AI assistance disclosure: This post used AI to help with HTML formatting, SEO/meta, image creation, internal linking, and clarity edits. All recipes, testing, historical framing, and final edits are by the author.
Basic Recipe – Furikake (Rice Seasoning from Kombu & Bonito)
Context: This simple, fragrant seasoning captures the essence of Japanese umami cooking. Furikake transforms what might otherwise be kitchen scraps—kombu and bonito from dashi-making—into a savory, nutritious topping for rice or vegetables. It’s a perfect example of resourceful cooking in both medieval and modern kitchens.
AI assistance disclosure: This post used AI to help with HTML formatting, SEO/meta, image creation, internal linking, and clarity edits. All recipes, testing, historical framing, and final edits are by the author.
Did you know? The oldest written mention of kamaboko dates to 1115, during the Heian period, when it was served on bamboo skewers at a noble banquet. By the 1500s, it had evolved into molded loaves, and Odawara (near modern Kanagawa) became famous for its skilled kamaboko artisans—a reputation it still holds today.
Context: Kamaboko appears on the Second Tray with O-zoni at the Crown Tournament Feast. It’s a classic celebratory food: the pink-and-white pairing signals auspicious good fortune, so neatly sliced kamaboko shows up in New Year’s osechi and formal banquets. The technique is simple but tactile — and the result is pleasantly springy with clean, ocean-sweet flavor.
AI assistance disclosure: This post used AI to help with HTML formatting, SEO/meta, image creation, internal linking, and clarity edits. All recipes, testing, historical framing, and final edits are by the author.
Basic Recipe – Kaku-Mochi (Traditional Japanese Square Rice Cake)
Context: Kaku-Mochi, or square rice cakes, form the heart of O-zoni (Rice Cake Soup), served at the 2019 Crown Tournament Feast. These rice cakes were a symbol of prosperity and endurance, reflecting both samurai field traditions and the ritual importance of rice in Muromachi-period Japan.
Context: This vegetarian dashi forms the foundation for many dishes in the Muromachi-period Crown Tournament Feast, including O-zoni (Rice Cake Soup). Dashi is the clear stock that underpins nearly every element of honzen ryori dining — simple, elegant, and full of umami.
Almonds were the medieval cook’s “milk” on fast days—drawn with water, sugar-water, broth, or even wine.
Almond Milk in Period Sources — How Medieval Cooks Made It (and Variations)
Originally published 1/2/2015 / updated 10/1/2025
For roughly a third of the medieval calendar—Lent and other fast days—cooks avoided meat, dairy, and eggs. Far from the stereotype of endless roasts, elite kitchens leaned on almond milk as a flexible stand-in for dairy: it could be drawn “thick” or “thin,” seasoned sweet or savory, and tailored to the dish at hand.
Because every trained cook knew how to make it, many manuscripts don’t bother giving a basic recipe. When they do spell it out, we learn that medieval almond milk could be drawn with plain water, sugar-water (white or “black”/brownish sugar), or tempered with honey—and in practice, cooks also drew it with broth for savory dishes, or wine for rich Lenten fare and sweets. Below are period texts with clean translations, followed by kitchen-ready modern methods for each variant.
xj. Froyde almoundys. Take blake sugre, an cold water, an do hem to in a fayre potte, an let hem boyle to-gedere, an salt it an skeme it clene, an let it kele; j^an take almaundys, an blawnche hem clene, an stampe hem, an draw hem, with fe sugre water thikke y-now, in-to a fayre vessel: an [yf] fe mylke be nojt swete y-now, take whyte sugre an caste fer-to.
Modern English
11. Cold Almond Milk. Take black sugar and cold water and put them in a pot; let them boil together, salt and skim clean, and let it cool. Then take almonds, blanch them, and grind them; draw them with the sugar-water thick enough into a fair vessel. If the milk is not sweet enough, add white sugar.
Source: Austin, Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books, Harl. MS 279.
Harleian MS 4016 (c. 1450) — “Froyte de almondes” (Cold Almond Milk, sugar-water)
Original
Froyte de almondes. Take blak sugur and cold water, and caste the sugur and þe water in a potte; and lete hem boile togidre, and salt, and skeme hem clene, and let hit kele; And þen take Almoundes, and blanche hem clene, and stampe hem in a morter al smal, and drawe hem thik ynowe thorgh a streyner with sugur water… And serue hit forth in maner of potage, And namely in lenton tyme.
Modern English
Cold Almond Milk. Boil black sugar with water, salt and skim clean, let cool. Blanch and grind almonds very fine; draw them thick enough through a strainer with the sugar-water… Serve it as a kind of pottage, particularly in Lent.
Source: Austin, Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books, Harl. MS 4016.
MS Pepys 1047 — “To make gode almondys mylke” (Honey-tempered)
Original
Take brokyn sugure or for fawte ther of take claryfied hony and put hit into fayre water And set hit on the fyre and boyle hit and skymme hit clene and set hit be syde the fyre and let hit cole and then blanche thy almondys cast them yn a morter and bray them small temper hem up with þe same water.
Modern English
Take crushed sugar—or, if lacking that, clarified honey—and put it in fair water. Set it on the fire, boil and skim clean; set aside and let cool. Then blanch almonds and grind them small; temper them with the same water.
Source: MS Pepys 1047 (transcription at OldCookery.com).
Notes: These texts show the core technique (blanch → grind → draw/strain) and clearly attest to sugar-water and honey-water variants. In practice, medieval recipes also direct cooks to “draw with broth” for savory pottages and sauces, or with wine for certain feast dishes and sweets. “Thick” vs. “thin” is a matter of almond-to-liquid ratio.
Powder Douce & Powder Forte – Medieval Spice Mixes
Medieval-style spice blends: sweet poudre douce and strong poudre forte.
Quick context: In medieval English and Italian sources, powder mixes are pre-made spice blends used much like modern garam masala or pumpkin spice. The two most common names are Powder Douce (sweet, sugar-forward) and Powder Forte (pepper-forward, “strong”). Exact formulas weren’t standardized—each cook adjusted to taste, budget, and what was on hand.
Powder Douce (aka douce/“sweet”/white powder): typically sugar-heavy with warm spices like cinnamon and ginger; sometimes nutmeg, mace, cloves.
Powder Forte (aka strong powder): pepper-based, sometimes with long pepper, cubebs, grains of paradise; may include cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, coriander/caraway.
Apothecary Weights and Measures: Historical Symbols and Conversions
Updated for accuracy and usability (Aug 2025). If you’re translating historical recipes or herbals and keep bumping into ℈ ʒ ℥, this page is your friend. Below you’ll find corrected gram values, a quick converter, and a few notes on look-alike units that trip people up.
