Murrey: A Mulberry-Colored Medieval Pottage from Harleian MS 279

Name: Murrey: A Mulberry-Colored Medieval Pottage from Harleian MS 279
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: Serves 4 to 6
Cuisine: Medieval English
Ingredients: 1/2 pound pork; 1/2 pound veal; 2 cups broth reserved from cooking the meat; 1/2 cup grated bread or breadcrumbs; 1 to 2 teaspoons honey, or to taste; 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger; 1/4 teaspoon ground galangal; Salt, to taste; Saunders or red sandalwood, for color, if food-safe and available

First published February 7, 2016. Updated June 19, 2026.

Murrey served over sops of bread. The rich reddish-purple color appears to have been one of the defining characteristics of this family of medieval dishes.

Medieval cooks paid attention to color in ways that modern diners often overlook. Color was not merely decoration. It could signal status, season, symbolism, feast day, humor, or even the identity of a dish.

Murrey is a perfect example. At first glance, the Harleian MS 279 recipe looks like a thick meat preparation made from pork, veal, broth, bread, honey, ginger, galangal, and saunders. When I first reconstructed it in 2016, I described it as another meat sauce. Years later, with more manuscript evidence in hand, I think that interpretation was too narrow.

Murrey appears to belong to a wider medieval tradition of color-defined dishes. The word itself refers to a dark reddish-purple, mulberry-like color. Related recipes appear in several medieval sources, sometimes made with almonds and wine, sometimes with meat, sometimes with actual mulberries, and sometimes adapted for fish days or flesh days. What unites them is not a single ingredient list, but a color, a texture, and a culinary idea.

Why this recipe matters: Murrey is more than a medieval meat dish. It appears to be part of a family of mulberry-colored preparations that show how medieval cooks used color to define food. The Harleian version is best understood as a thick pottage rather than a modern sauce.

Original Recipe

Mxxj. Murrey. — Take Porke an Yele, & sethe it, & grynd it, & draw it with þe self brothe; þen take bred y-gratyd, & pouder of Gyngere & of Galyngale, & Hony, an caste þer-to, & boyle it y-fere; & make it chargeaunt, & coloure it with Saunderys & serue f[orth].

Source: Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books, Harleian MS 279, c. 1430.

Modern Translation

Take pork and veal, boil it, grind it, and mix it with its own broth. Then take grated bread, powdered ginger, galangal, and honey, and add them. Boil it together and make it thick. Color it with saunders and serve it forth.

About Harleian MS 279

Harleian MS 279 is one of the fifteenth-century English culinary manuscripts published in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books. Its recipes include pottages, custards, sauces, meat dishes, fish dishes, breads, and special preparations suitable for wealthy households.

Murrey appears in the manuscript among the Potage Dyvers, or diverse pottages. That placement matters. The recipe is not presented as a condiment or table sauce. It is grouped with dishes cooked in pots, thickened with bread or other binders, and served as substantial first-course preparations.

You can explore more recipes from this source in the Harleian MS 279 collection.

At a Glance

Manuscript: Harleian MS 279 (c.1430)
Course: Pottages & First Course Dishes
Main Ingredients: Pork, veal, broth, bread, honey, ginger, galangal
Historical Significance: Part of a broader family of murrey-colored dishes found across multiple medieval manuscripts.
Difficulty: Moderate

What Is Murrey?

The word murrey refers to a dark reddish-purple color, similar to the color of ripe mulberries. It appears in medieval and later contexts as a color term, including in heraldry, where it describes a tincture between red and purple.

This matters because the Harleian recipe ends with a very specific instruction: color it with saunders. Saunders, or red sandalwood, was used in medieval cookery to give food a reddish color. The title of the dish and the final instruction point in the same direction. This dish was meant to be murrey-colored.

That changes how we should read the recipe. Murrey is not simply pork and veal cooked with honey and spices. It is pork and veal transformed into a thick, reddish-purple pottage.

Color Was Language in the Medieval Kitchen

Color in medieval cooking was not an afterthought. Dishes could be named for their appearance, and cooks used ingredients such as saffron, parsley, blood, alkanet, sandalwood, wine, and mulberries to create specific visual effects.

White dishes, green sauces, black sauces, tawny drinks, and red or murrey preparations all show that color could help identify a dish as clearly as flavor or ingredient. Murrey belongs to that world.

For a broader discussion of color symbolism in medieval and Renaissance food, heraldry, religion, and humoral medicine, see The Importance of Color in the Medieval and Renaissance World.

Murrey Across Medieval Manuscripts

One of the strongest reasons to rethink this recipe is that Murrey appears in more than one form. The Harleian recipe is meat-based, but other medieval recipes show Murrey or Morree made with almonds, wine, rice flour, pine nuts, fish, fruit, or mulberries.

