyce of four lemons, three blades of mace, and two races of ginger slic’t; then melt or dissolve it again into broth, and let it cool. Then have four pound of hard sugar fine beaten, and mix it with twelve whites of eggs in a great dish with your rouling pin, and put it into your pipkin to your jelly, stir it together with a grain of musk and ambergriese, put it in a fine linnen clout bound up, and a quarter of a pint of damask rose-water, set it a stewing on a soft charcoal fire, before it boils put in a little ising glass, and being boil’d up, take it, and let it cool a little, and run it.

 Other Jelly for Service of Several Colors
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

Take four pair of calves feet, a knuckle of veal, a good fleshie capon, and prepare these things as is said in the crystal jelly: boil them in three gallons of fair water, till six quarts be wasted, then strain it in an earthen pan, let it cool, and being cold pare the bottom, and take off the fat on the top also; then dissolve it again into broth, and divide it into 4 equal parts, put it into four several pipkins, as will contain five pints a piece each pipkin, put a little saffron into one of them, into another 203 cutchenele beaten with allum, into another turnsole, and the other his own natural white; also to every pipkin a quart of white-wine, and the juyce of two lemons. Then also to the white jelly one race of ginger pare’d and slic’t & three blades of large mace, to the red jelly 2 nutmegs, as much in quantity of cinamon as nutmegs, also as much ginger; to the turnsole put also the same quantity, with a few whole cloves; then to the amber or yellow color, the same spices and quantity.

Then have eighteen whites of eggs, & beat them with six pound of double refined sugar, beaten small and stirred together in a great tray or bason with a rouling pin divide it into four parts in the four pipkins & stir it to your jelly broth, spice, & wine, being well mixed together with a little musk & ambergriese. Then have new bags, wash them first in warm water, and then in cold, wring them dry, and being ready strung with packthread on sticks, hang them on a spit by the fire from any dust, and set new earthen pans under them being well seasoned with boiling liquor.

Then again set on your jelly on a fine charcoal fire, and let it stew softly the space of almost an hour, then make it boil up a little, and take it off, being somewhat cold run it through the bag twice or thrice, or but once if it be very clear; and into the bags of colors put in a sprig of rosemary, keep it for your use in those pans, dish it as you see good, or cast it into what mould you please; as for example these.


To Make Clear Jelly  

2 c. clear stock
1 cup white wine
1 cup water
Juice of ½ a lemon
½ tsp. ground mace
1-2 slices of fresh ginger
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. rose water
4 packets unflavored gelatin
To Make Yellow Jelly
Add a pinch of saffron to the above
To Make Red Jelly

Substitute red wine for white
Add 2 tsp. ground nutmegs and 1 tsp. ground cinnamon or 1 cinnamon sticks to the above

Note: 2 packets unflavored gelatin + 2 cups liquid will make about 20 1 ounce servings


Bloom the gelatin in the water. Heat the stock, wine, lemon juice, spices and sugar until boiling and pour into a bowl, add the gelatin and stir until completely dissolved.  Add the rosewater.Put into your mold or pan and allow setting.

Note: You may need to strain the gelatin into your pan to remove undissolved gelatin and spices.


To Make a Grand Sallet
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

....Lettice shred small (as the tongue), olives, capers, mushrooms, pickled samphire, broom-buds, lemon or oranges, raisins, almonds, blew figs, Virginia potato, caparones, or crucifix pease, currans, pickled oysters, taragon.

How to Dish it up
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

Any of these being thin sliced (chicken or tongue), as is shown above said, with a little minced taragon and onion amongst it; then have lettice minced as small as the meat by it self, olives by themselves, capers by themselves, samphire by it self, broom-buds by it self, pickled mushrooms by themselves, or any of the materials abovesaid.

Garnish the dish with oranges and lemons in quarters or slices, oyl and vinegar beaten together, and poured over all, &c.

