Medieval Braised Cabbage with Marrow Bones: Caboges from Harleian MS 279

Medieval braised cabbage with bread-thickened broth and marrow served with bread

Caboges, a medieval braised cabbage dish from Harleian MS 279, served here with bread.

A humble dish of cabbage can still surprise you.

When I first made this recipe for Caboges from Harleian MS 279, I expected something plain and useful: boiled cabbage, perhaps a little broth, a serviceable green thing on the side of the table. Instead, I found tender cabbage braised in rich broth, scented with saffron, thickened with fine bread, and finished with marrow from the bones. It was cabbage dressed for court.

Even sworn cabbage haters tried it and wanted more. Success!

This recipe is one of several vegetable-forward dishes from Harleian MS 279, a 15th-century English cookery manuscript edited by Thomas Austin in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. It belongs in the same delicious family as medieval wortes, Whyte Wortes, Lange Wortys de Chare, and Joutes.

What Are Caboges?

Caboges is the Middle English form of “cabbages.” But this is not simply boiled cabbage. The recipe directs the cook to clean and parboil the cabbage, press it dry, chop it, and then cook it again in fresh broth with marrow bones. The broth is thickened either with grated fine bread or with a strained meat gruel. At service, the marrow is knocked from the bones and placed visibly in the dish.

That finishing touch matters. This is where the recipe moves from plain vegetable cookery into feast-worthy food.

Why Was This Medieval Cabbage Recipe Fit for a Feast?

Modern readers often imagine medieval vegetable dishes as plain or rustic, but medieval cooks knew how to elevate simple ingredients. Here, cabbage becomes noble through treatment:

It is cooked twice for better texture and flavor.
It is simmered in fresh broth rather than plain water.
It is enriched with marrow bones.
It is colored and scented with saffron.
It is thickened with grated fine bread into a soft pottage.

The cabbage may be inexpensive, but the broth, marrow, saffron, bread, fuel, and kitchen labor all add value. This is one of the joys of medieval cooking: the simplest vegetable can become something luxurious when handled with care.

How Would Caboges Have Been Served?

Caboges would likely have appeared among the wortes, pottages, or vegetable dishes of a medieval meal, served alongside roasted meats, meat pies, bread, or other greens. The marrow bones and saffron suggest a dish meant for a table with resources, not merely a plain household cabbage. This is the kind of recipe that reminds us that medieval feast food was not only about spectacular meats and subtleties. Sometimes the quiet dish at the side of the table was doing serious work.

Why Did Medieval Cooks Use Bread to Thicken Soup and Pottage?

Bread appears throughout medieval cookery as a thickener for sauces, pottages, broths, and stews. Before modern cornstarch, commercial thickeners, or the familiar flour-and-butter roux, cooks often relied on grated bread, soaked bread, ground almonds, egg yolks, or strained grain and meat mixtures to give body to a dish.

In this recipe, the manuscript calls for fayre brede, or fine bread. For a modern kitchen, a day-old manchet or other good white bread works beautifully. It grates more easily than very fresh bread and dissolves into the broth, creating a smooth, velvety texture. I originally made this with grated Rastons, but manchet is likely the better everyday recommendation for readers who want to recreate the dish.

Bread also reflects the no-waste wisdom of the medieval kitchen. Yesterday’s loaf could become today’s sauce, sop, trencher, or pottage. In Caboges, the bread is not filler. It is the quiet magic that turns broth into something spoonable and satisfying.

Why Does the Recipe Offer Bread or Meat Gruel?

The recipe gives two ways to enrich and thicken the dish: grated fine bread, or a strained gruel made from fresh meat. The bread version is more approachable for a modern kitchen and produces a smooth pottage. The meat-gruel version would have made the dish even richer, especially in a busy medieval kitchen where broth, meat, and strained cooking liquids were already part of the day’s work.

Why Do the Marrow Bones Matter?

The marrow bones are not incidental. The recipe tells the cook to boil the cabbage with marrow bones, then knock out the marrow and lay two or three pieces in the dish at service. That means the marrow is both flavoring and garnish.

For modern cooks, bone marrow can feel unfamiliar, but it brings deep richness. Think of it as the medieval equivalent of finishing a dish with butter, olive oil, or the most luxurious spoonful of beef essence imaginable. If you make your own stock with marrow bones, do not waste the marrow. Use it. The manuscript wants you to.

