Originally published: October 2, 2017 • Updated: September 19, 2025
Rose conserve — also called conserva rosarum — is a perfumed paste of fresh rose petals pounded with sugar. It sits right on the border of food and medicine: sweet enough for the banquet table, soothing enough to appear in apothecary lists. Cool, fragrant, and very old-fashioned in the best way.
Originally published 10/21/2017. Updated 9/19/2025.
Compost is a vibrant “composition” of roots, cabbage, and pear, dressed with vinegar, wine, honey, and spices. Although the modern ear hears “garden compost,” in medieval cookery compost meant a mixture (from Latin componere—“to put together”). The recipe appears in The Forme of Cury (c. 1390), a royal English cookbook compiled by the cooks of King Richard II.
The Forme of Cury is among the earliest English culinary collections, written in Middle English for a professional court kitchen. Richard II’s table favored spice, color, and spectacle—dishes like Compost fit that world perfectly: bright, sweet-tart, and meant to awaken the appetite at the start of a course.
Compost works beautifully in the first course with other cold dishes: sallets, pottages, and small bites. It’s a make-ahead dish that holds safely, scales easily, and offers welcome acidity between richer foods. Serve in shallow bowls with a draining spoon so guests can take vegetables without over-brine.
Medieval diners aimed to balance foods’ hot/cold and dry/moist qualities. Sharp pickling and mustard were considered “warming” and digestive; honey and currants added moist sweetness, while pear cooled and softened the heat of spice.
| Ingredient | Humoral Tendency (period belief) | Balancing Note |
|---|---|---|
| Vinegar | Hot & dry | Stimulates appetite/digestion |
| Mustard | Hot & dry | Warming; use sparingly for choleric temperaments |
| Honey & currants | Warm & moist | Round out sharpness; “comforting” |
| Pear | Cool & moist | Tempers heat of spices and vinegar |
Take rote of parsel. pasternak of rasenns. scrape hem waisthe hem clene. take rapes & caboches ypared and icorne. take an erthen panne with clene water & set it on the fire. cast all þise þerinne. whan þey buth boiled cast þerto peeres & parboile hem wel. take þise thynges up & lat it kele on a fair cloth, do þerto salt whan it is colde in a vessel take vineger & powdour & safroun & do þerto. & lat alle þise thinges lye þerin al nyzt oþer al day, take wyne greke and hony clarified togider lumbarde mustard & raisouns corance al hool. & grynde powdour of canel powdour douce. & aneys hole. & fenell seed. take alle þise thynges & cast togyder in a pot of erthe. and take þerof whan þou wilt & serue forth.
Source: The Accomplisht Cook, c. 1660 (Robert May).
Originally published 10/29/2017. Updated 9/19/2025.
This shrimp dish comes from Robert May’s The Accomplisht Cook, one of the most influential English cookbooks of the seventeenth century. First published in 1660, May’s work reflects both medieval traditions and the growing influence of Continental cuisine, especially French and Italian. His recipes were intended for professional cooks serving aristocratic and gentry households, showcasing both practicality and elegance.
Stewed shellfish such as shrimp, cockles, and prawns appear often in May’s book. They were common at English tables, especially in the second course of a banquet or feast, where lighter, more refined dishes were expected after heavier meats. The use of capers, wine, and butter in this recipe signals a clear French influence, blending sharp and savory flavors into a delicate sauce.
Dishes like To Stew Shrimps would likely appear in the second course of a formal meal, accompanying poultry, lighter meats, and vegetable preparations. Served on toast, it could also function as a transitional dish between heavier roasts and sweet entremets.
According to Galenic humoral theory still in use during May’s time, shellfish such as shrimp were considered cold and moist. To balance this, cooks paired them with warming, dry ingredients like mace, garlic, pepper, and toasted bread. The addition of vinegar and wine also sharpened and “opened” the dish, believed to aid digestion of the otherwise heavy shellfish.
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.
Eisands of otemeal grotes is one of those recipes I knew I had to tackle the moment I found it while researching for a cook’s gathering in 2015. It reads like a bridge between early “puddings” (often meat-and-suet mixtures boiled in an animal casing) and the later sweet, bread- or grain-based boiled puddings that show up in the 17th century—think the ancestors of Christmas plum pudding. The question was how to cook it (bake, steam, boil?) and what exactly the “otemeale grotes” should be in a modern kitchen.