A Grand Sallet

2 heads loose leaf lettuce shred small
2 tbsp. Olives
1 tsp. capers
1 tbsp. pickled mushrooms
2 tbsp. raisins
2 tbsp. almonds
2 black figs, cut in half
2 tbps. Peas boiled tender
4 tbsp. pickled asparagus (for samphire) – Note for feast it was fresh boiled asparagus
4 tbs. artichoke hearts cut in half
Arrange the lettuce down the center of the plate.  Place the remaining ingredients around the outside of the lettuce in a pleasing pattern.  Garnish with oranges and lemons. Before serving dress with salad dressing.

Dressing

¾ c. oil - Olive
2 tbsp. vinegar – Italian white wine vinegar with grape must
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix together and pour over the salad prior to serving.


To Pickle Mushrooms
The whole Body of Cookery Dissected, William Rabisha

Take a bushel of mushrooms, blanch them over the crown, barm them beneath; if they are new, they look read as a Cherry; if old, black; this being done, throw them into a pan oif boyling water, then take them forth and let them drain; when they are cold, put them up into your Pot or Glass, put thereto Cloves, Mace, Ginger, Nutmeggs, whole Pepper; Then take white wine, a little Vinegar, with a little quantity of salt, so pour the Liquor into your Mushrooms, and stop them close for your use all the year.

To Pickle Mushrooms

1 pound small mushrooms
½ cup water
1 ½ to 2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. peppercorns
5 whole cloves
½ tsp. mace & nutmeg
1 ½ cups white wine
2 tbsp. vinegar

Note: Asparagus can be pickled in the same way

Clean the mushrooms and slice or quarter as you desire. Place mushrooms in a pan and cover with the water. Add salt. Bring mushrooms to a boil; boil for approximately two minutes and then drain. Place the mushrooms in your jar, add remainder of spices, wine and vinegar. If you find that you do not have enough liquid to cover the mushrooms, add more wine. Once a day invert the jar.

A Hash of Beef, Otherways
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

Stew it in Beef gobbets, and cut some fat and lean together as big as a good pullets egg, and put them into a pot or pipkin with some Carrots cut in pieces as big as a walnut, some whole onions, some parsnips, large mace, faggot of sweet herbs, salt, pepper, cloves, and as much water and wine as will cover them, and stew it the space of three hours.

A Hash of Beef, Otherways

1 ½ to 2 pounds beef for stew cut into large chunks
1 onion, sliced (or you can use small onions while)
1 -2 carrots and parsnips chopped
½ tsp. each thyme, marjoram and savory
1 tbsp. parsley
1 cup red one
1 cup water or beef stock –or- additional cup red wine
¼  tsp. mace
Salt and pepper to taste

If you wish brown the beef in the pan with a little bit of butter, otherwise, place all ingredients together into a pot and cook until tender. 

An Oatmeal Pudding, Otherways
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

Take good store of parsley, tyme, savory, four or five onions, and sweet marjoram, chop them with some whole oatmeal, then add to them pepper, and salt, and boil them in a napkin, being boil’d tender, butter it, and serve it on sippets.

An Oatmeal Pudding

1 c. whole milk (or heavy cream, or a mix)
2 c. steel cut oats
¼ c. butter
1 onion chopped
1 tbsp. parsley
¾ tsp. each thyme, marjoram and savory
1 tsp. salt
¾ tsp. pepper
4 eggs

Note: While simple to prepare, boiled puddings take a lot of time.  Good news, they can be made ahead of time.  Better news—they taste better the next day.

Day 1: Heat milk and butter together until warmed.  Add oats and let soak overnight.

Day 2: Bring a large pot of water to boil and put into it a large square of cloth to be your pudding bag.  I use white pillowcases that have been cut in half and are only used for cooking purposes in my house.

Meanwhile, add remaining ingredients to your oats which have soaked overnight.  The consistency should be very thick. 

Remove the cloth from the boiling water and wring till almost dry.  BE CAREFUL!!

Make flour by grinding oatmeal in a blender and dust your cloth with this flour.  Place your dough into the center of the cloth and fold the cloth around it; I use rubber bands to tie the cloth in place. You want to be as close to the pudding as you can.