Cabbage in Medieval Food Philosophy

Cabbage and other brassicas were useful, filling, and widely eaten, but they could also be considered coarse, windy, or difficult if poorly prepared. This recipe manages cabbage through careful technique. Parboiling softens and tames it. Pressing removes excess water. The second cooking in broth makes it nourishing. Saffron adds warmth and fragrance, while bread gives the broth body. The result is not limp cabbage water, but a carefully balanced pottage.

Historic Recipe

The recipe below is from Thomas Austin’s edition of 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.

.iiij. Caboges. Take fayre caboges, an cutte hem, an pike hem clene and clene washe hem, an parboyle hem in fayre water, an þanne presse hem on a fayre bord; an þan choppe hem, and caste hem in a faire pot with goode freysshe broth, an wyth mery-bonys, and let it boyle: þanne grate fayre brede and caste þer-to, an caste þer-to Safron an salt; or ellys take gode grwel y-mad of freys flesshe, y-draw þorw a straynour, and caste þer-to. An whan þou seruyst yt inne, knocke owt þe marw of þe bonys, an ley þe marwe .ij. gobettys or .iij. in a dysshe, as þe semyth best, & serue forth.

Modern Translation

Take good cabbages, cut them, pick them clean, and wash them well. Parboil them in clean water, then press them on a clean board. Chop them, and put them in a clean pot with good fresh broth and marrow bones, and let it boil. Then grate fine bread and add it, and add saffron and salt. Or else take good gruel made of fresh meat, strained through a strainer, and add that. When you serve it, knock the marrow out of the bones and lay two or three pieces of marrow in the dish, as seems best, and serve it forth.

Modern Recipe Notes

This interpretation follows the breadcrumb-thickened version of the recipe rather than the alternate strained meat gruel. The first boiling softens the cabbage and removes some of its stronger edge. Pressing the cabbage keeps the final dish from becoming watery. The second cooking in broth gives depth, while the grated bread thickens the broth into a soft pottage.

The saffron is included in the original recipe, but I mark it as optional for modern cooks because of cost. If you have it, use it. It adds color, fragrance, and a little medieval splendor.

Ingredients for medieval cabbage pottage including cabbage, broth, bread, saffron, and marrow

Simple ingredients: cabbage, broth, bread, saffron, and marrow.

Modern Recipe: Medieval Braised Cabbage with Marrow Bones

Original Servings

Serves: 1 as a main dish, or 2 as a side dish

Ingredient List

1/8 green cabbage, cut into chunks
1 cup good beef broth, preferably homemade from marrow bones
Marrow from the stock bones, reserved
3 tablespoons grated day-old manchet or fine white bread
Pinch of saffron, optional but recommended
Salt, to taste

Instructions

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the cabbage and parboil until it begins to soften, about 8 to 10 minutes.
Drain the cabbage well. Press or pat it dry with a clean towel so it does not water down the broth.
In a small pot, gently heat the beef broth with the saffron. Let the saffron color and perfume the broth.
Add the drained cabbage to the broth and simmer until the cabbage reaches your preferred tenderness. I like mine with a little bite, which takes about 5 additional minutes.
Add the grated bread slowly, about 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring well after each addition. Let each spoonful dissolve before adding the next. This helps prevent clumping.
Continue simmering until the broth thickens into a soft, spoonable pottage.
Transfer the cabbage and thickened broth to a serving bowl. Add two or three pieces of warm marrow on top and serve forth.

Scaled Servings

Scaled version: Serves approximately 8 as a side dish

Scaled Ingredient List

1 medium green cabbage, cut into chunks
8 cups good beef broth, preferably homemade from marrow bones
Marrow from the stock bones, reserved
1 1/2 cups grated day-old manchet or fine white bread, added gradually and adjusted as needed
Generous pinch of saffron, optional but recommended
Salt, to taste

Scaled Instructions

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the cabbage and parboil until it begins to soften, about 8 to 10 minutes.
Drain the cabbage very well. Press or pat dry to remove excess water.
In a large pot, gently heat the beef broth with the saffron until the broth takes on color and fragrance.
Add the drained cabbage to the broth and simmer until the cabbage reaches your preferred tenderness.
Add the grated bread gradually, stirring well after each addition. Start with about 1 cup, then add more as needed until the broth thickens into a soft pottage. Do not add all the bread at once, or it may clump.
Continue simmering gently until the broth coats the cabbage.
Transfer to a serving dish and place pieces of warm marrow on top before serving.

Bread crumbs thickening broth for medieval cabbage pottage

Bread crumbs slowly thicken the broth into a smooth pottage.

