Pertrich Stewyde – Medieval Partridge Stuffed with Marrow and Pepper
Harley MS 279, 1430s | Originally published March 2, 2017 | Fully revised August 2026
Sometimes revisiting an old reconstruction means discovering that the younger cook was wrong. Sometimes it means discovering that she was doing the best she could with the ingredients she could actually get.
This recipe is a little of both.
When I first reconstructed Pertrich stewyde in 2017, partridge was prohibitively expensive where I lived, marrow was not an ingredient I could easily put my hands on, and I was still learning how much information could be hidden in a few lines of Middle English. I substituted a chicken thigh, used its skin, fat, and cracked bone to enrich the broth, and recreated the stuffed shape by rolling and skewering the meat. It was a practical solution to a very real problem.
But there was one thing I misunderstood afterward. I thought the finished broth needed to be thicker.
Looking at the manuscript again, I no longer think it does.
Pertrich stewyde is not trying to become a modern gravy. It is a small game bird, filled with marrow and pepper, gently cooked in an aromatic mixture of meat broth and wine, with cloves, mace, and pepper simmered around it and ginger and saffron added just before service. Once the marrow is restored to the reconstruction, that apparently simple broth becomes part of what makes the dish interesting.