Place your pudding into the pot, lower the heat to medium and cook pudding for four hours.  You will want to make sure that it is fully submerged (they float) and that they do not touch the bottom of the sides of the pot (it dries that area out and it’s unappetizing). 

After four hours, carefully remove the pudding from the boiling water and allow draining and cooling before untying. 

Puddings can be served warm or cool.  Slice and serve

Bonus Recipe:  A sweet version of this pudding can be made using dates, currants, pepper, clove, mace and sugar.  It is delicious for breakfast and lasts up to a week if kept refrigerated.  Just grab and go!

Eisands of Oatmeal Groats. 
A Book of Cookrye, A.W.

Take a pint of cream and heat it, and when it is hot, put thereto a pint of oatmeal groats, and let them soak in it all night, and put thereto eight yolks of eggs, and a little pepper, cloves, mace, and saffron, and a good deal of suet of beef, and small raisins and dates, and a little sugar
For A Gusset that may be another Pottage

A Proper Newe Booke of Cookerye, Anonymous
Take the broathe of the Capons and put in a fayre chafer, then take a dosen or syxtene egges and stere them all together whyte and all, then grate a farthynge whyte loafe as smale as ye canne, and mynce it wyth the egges all togeather, and putte thereto salte and a good quantite of safiron, and or ye putte in youre egges, putte into youre brothe, tyme, sauerye, margeron and parseley small choppd, and when ye are redye to your dynner, sette the chafer upon the fyre wyth the brothe, and lette it boyle a lyttle and putte in your egges and stere it up well for quaylinge the less. The less boylynge it hathe the more tender it wyll be, and then serve it forthe two or three slyces upon a dysshe.

Gusset Pottage

4 C clear chicken broth
1 tbsp. Minced parsley
1 tsp. Salt
Pinch of saffron
⅛ tsp. each marjoram, thyme, savory
2 eggs
2 tsp. bread crumbs
3 slices hot buttered toast

Add parsley, salt, saffron, marjoram, thyme, and savory to chicken broth and simmer for 15 minutes.  Beat the eggs with the bread crumbs and stir them into the broth.  Turn off the heat and let the broth simmer for a minute or two, stirring constantly.  Divide the toast among individual soup bowls and pour the hot broth over it immediately.

Note: Bone in, skin on, chicken thighs and breasts were boiled in the gusset prior to adding eggs (I forgot the bread crumbs for feast)  allowed to cool, cleaned and sliced/shredded prior to feast.

Sausages, Otherways
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

Mince pork with beef-suet, and mince some sage, and put to it some pepper, salt, cloves, and mace; make it into balls, and keep it for your use, or roll them into little sausages some four or five inches long as big as your finger; fry six or seven of them, and serve them in a dish with vinegar or juyce of orange.

Sausages

2 pounds ground pork for sausage
½ tsp. ground pepper mix
½ tsp. each sage, clove and mace
1 tsp. salt

Mix the meat with the spices, adding water if needed until well blended.  Cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight. Form the sausage into small rolls, about four inches long and 1 inch wide and pan fry over medium heat, turning until sausages are browned on all sides.

Note: 1 tbsp. makes a good sized meatball

To Make a Dish of Turneps
A Proper Newe Booke of Cookerye, Anonymous

Pare your turnips as you would pare a pippin, then cut them into square pieces an inch and a half long and as thick as a Butcher’s prick or skewet.  Put them into a pipkin with a pound of butter and three or foure spoonefuls of stron broath, and a quarter of a pint of vineger seasoned with a little pepper, ginger, salt and sugar, and let them stue very easily upon a soft fire, for the space of two hours or more, now and then turning them with a spoone, as occasion shall serve but by all meanes take heede you break them not, then dish them upon sippets and serve them to the table hot.

