Give it Forth: Adventures in Medieval Cookery

Today's adventure in cooking from from the "Two fifteenth-century cookery-books : Harleian MS. 279 (ab 1430), & Harl. MS. 4016 (ab. 1450), with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1439, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS. 55 by Thomas Austin" was a very interesting dish called Cxxxvj. A potage of Roysons. The end product was a kind of cream of rice cereal with chunks of apples and raisins in it. I would serve this as a camp breakfast, or even at an event which is offering breakfast.  
The taste testers declared it "tasty, but not delicious", which is a very fair assessment of this dish.  I have created similar recipes that I would prefer to serve over this one. Perhaps it is because I am not a fan of raisins?? 
.Cxxxvj. A potage of Roysons.—Take Raysonys, & do a-way þe kyrnellys; & take a part of Applys, & do a-way þe corys, & þe pare,*. [? peel. ] & bray hem in a mortere, & temper hem with Almande Mylke, & melle hem with flowre of Rys, þat it …

Today's adventure in cooking from from the "Two fifteenth-century cookery-books : Harleian MS. 279 (ab 1430), & Harl. MS. 4016 (ab. 1450), with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1439, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS. 55 by Thomas Austin" was Applade Ryalle, loosely interpreted as "Royal Apple" or "Apple Royal". It includes instructions for producing three vastly different flavored soups using the same base. The soups are made with beef broth (for a flesh day), almond milk (for a fish day) and "in need" with a broth made of wine and honey. The base of the soup is quite simple, apples that have been boiled until tender (read falling apart) and then strained through a strainer. 
I made all three of the soups today and the taste testers (God bless them) tried each of them. We all agreed that the soup "in need" and the soup for a fish day were the better of the recipes. The house smelled like fall, with the ginger, cinnamon, apples, and win…

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. There are at least 100 different varieties of apples that are grown commercially, but of those, only ten make up 90% of the production in the United States. I find this distressingly sad.
As mentioned in my previous post on .lxxix. Apple Muse 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.

There are many legends regarding this fruit, the most well-known is that of Adam and Eve wherein Eve tempts Adam to eat of the "forbidden fruit". Apples are well known then, as a fruit synonymous with …

Fall is here and with it an abundance of apples! What better way to pick up the pen again then with this fruit?? Apples have a long and varied history. Carbon dating of seeds found in Southwestern Asia suggest that apples may have originated there. There is also evidence of fossilized apple seeds dating to the Neolithic period found in England which suggests that a variety of wild apple was known. 
Whatever the origin, we do know that the Greeks were familiar with apples.  Homer writes about them in the Odyssey.  Hippocrates recommends sweet apples with meals as a way of aiding in digestion. The Romans however, developed the fruit that we are aware of today through the process of cross breeding for sweetness and grafting.   Pliny the Elder describes multiple varieties of apples that were cultivated in Rome.

After the Roman occupation of Britain, many of the orchards were left abandoned.  It was through the efforts of monks that many of the orchards were maintained.  The earliest know…