Source	Basic Form	Coloring or Defining Feature
MS Royal 12.C.xii	Almond milk with rice flour or amidon; adaptable for fish days or meat days	Sandalwood color; may include pears, chestnuts, fish, veal, or goat
Forme of Cury	Almonds, red wine, rice flour, fried pine nuts, spices, and anise comfits	Red wine and saunders create the murrey color
Harleian MS 279, Murrey	Pork and veal boiled, ground, mixed with broth, bread, honey, ginger, and galangal	Colored with saunders
Harleian MS 279, A Rede Morreye	Mulberries, veal, spices, sugar, wastel bread, and egg yolks	Actual mulberries provide color and flavor

These recipes differ dramatically, but they share a visual and culinary goal. Murrey is not tied to a single meat, thickener, or liquid. It appears to be a color-defined family of dishes: thick, spiced, sweetened, and red or mulberry-colored.

Lent, Flesh Days, and Adaptable Dishes

The MS Royal 12.C.xii version is especially useful because it shows Murrey adapting to different feast-day requirements. It offers possibilities for fish days and meat days, suggesting that the identity of the dish could survive even when the central ingredient changed.

This is very medieval. Many dish types could be adapted for fast days, flesh days, or household resources. Almond milk might replace meat broth. Fish or fruit might replace meat. Starch, bread, or eggs might provide thickness. What mattered was not always a fixed recipe, but a recognizable style.

For Murrey, that recognizable style appears to have been color, thickness, sweetness, spice, and richness.

Is Murrey a Sauce, Pottage, or Mortrews?

When I first reconstructed Murrey, I described it as a meat sauce. That was understandable, especially because the finished dish is thick, savory, and could be served with or over other foods. But the manuscript evidence now points toward a better interpretation.

The Harleian recipe appears among the pottages. It begins by boiling pork and veal, then grinding the meat and mixing it with its own broth. It is thickened with grated bread, seasoned with ginger and galangal, sweetened with honey, and boiled together until it becomes chargeaunt, or substantial and thick.

That is pottage behavior, not modern sauce behavior.

Murrey also shares features with mortrews. Both can involve cooked meat, grinding, broth, bread, spices, and a thickened texture. The nearby Harleian recipe for Whyte Mortrewes even instructs the cook to make it “chargeaunt as Mortrewes schuld be.” Murrey uses the same language of thickness, but its identity seems to rest on color rather than on the name mortrews.

For that reason, I now understand Harleian Murrey as a mulberry-colored meat pottage, related in technique to mortrews but defined by its murrey color.

Saunders and Medieval Food Coloring

The Harleian recipe tells the cook to color the dish with saunders. Saunders, or red sandalwood, appears in medieval cookery as a coloring agent. Its purpose here is not merely flavor. It is visual.

That instruction also explains why my original reconstruction was visually unsatisfying. I did not use proper saunders. The substitute coloring produced something closer to “questionable raw meat red” than a rich murrey tone. That was a reconstruction problem, not necessarily a recipe problem.

Today, I would approach the color more carefully. If a food-safe red sandalwood product is available, it may be used with caution. Otherwise, I would rather omit the color or use the related Red Morreye recipe as a guide and explore mulberries as a more literal way to reach the murrey color.

Red Morreye and the Mulberry Connection

Harleian MS 279 also includes recipes for Murreye and A Rede Morreye that use actual mulberries. These recipes combine mulberry juice with veal, spices, sugar, wastel bread, and egg yolks.

That is important because it gives us a more literal version of the Murrey idea. In one recipe, the murrey color is created with saunders. In another, it is created with mulberries themselves. Together, they suggest that medieval cooks understood Murrey as a colored preparation, not merely one fixed recipe.

You can read the companion article here: A Rede Morreye: A Medieval Mulberry Sauce from Harleian MS 279.

Medieval Dietary and Color Context

In medieval dietary thinking, red foods and red wines were often associated with warmth, strength, and sanguine qualities. This does not mean every red dish had a single fixed meaning, but it does help explain why color could matter at the table.

Murrey's reddish-purple appearance would have made it visually striking. It also sat among rich, substantial pottages made from meat, broth, bread, honey, and spices. For a medieval diner, the dish would have communicated more than flavor. It would have signaled richness, transformation, and careful cookery.

This is where color and humoral context are useful. They help us understand why a cook might take the trouble to color a dish at all.

Modern Reconstruction: Murrey

Serves: 4 to 6 as a first-course pottage
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

1/2 pound pork
1/2 pound veal
2 cups broth reserved from cooking the meat
1/2 cup grated bread or breadcrumbs
1 to 2 teaspoons honey, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground galangal
Salt, to taste
Food-safe saunders or red sandalwood, for color, if available

Method

Place the pork and veal in a pot and cover with water or light broth.
Simmer until the meat is fully cooked and tender.
Remove the meat from the pot and reserve the broth.
Grind, mince, or finely shred the cooked meat.
Return the meat to a clean pot with enough of its own broth to loosen it.
Add the grated bread, honey, ginger, galangal, and salt.
Cook gently, stirring often, until the mixture thickens into a substantial pottage.
If using food-safe saunders, add it carefully until the desired reddish color is reached.
Serve warm in small bowls or over sops of bread.