To Make a Dish of Turneps

1 ½ pounds  turnips
4 tbsp. butter
1 ½ cups broth
¼ cup white vinegar
¼ tsp. ginger
¼ tsp. salt
1 tbsp. sugar
1/8 tsp. salt

Peel your turnips and slice them crosswise ¼” thick.  Bring the butter, broth, vinegar, and seasonings to a boil in a saucepan and add your turnips.  Lower the heat and simmer until the turnips are almost tender, stirring them every 15 minutes. 

Note: Turnips are also used as garnish over stewed meats or poultry.

Note: For feast, turnips were prepared as for the cauliflower and the cabbage below

Buttered Colliflowers
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

Have a skillet of fair water, and when it boils put in the whole tops of the colliflowers, the root being cut away, put some salt to it; and being fine and tender boiled dish it whole in a dish, with carved sippets round about it, and serve it with beaten butter and water, or juyce of orange and lemon.
Buttered Cauliflower

The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

1 head of cauliflower cut into florets
2 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. unsalted butter

Bring a pot of water to a boil and season with salt.  Add cauliflower and lower heat to a simmer. Simmer until cauliflower is tender.  Drain the cauliflower and serve with butter. 

Buttered Wortes (Cabbage)
Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books, Thomas  Austin

Take al manor of good herbes that thou may gete, and do bi ham as is forsaid; putte hem on þe fire with faire water; put þer-to clarefied buttur a grete quantite. Whan thei ben boyled ynough, salt hem; late none otemele come ther-in. Dise brede small in disshes, and powre on þe wortes, and serue hem forth.

 head of cabbage
2 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
Bring a pot of water to a boil and season with salt.  Add cabbage and parboil five minutes, drain, and then bring another pot of water to boil, add cabbage and lower heat to a simmer. Simmer until cabbage is tender.  Drain the cauliflower and serve with butter. 

To Make a Made Dish of Curds
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

Take some tender curds, wring the whey from them very well, then put to them two raw eggs, currans, sweet butter, rose-water, cinamon, sugar, and mingle all together, then make a fine paste with flour, yolks of egs, rose-water, & other water, sugar, saffron, and butter, wrought up cold, bake it either in this paste or in puff-paste, being baked ice it with rose-water, sugar, and butter.

To Make a Made Dish of Curds

1 cup cream
1 ½ cups cottage cheese or fresh made cheese
2 eggs
½ cup sugar
1 tbsp. rosewater
1 tbsp. lemon juice
¼ tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. salt
2 tbsp. currants

Beat eggs, sugar, rosewater, lemon juice, spices, salt and cream together in a bowl.  Add cheese and currants and pour into your puff pastry shell.  Bake 350 degrees until cooked through, and serve.

Note: The cheese served at feast was made that day.

To Make a Peasecod Dish in Puff Paste, Two Ways
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

Take a pound of almonds, and a quarter of a pound of sugar, beat the almonds finely to a paste with some rose-water, then beat the sugar amongst them, mingle some sweet butter with it, and make this stuff up in puff paste like peasecods, bake them upon papers, and being baked, ice it with rose-water, butter, and fine sugar.

In this fashion you may make peasecod stuff of preserved quinces, pippins, pears, or preserved plums in puff paste.

For the Almond Filling
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

1 1/2 cups almond flour
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. rosewater
1/4 cup butter

Mix together all the ingredients, cover and set aside until needed.  When ready to cook, place filling into puff paste, shape like a peas cod and bake until browned.

For the Icing:

2 cups powdered sugar
2  tbsp.  rosewater (or to taste)
1 tbsp. butter
Water

Mix together butter and sugar, add rosewater.  Add additional water until you get the desired consistency.  Drizzle over peascods or serve on the side.

To Make a Slice’t Tart of Quinces, Wardens, Pears, Pippins in slices raw of Diverse Compounds
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

To make a slic’t Tart of Quinces, Wardens, Pears, Pippins, in slices raw of divers Compounds.The foresaid fruits being finely pared, and slic’t in very thine slices; season them with beaten cinamon, and candied citron minced, candied orange, or both, or raw orange peel, raw lemon peel, fennil-seed, or caraway-seed or without any of these compounds or spices, but the fruits alone one amongst the other; put to ten pippins six quinces, six wardens, eight pears, and two pound of sugar; close it up, bake it; and ice it as the former tarts.