Scale / Print Notes

This recipe scales well for feasts. The most important rule is to add the grated bread slowly and stir thoroughly. The larger the batch, the more tempting it is to hurry. Do not hurry. Bread clumps are stubborn little gremlins.

For feast service, prepare the cabbage through the broth-simmering stage, then thicken shortly before serving. Hold gently over low heat, adding a splash of broth if the pottage becomes too thick. Add the marrow as a visible garnish at the end.

Cook’s Notes

If you made your own stock from roasted marrow bones, use the marrow. To call it optional feels like a tiny kitchen crime. It is rich, savory, and absolutely belongs in this dish.

Modern cabbage is often milder and sweeter than older cabbage varieties may have been, so your parboiling time may vary. Taste as you go.

Vegetarian Adaptation

The original recipe is not vegetarian because it calls for fresh broth and marrow bones. However, a vegetable-forward version can still be delicious. Use a strong vegetable stock made with mushrooms, onions, carrots, celery, parsley, and a little miso or soy sauce for depth. Omit the marrow and finish with a small spoonful of olive oil or butter.

This version is not a strict reconstruction of the manuscript recipe, but it keeps the spirit of cabbage enriched with broth and bread.

A Forgotten Alternative? Caboges Thickened with Meat Gruel

While reconstructing this recipe, I took a closer look at an intriguing line in the manuscript:

“or ellys take gode grwel y-mad of freys flesshe, y-draw þorw a straynour”

Translated loosely, this reads:

“or else take good gruel made of fresh flesh, drawn through a strainer”

Most modern interpretations of Caboges stop with the breadcrumb version of the recipe, which produces a wonderfully smooth and comforting pottage. However, this alternative thickening method may point toward another culinary possibility hiding elsewhere in Harleian MS 279.

Later in the manuscript appears a recipe called Drawyn Gruwel, or “drawn gruel,” made from lean beef simmered with oatmeal, parsley, and sage, then strained through a sieve into a smooth liquid.

The similarities are difficult to ignore:

Both recipes describe a gruel made from fresh flesh.
Both are drawn through a strainer.
Both create a smooth, thickened liquid.
Both seem intended to enrich and give body to a dish.

This raises an intriguing possibility: what if the manuscript is offering medieval cooks two legitimate ways to finish Caboges?

Version One: thicken the broth with grated fine bread (fayre brede)
Version Two: enrich it with a strained meat gruel similar to Drawyn Gruwel

If so, the second version may have created an even richer, more feast-worthy dish, replacing bread with a silky meat-and-oat thickened broth. The oatmeal in the gruel would not necessarily have been intended as porridge, but rather as a thickening agent, strained smooth before being added to the cabbage.

I have not yet tested this interpretation, but it feels like a fascinating rabbit hole worth pursuing. If I do, we may end up with a second reconstruction: Caboges – The Meat Gruel Version.

Serving Suggestions

Serve Caboges with Rastons, manchet, or another good bread for dipping. It would also sit well beside roasted meat, a meat pie, or other medieval vegetable pottages.

More Medieval Vegetable Pottages and Cabbage Recipes

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Caboges?

Caboges is a 15th-century English cabbage recipe from Harleian MS 279. The cabbage is parboiled, pressed, chopped, simmered in broth with marrow bones, thickened with bread, and finished with pieces of marrow.

Why did medieval cooks boil cabbage twice?

The first boiling softens the cabbage and helps remove harshness or bitterness. Pressing it afterward removes extra water. The second cooking in broth gives the cabbage flavor and turns it into a rich pottage.

Why is bread used to thicken medieval pottage?

Bread was a common medieval thickener. Finely grated bread dissolves into hot broth, giving body and texture without needing modern flour roux or cornstarch.

What kind of bread should I use?

A day-old manchet or fine white bread is ideal. The manuscript calls for fayre brede, or fine bread. Rastons also work and connect beautifully to other recipes in Harleian MS 279.

Can I make this cabbage recipe without marrow bones?

Yes, though the marrow is part of the original dish. For a meatless version, use a strong vegetable stock and finish with olive oil or butter for richness.

Source

Austin, Thomas, ed. 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. Early English Text Society, 1888.

This post was originally published on December 11, 2015, and has been updated with expanded historical context, clearer cooking instructions, SEO improvements, and additional links to related medieval vegetable recipes.

AI-assisted disclosure: This updated article was developed with AI assistance for organization, formatting, and editorial expansion. Historical interpretation, recipe testing, and final editorial direction remain my own.

Medieval Braised Cabbage with Marrow Bones – Caboges from Harleian MS 279