Medieval Fig & Pear Rapeye with Almond Milk | Harley MS 279

.Cxxj. Rapeye | Harley MS 279, 1430s | New reconstruction, August 2026

This poor recipe has been living in the margins of Give It Forth since 2021.

I found it while revisiting my old .Liij. Rapeye post, where I had tucked it underneath the recipe I actually cooked and given it a short ingredient list followed by the cheerful instruction, “Prepare as above.”

Except it is not prepared as above.

Not really.

The first Rapeye cooks figs and raisins in wine, pounds and strains them, then adds currants, pine nuts, sugar, and spices until the mixture is thick enough to stand. This one takes another road entirely. The figs and raisins are ground with almond milk and strained through cloth. Pears are boiled separately, peeled, cored, and pounded. The two fruit mixtures meet in the pot with wine and either dark sugar or honey, and then, just before the dish goes to the table, mace, cloves, cubebs, and grains of paradise are scattered over the top.

That is not a variation worth hiding under “prepare as above.” That is a recipe with a personality of its own.

So, eleven years after I first started wandering through Harley MS 279 and five years after I tucked this Rapeye into somebody else’s article, it finally gets its own kitchen adventure.

Jump to the Modern Reconstruction

Wardonys in Syryp: Medieval Pears in Spiced Wine Syrup

Wardonys in Syryp

Medieval Pears in Spiced Wine Syrup from Harleian MS 279 (c. 1430)

Wardonys in Syryp, a fifteenth-century dish of pears simmered in a spiced red wine syrup until both poynaunt and dowcet: pleasantly sharp and sweet.

Wardonys in Syryp is a medieval pear dish from Harleian MS 279, a fifteenth-century English culinary manuscript preserved in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. Firm cooking pears are first softened, then simmered in red wine with cinnamon, sugar, ginger, vinegar, and saffron.

Today, we might recognize the dish as a poached pear in red wine, but the manuscript asks for something more carefully judged than a modern dessert. The syrup is not meant to be merely sweet. Its final flavor should be both poynaunt and dowcet, sharp enough to awaken the palate and sweet enough to round the wine and spice.

This is not a modern poached pear wearing a medieval cloak. It is a historical reconstruction built from the surviving manuscript, comparison with related fifteenth-century pear recipes, the original kitchen testing behind this article, and the practical question that guides my work: What is the cook doing between the written lines?

The result is wine-dark, fragrant, warmly spiced, and brightened with vinegar. The pear becomes tender without losing its shape, while the syrup gathers cinnamon, ginger, saffron, sugar, wine, and acidity into something far more complex than the short ingredient list suggests.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• It is an approachable reconstruction from Harleian MS 279.
• It uses familiar ingredients while preserving a distinctly medieval sweet-sour flavor.
• It introduces the period idea of a dish being both poynaunt and dowcet.
• It can be served as a pottage or first-course fruit dish, or as part of a banquet and final course.
• It may be prepared ahead, making it practical for a feast, class, dayboard, or modern dinner.

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Historical Integrity

The main recipe below is my historical reconstruction. Modern substitutions and dietary accommodations appear afterward and are clearly labeled, allowing readers to distinguish the manuscript-based dish from later adaptations.