Thus you may also bake it in patty-pan, or dish, with cold butter paste.

For the Fruit Filling

4 apples
3 quinces
3 cooking pears (wardens)
4 pears
2 cups  of sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
Opt. Candied citron or orange peel

Peel, core and slice your fruit thinly, mix it with the sugar and spices (note you may want to add a tablespoonful of  flour to the mixture to thicken it as it cooks). Arrange the fruit in the pastry and close it.  Bake at 375 degrees until fruit is tender and crust is browned. Let cool before serving.

Puff Paste, the Third Way
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

Break two eggs into three pints of flour, make it with cold water and roul it out pretty thick and square, then take so much butter as paste, lay it in ranks, and divide your butter in five pieces, that you may lay it on at five several times, roul your paste very broad, and stick one part of the butter in little pieces all over your paste, then throw a handful of flour slightly on, fold up your paste and beat it with a rowling-pin, so roul it out again, thus do five times, and make it up.

Puff Paste

6 cups flour
2 eggs
1 pound of butter, frozen
1 tsp.
Ice Water

Put your flour  and salt into a bowl, and add eggs, add water until it becomes a dough.  Roll your pastry dough out till it is about ¼” thick.

Grate 1 stick of butter and strew it over your dough.  Fold the dough into thirds and roll it out again. You will need to work quickly so the dough does not get too warm.  Continue to do this until all of the butter has been incorporated into the dough.  Being sure to fold it and role it up at least five times.  Refrigerate overnight.

Vegetarian Options

To Marinate Salmon to Be Eaten Cold
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

Take a Salmon, cut it into joles and rands, & fry them in good sweet sallet oyl or clarified butter, then set them by in a charger, and have some white or claret-wine, & wine vinegar as much as will cover it, put the wine & vinegar into a pipkin with all manner of sweet herbs bound up in a bundle as rosemary, thyme, sweet marjoram, parsly winter-savory, bay-leaves, sorrel, and sage, as much of one as the other, large mace, slic’t ginger, gross pepper, slic’t nutmeg, whole cloves, and salt; being well boil’d together, pour it on the fish, spices and all, being cold, then lay on slic’t lemons, and lemon-peel, and cover it up close; so keep it for present spending, and serve it hot or cold with the same liquor it is soust in, with the spices, herbs, and lemons on it.

If to keep long, pack it up in a vessel that will but just hold it, put to it no lemons nor herbs, only bay-leaves; if it be well packed, it will keep as long as sturgeon, but then it must not be splatted, but cut round ways through chine and all.

To Marinate Salmon to be Eaten Cold

1 ½ -2 pounds salmon
4 tbsp. butter or oil
¼ c minced parsley
1 tsp. fresh grated ginger
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. peppercorns
4 cloves
1 bay leaf
½ nutme g broken up
1 large piece whole mace
¼ tsp . each thyme, rosemary, marjoram, savory and sage
6 tbsp. wine vinegar
1 ¼ cup wine
1 lemon sliced thin and seeded

 Rinse the salmon under cold water and pat dry with a towel. Cut into squares.  Melt the butter in a pan, or heat the oil and saute the fish until it is cooked.

Heat the herbs, spices, vinegar and wine in a pot until it boils.  Lower  heat and cook for ten minutes.
Layer the salmon in a deep bowl and pour the hot marinade over the salmon.  Arrange the lemon slices over the top, pushing a few down at the sides of the bowl.  Cover and set aside until the marinade has cooled.

Refridgerate until needed.  Serve cold with some of the marinade poured over it.

An Onion Pottage
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

Fry good store of slic’t onions, then have a pipkin of boiling liquor over the fire, when the liquor bils put in the fryed onions, butter and all, with pepper and salt: being well stewed together, serve in on sops of French bread.