On the oats: “Groats” are hulled whole oat berries. Steel-cut oats (oat groats chopped into pieces) are the easiest modern stand-in and give the right “rice-like” bite. Rolled/quick oats are much later and behave differently; avoid them for authenticity and texture.
On the method: The surrounding recipes in A Book of Cookrye point to boiling the pudding in a cloth. When made this way, Eisands slices beautifully, travels well, and can be served warm or cold—perfect for a Curia Regis Brunch or feast service.
| Original (1591) | Modern Sense Translation |
|---|---|
|
Eisands with Otemeale grotes. Take a pinte of Creame and seethe it, and when it is hot, put therto a pinte of Otemeale grotes, and let them soke in it all night, and put therto viii. yolks of egs, and a little Pepper, Cloves, mace, and saffron, and a good deale of Suet of beefe, and small Raisins and Dates, and a little Sugar.
Sources: jducoeur.org &
MedievalCookery.com
|
Eisands of Oatmeal Groats. Heat a pint of cream; when hot, add a pint of oatmeal groats and let them soak in it overnight. Mix in eight egg yolks; season with a little pepper, cloves, mace, and saffron. Add a good amount of beef suet, along with small raisins and dates, and a little sugar. |
Originally published: 2017 — Updated: 2025
Chawatteys is a late medieval pie blending pork or veal with dried fruit, saffron, eggs, and warm spices. The mix of sweet and savory, baked in a pastry shell, reflects the luxury tastes of fifteenth-century England. It comes to us from Harleian MS. 279, one of the great English cookbooks of the early 1400s.
The name Chawatteys (also spelled Chawettys or Chywettes) comes from the Middle English word chewet, meaning a small pie. The word is thought to derive from Old French chouette (“owl”), since early chewets were sometimes shaped to resemble little birds. Over time, chewet came to mean any small meat pie, often filled with minced pork, dried fruit, and spices.
Modern notes: Can’t find verjus? Substitute with a splash of wine vinegar. Veal may be replaced with pork, or even chicken. If you want a vegetarian option, mushrooms or eggplant can stand in for the meat (though this moves away from the medieval version). Zante currants and saffron are both available online if your local shop doesn’t stock them.
Chawatteys (Harlieian MS 279, c. 1430) Take buttys of Vele, and mynce hem smal, or Porke, and put on a potte; take Wyne, and caste þer-to pouder of Gyngere, Pepir, and Safroun, and Salt, and a lytel verjus, and do hem in a cofyn with yolks of Eyroun, and kutte Datys and Roysonys of Coraunce, Clowys, Maces, and þen ceuere þin cofyn, and lat it bake tyl it be y-now.
Originally published 2017 — updated September 2025
🥕 Dietary Notes: Vegan • Vegetarian • Gluten-Free
Funges is a warming dish of mushrooms and leeks simmered in broth, brightened with saffron and finished with Powder Fort. It’s fast, fragrant, and feast-friendly—perfect for Curia brunch as a gentle starter. If you love leek dishes, see also Canabenys with Lekys.
Funges (The Forme of Cury, c. 1390)
Take Funges and pare hem clere and dyce hem. take leke and shred him smal and do him to seeþ in gode broth color yt wȝt safron and do þer inne pouder fort and serve hit forth.
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| Savoury Tostyde – Digby’s 17th-Century Cheese Toasts (Curia Lunch) |
Kenelm Digby’s The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie, Kt., Opened (1669) is a treasure of early-modern foodways—wines, remedies, and practical dishes gathered on his travels. “Savoury Tostyde” reads less like a fixed recipe and more like a method for luxurious cheese toasts: melt “quick, fat, rich, well-tasted” cheese into used, seasoned butter (from cooking asparagus, peas, or meat gravies), optionally fold in asparagus, bacon, onions, chives, or anchovies, and serve molten over white-bread toasts; scorch the top for drama.
Cut pieces of quick, fat, rich, well tasted cheese, (as the best of Brye, Cheshire, &c. or sharp thick Cream-Cheese) into a dish of thick beaten melted Butter, that hath served for Sparages or the like, or pease, or other boiled Sallet, or ragout of meat, or gravy of Mutton: and, if you will, Chop some of the Asparages among it, or slices of Gambon of Bacon, or fresh-collops, or Onions, or Sibboulets, or Anchovis, and set all this to melt upon a Chafing-dish of Coals, and stir all well together, to Incorporate them; and when all is of an equal consistence, strew some gross White-Pepper on it, and eat it with tosts or crusts of White-bread. You may scorch it at the top with a hot Fire-Shovel.