Reconstruction Notes

When I first reconstructed this dish in 2016, I approached it as a sauce. Revisiting the manuscript years later suggests that expectation may have shaped the outcome as much as the recipe itself. Murrey works better when understood as a thick pottage rather than a condiment.

The original recipe says to boil the pork and veal, grind them, and draw them up with their own broth. This suggests a smoother, more integrated texture than browned ground meat. For a closer reconstruction, cook whole pieces of meat first, then mince, shred, pound, or process them before returning them to the broth.

The instruction to “make it chargeaunt” is important. This should not be thin. It should be thick enough to hold its shape somewhat in the bowl, but still soft enough to eat with a spoon.

The coloring remains the most difficult part of the reconstruction. Food-safe saunders is not always easy to source, and unsafe substitutes should be avoided. A future retesting may compare a saunders-colored version with a mulberry-colored version inspired by A Rede Morreye.

Tasting Notes

This was one of my least successful early reconstructions, but I no longer think that means the medieval recipe was poor. I think I was trying to make the wrong thing.

As a modern meat sauce, Murrey feels strange. As a thick medieval pottage, it makes more sense. The honey softens the savory meat, the ginger and galangal add warmth, and the bread turns the broth into something substantial.

If I were serving this today, I would make it in small portions and serve it over sops of bread or alongside other first-course pottages. I would not present it as a pasta sauce or a modern condiment. It belongs to the medieval table, not the spaghetti bowl.

Modern Kitchen Notes

Cook the meat first. Boiled pork and veal, chopped or pounded after cooking, will produce a better texture than raw ground meat cooked directly in broth.
Use broth carefully. Add enough to loosen the meat, but not so much that the pottage becomes soupy.
Do not over-sweeten. The honey should round the dish, not turn it into dessert.
Mind the color. Only use food-safe coloring agents. Do not use craft sandalwood, incense, dyes, or unknown herbal products.
Serve small portions. This is rich, thick, and strongly flavored.

Where Does Murrey Fit in a Feast?

Using the Give It Forth feast-course framework, Murrey belongs most naturally among Pottages & First Course Dishes.

It is not an appetizer or opening dish. Those are usually sharper, lighter, or appetite-provoking. Murrey is too substantial for that role.

It is also not a main or second course dish in the sense of roasted, baked, fried, grilled, or large presentation meats. Although it contains pork and veal, the meat has been boiled, ground, returned to broth, thickened with bread, and cooked in a pot. The preparation places it firmly in the pottage family.

Its color makes it visually special, but not enough to move it into entremets. This is not a subtlety or spectacle dish. It is a richly colored, thickened meat pottage suitable for first-course service.

Feast Cook's Notes

Best course placement: Pottages and first course dishes.
Best service style: Small bowls, spoonable portions, or served over sops of bread.
Batching advice: Cook meat ahead, reserve broth, and finish the pottage closer to service.
Texture goal: Thick, substantial, and spoonable, not thin or pourable.
Color caution: Only use known food-safe coloring agents.

The Steward's Table

Planning a feast? Murrey can be scaled, but the texture needs attention. Because the dish depends on cooked meat, broth, bread, and careful thickening, it is better made in manageable batches than in one enormous pot.

Use The Steward's Table to calculate ingredient quantities for your feast size.

For large service, cook and mince the meat ahead of time, reserve the broth, and thicken the pottage in batches. Serve in small portions as part of the first course.

Related Recipes

Continue exploring Harleian MS 279:
Visit the Harleian MS 279 recipe collection for more fifteenth-century English pottages, custards, sauces, breads, and feast-worthy reconstructions.

Interested in medieval feast planning?
Try The Steward's Table to scale historical recipes for modern kitchens and feast service.

Sources & Further Reading

Austin, Thomas, ed. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books: Harleian MS 279 and Harleian MS 4016. Early English Text Society, 1888.
Forme of Cury, c. 1390. Available through Project Gutenberg.
MS Royal 12.C.xii, c. 1340. Translation and recipe references available through MedievalCookery.com.
Myers, Daniel. MedievalCookery.com. Used for comparative recipe references and manuscript indexing.
Give It Forth. The Importance of Color in the Medieval and Renaissance World.
Give It Forth. A Rede Morreye: A Medieval Mulberry Sauce from Harleian MS 279.

Research Note: This article revisits an earlier reconstruction of Murrey in light of related recipes from Forme of Cury, MS Royal 12.C.xii, and Harleian MS 279. The evidence suggests that Murrey is best understood as a color-defined family of thickened medieval dishes rather than simply a meat sauce.

This post was originally published on February 7, 2016, and updated on June 19, 2026 with corrected interpretation, expanded historical context, manuscript comparisons, feast placement notes, medieval dietary context, updated taxonomy, sources, a Steward's Table link, and revised recipe structure.

AI assistance was used in the 2026 update to organize, format, and expand the article while preserving the original research, recipe interpretation, and authorial voice.