3 tbsp. olive oil
½ pound of onions peeled and sliced 1/4 “thick
4 cups vegetable stock
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper

Melt butter in a large skillet, add sliced onions and sauté for about 10 minutes or until golden brown stirring occasionally. Bring broth to boil, add onions and cook over medium heat for ten minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Put toasted bread in individual bowls, pour broth over the onions and serve immediately.

To Broil Bace
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

Take a bace, draw it and wash it clean, broil it with the scales on, or without the scales, and lay it in a dish with some good sallet oyl, wine-vinegar, salt, some sprigs of rosemary, tyme, and parsley, then heat the gridiron and lay on the fish, broil it on a soft fire on the embers, and baste it with the sauce it was steeped in, being broild serve it in a clean warm dish with the sauce it was steeped in, and the herbs on it, and about the dish, cast on salt, and so serve it with slices of orange, lemon , or barberries.
Or broil it in butter and venegar with herbs as above-said and make sauce with beaten butter and vinegar.

To Broil Bass
2 pound fresh water bass
½ cup white wine vinegar
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp thyme and rosemary
¼ c minced parsley
4 tbsp butter melted
½ lemon sliced thin

Make a marinade of the vinegar, salt, thyme, rosemary and parsley.  Place the fish in a shallow baking dish  and pour the marinade over it.  Marinate for at least half an hour.  Sprinkle half the butter over the fish and bake at 350 degrees until cooked.  Garnish and serve.

To Stew Shrimp being Taken from their shells
The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

Wash them well with vinegar, broil or broth them before you take them out of the shells, then put them in a dish with a little claret, vinegar, a handful of capers, mace, pepper, a little grated bread, minced tyme, salt, and the yolks of two or three hard eggs minced, stew all together till you think them enough; then put in a good piece of butter, shake them well together, heat the dish, rub it with a clove of garlick, and put two or three toasts of white bread in the bottom, laying the meat on them. Craw-fish, prawns, or shrimps, are excellent good the same way being taken out of their shells, and make variety of garnish with the shells.

Stewed Shrimp

2 pounds of shrimp
¼ cup white wine
1 tbsp. wine vinegar
1-2 sprigs of fresh thyme
3 tbsp. bread crumbs
2-3 egg yolks
¼ cup butter
1 tbsp. capers
¼ tsp. mace
1-2 cloves garlic minced

Place all ingredients into a pot and stew until shrimps are cooked.

Drinks

A syrupe to cool the stomach and to allay chollor
A Booke of diuers Medecines, Broothes, Salves, Waters, Syroppes and Oyntementes of which many or the most part have been experienced and tryed by the speciall practize of Mrs Corlyon.

Take the juyce of Oranges six spoonefulles*, the like quantity of the juyce of Lemmons and so much of the juyce of Pomegranetts (if you can goff it) putt to it so much redd Rose ayer as all those juyces doe amounte unto, and putt likewise so much faire water as will equall the foresaid juyces and Rose water. Then moasure all togoathor and to half pinte putt halfo a pound of Sugar fynelye boaton and so boil altogoathor till it commoth to a syrupe. Then putt it into a glasse and keepe it for your use. And when you will use it take some borrage water or rose water or faire running water boiled, mingle it with so much syrupe as you will take, so as you may drink it

Equal amounts of orange juice, lemon juice, pomegranate juice, distilled water
1/2 pound of sugar per 1/2 pint of juice
*Opt.  Rosewater

Place juices into a pan with sugar and boil until they become a syrup (approximately ½ an hour) Dilute 1:4 syrup to water, or to taste.

Syrup of Simple Sikanjabn
Fihrist of al-Nadim c10th c.

Take a ratl of strong vinegar and mix it with two ratls of sugar, and cook all this until it takes the form of a syrup. Drink an qiya of this with three of hot water when fasting: it is beneficial for fevers of jaundice, and calms jaundice and cuts the thirst, since sikanjabn syrup is beneficial in phlegmatic fevers: make it with six qiyas of sour vinegar for a ratl of honey and it is admirable.