In Middle English, brewte/brewet means a seasoned liquid—broth or thin sauce—used to cradle simple foods. This version from the Pepys manuscript gently poaches eggs and “tempers” the pan with sweet milk, ginger, pepper, and saffron, finishing with shaved cheese. Serve over sops (toasted bread) to catch every drop. It’s fast, elegant, and right at home in our Curia Regis brunch set.
Source: Gentyll Manly Cokere, MS Pepys 1047 (c. 1490).
Egges yn Brewte. Take water and seethe it. In the same water breke thy egges and cast there-in gynger, peper, and saffron; then temper it up with swete mylke and boyle it. And then carve chese and caste thereto smale cut; and when it is ynogh, serve it forth.
Gloss: Temper with sweet milk = enrich the cooking liquid with dairy; sops = toast laid in the dish to soak the sauce.
In late 17th-century English cookery, “meat” can simply mean food/dish, not specifically animal flesh. This recipe from The Whole Body of Cookery Dissected (1682) makes quick, delicate apple-and-curd pancakes scented with rosewater, sack (fortified wine), cinnamon, and nutmeg. It’s a natural fit for a brunch or as a sweet course between heavier roasts. I originally made these for our Curia Regis Brunch set—now updated to my modern format.
Source: The Whole Body of Cookery Dissected (1682) — “A Fryed Meate (Pancakes) in Haste for the Second Course.”
Take a pint of curds made tender of morning milk, pressed clean from the Whey, put to them one handful of flour, six eggs, casting away three whites, a little rosewater, sack, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, salt, and two pippins minced small, beat this all together into a thick batter, so that it may not run abroad; if you want wherewith to temper it add cream; when they are fried, scrape on sugar and send them up; if this curd be made with sack, as it may as well as with rennet, you may make a pudding with the whey thereof.
Notes: “Pippins” = firm cooking apples. “Sack” ≈ fortified white wine (e.g., dry sherry). “Curds” today map neatly to drained cottage cheese or farmer’s cheese.
Gammon of Bacon comes from A Book of Cookrye (1591), a popular Elizabethan cookery book. It calls for a “gammon of bacon” — essentially a salt-cured leg or large cut of pork — stuffed with parsley, sage, and hard-cooked egg yolks, seasoned with cloves and mace, then wrapped in pastry. This dish blurs the lines between what we’d call ham, bacon, and meat pies today.
To bake a gammon of Bacon. Take your Bacon and boyle it, and stuffe it with Parcely and Sage, and yolks of hard Egges, and when it is boyled, stuffe it and let it boyle againe, season it with Pepper, cloves and mace, whole cloves stick fast in, so then lay it in your paste with salt butter.
This adaptation is based on Dan Meyers’ version with a few tweaks to better match the period instructions. Using a ham or gammon joint (rather than belly bacon) and re-simmering after stuffing brings it closer to the original Tudor technique.
Cook’s Note: For individual portions, thin slices of ham can be stuffed and rolled into “olives,” then wrapped in pastry. This makes charming hand-sized pies.
One reason this recipe confuses modern cooks is that “gammon of bacon” in the 16th century does not map neatly onto modern terms:
Best substitute for period gammon: a smoked ham or unsliced back bacon joint. Pork belly strips are too fatty for this recipe, while Canadian bacon is too lean and small.
If you want to try something closer to the Elizabethan flavor profile, here’s a simple historical-style curing method:
This is not a full preservation cure (as Elizabethans might have done for winter storage), but it gives a flavor much closer to “gammon” than store-bought ham.
This “gammon of bacon” makes a rich centerpiece for a Tudor-themed meal or SCA feast. The herb-egg stuffing is fragrant and holiday-like, while the crust keeps everything moist and sliceable. It’s a savory hand pie that bridges the world of bacon, ham, and pastry.
Is this suitable for a dayboard? Yes! This savory pie is hearty, portable, and slices neatly, making it an excellent choice for an event lunch spread.
Labels: Medieval Recipes, Tudor, Early Modern, Appetizer, Meat Pies, Pork, Eggs, Period Techniques, Curia