Syrup of Simple Sikanjabn

4 cups sugar
2 ½ cups water
1 cup wine vinegar
Handful of mint

Dissolve 4 cups sugar in 2 1/2 cups of water; when it comes to a boil add 1 cup wine vinegar. Simmer 1/2 hour. Add a handful of mint, remove from fire, let cool. Dilute the resulting syrup to taste with ice water (5 to 10 parts water to 1 part syrup). The syrup stores without refrigeration.

Apple Drink with Sugar, Honey
The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened

A VERY pleasant drink is made of Apples, thus; Boil sliced Apples in water, to make the water strong of Apples, as when you make to drink it for coolness and pleasure. Sweeten it with Sugar to your tast, such a quantity of sliced Apples, as would make so much water strong enough of Apples; and then bottle it up close for three or four months. There will come a thick mother at the top, which being taken off, all the rest will be very clear, and quick and pleasant to the taste, beyond any Cider. It will be the better to most taste, if you put a very little Rosemary into the liquor, when you boil it, and a little Limon-peel into each bottle, when you bottle it up.

Makes 5 servings

1/4 cup sugar
5 cups water
1-2 sliced and peeled apples
Place peeled, cored and sliced apples into a pan and add water.  Bring to boil and reduce heat, simmering until apples are mushy and water is strongly flavored.  Drain the apples through a collander that has been lined with coffee filters, stir in sugar and allow to cool before drinking.


Five Sweet, Savory and Fried Custards found in Harleian MS 279 (~1430)

Some of my earliest adventures in attempting to interpret recipes from "Two fifteenth-century cookery-books. Harleian ms. 279 (ab. 1430), & Harl. ms. 4016 (ab. 1450), with extracts from Ashmole ms. 1429, Laud ms. 553, & Douce ms. 55" by Thomas Austin were one of my favorite childhood treats, custards. Today I present to you a selection of my favorite interpretations.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.


xxix Milke Rostys- Roasted Milk -- Hard custards are a thing of the past, but this recipe has returned them to my life. Custard is set like cheese, sliced and fried in grease (roste it on a Greddelle). This was my very first interpreted recipe, and is a favorite, served cold, room temperature or hot off the griddle. 







.xxix. Lyode Soppes- an early bread pudding  literally a sop of bread floating in a pool of beautifully thick and sweet custard, this dish is one of the earliest recipes for "bread pudding." It lacks many of the characteristics that now define a bread pudding, additional fruit, spices, and being baked in the oven.  I was unsure how this dish would be received by my bevy of taste testers, and they received it much better than I expected they would. There were a few surprised looks as they tested this dish. The general consensus amongst the tasters is "it was good but not something they would want to try again"--and they have.







lxxiiij - Arbolettys - Cheese Soup - A luxuriously velvety cheese soup worthy to be served to any king! Simple ingredients of milk, butter, cheese and eggs flavored with sage, parsley, ginger and galingale. Delicious! Caveat: My interpretation is very different from many of my contemporaries who interpret this dish as a scrambled egg dish. Being in the center of a series of dishes that should be cooked in pots, and not being instructions to let the eggs curd let to my unusual interpretation.






xx. Papyns.- When noble women of this period would choose not to breastfeed, or were unable to, and a wet nurse was not available, a mixture of broth, water, milk, grain, flour or bread, sweetened with honey or diluted wine would be fed to infants through a small horn with a hole drilled into it, or via a rag soaked in the liquid. This same pap was also fed to the elderly who were unable to chew any longer. When given to older children, or in addition to breast milk, papyns provided additional nutrition. This particular recipe adds eggs to the milk and flour as an additional thickener.






.xiij. Creme Boylede. I was delighted to interpret this recipe for an unusual custard that starts by soaking bread in cream or milk. It is a very thrifty dish for the medieval cook, because it most likely made use of bread that had gone stale and it was a way to preserve milk that would otherwise have gone bad, or may have been put to other use. This blog post includes a bonus recipe--Constance Hieatt's boiled cream custard, from a similar interpretation that can be made in the microwave and is my "go to" feast custard when I cater.