Medieval Creamed Greens with Almond Milk | Whyte Wortes (Harleian MS 279, c.1430)

Originally published December 22, 2015. Updated June 12, 2026 with revised interpretation notes, manuscript-first cooking guidance, recipe schema, modern substitutions, and additional historical context.

AI-assisted formatting and editing note: This article was updated with the assistance of ChatGPT for organization, grammar, HTML formatting, and checklist review. Historical interpretation, recipe judgment, cooking experience, and final editorial decisions are my own.

Medieval Creamed Greens with Almond Milk | Whyte Wortes

Whyte Wortes, from Harleian MS 279, is one of those medieval recipes that looks plain until it reaches the spoon.

At first glance, it sounds humble: greens boiled in water, pressed dry, chopped small, then cooked with almond milk, rice flour, saffron, honey, and salt. But the result is far more interesting than the ingredient list suggests. It is soft, rich, lightly sweet, gently aromatic, and much more elegant than “boiled greens” has any right to be.

When I first made this dish in 2015, I served it to my teenage non-SCA taste testers. Several were suspicious because they disliked cabbage and kale. After some coaxing, the verdict changed quickly:

“This is GOOD.”

One tester even wished their mother cooked cabbage this way.

That reaction still matters to me. Historical recipes can be fascinating on paper, but the real test is whether people want to eat them again. Whyte Wortes passed that test.

Whyte Wortes, a 15th-century greens pottage enriched with almond milk, rice flour, saffron, honey, and salt.

A Note from My 2015 Kitchen: My original version used cabbage and kale rather than a wider mixture of pot herbs. That was a practical choice based on what I had available, and it still works well. Reading the recipe now, I would describe this as a greens pottage or creamed greens dish rather than simply a vegetable side.

Like many Harleian recipes, it sits comfortably between modern categories.

The Original Recipe

The recipe appears in Thomas Austin’s edition of Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, from Harleian MS 279, dated to about 1430.

.v. Whyte wortes.—Take of þe erbys lyke as þou dede for jouutes, and sethe hem in water tyl þey ben neyshe; þanne take hem vp, an bryse hem fayre on a bord, as drye as þow may; þan choppe hem smale, an caste hem on a potte, an ley hem with flowre of Rys; take mylke of almaundys, an cast þer-to, & hony, nowt to moche, þat it be nowt to swete, an safron & salt; an serue it forth ynne, ryȝth for a good potage.

A Working Translation

Take the herbs as you did for Joutes, and boil them in water until they are soft. Then take them up and bruise them well on a board, as dry as you can. Then chop them small and put them in a pot. Add rice flour. Take almond milk and add it, with honey, but not too much, so that it is not too sweet. Add saffron and salt, and serve it forth as a good pottage.

Manuscript Interpretation Note: This recipe is not simply greens boiled in almond milk. The greens are boiled first, pressed as dry as possible, chopped small, and then cooked again with rice flour, almond milk, honey, saffron, and salt. That first boiling removes harshness and excess moisture before the greens are enriched into a smooth pottage.

From Joutes to Whyte Wortes

One of the most useful clues in this recipe is that it does not begin by listing every green or herb. Instead, it points the cook backward:

“Take of þe erbys lyke as þou dede for jouutes…”

In other words:

Use the herbs and greens you prepared for Joutes.

This tells us something important about medieval kitchen practice. Cooks were not always beginning from scratch. They were working from familiar systems, repeated preparations, and shared kitchen knowledge. If Joutes represents a greens preparation built from available pot herbs, then Whyte Wortes feels like its richer, softer cousin: the same family of greens enriched with almond milk, thickened with rice flour, gently sweetened with honey, and perfumed with saffron.

That relationship also explains why the manuscript does not pause to give us an exact botanical list. The cook was expected to understand the broader greens preparation from the earlier recipe.

Pot Herbs, Wortes, and Medieval Kitchen Ingenuity

One of the things I increasingly admire about medieval cooking is its flexibility.

Whyte Wortes does not demand one perfect modern vegetable. Instead, it belongs to a world of pot herbs: leafy plants grown, gathered, or foraged for cooking. Depending on season, region, household garden, market access, and local taste, the mixture could change.

Modern cooks often want a recipe to say:

Use exactly this.

Medieval recipes often say something closer to:

Use what grows, what tastes good, and what you have enough of.

The Fromond List, published around 1525 under the title Herbys necessary for a gardyn, gives us a glimpse of the kinds of plants late medieval and early Tudor cooks valued for pottages and kitchen use. It includes familiar plants such as cabbage, beet, borage, chervil, chives, dill, fennel, leek, lettuce, marjoram, mint, onions, parsley, sage, spinach, thyme, and wood sorrel, along with plants less familiar in many modern kitchens, such as alexanders, Good King Henry, patience dock, hartstongue, orach, and sowthistle.

In other words, there was probably no single correct bowl of wortes.

In my original kitchen interpretation, I used cabbage and kale because they were available and held up beautifully to boiling, pressing, chopping, and reheating. Eleven years later, I still think that was a practical choice. But the spirit of the recipe comfortably allows the cook to work with a mixture of sturdy greens and herbs available in season.

Build Your Wortes: Choose one or two sturdy base greens such as cabbage, kale, collards, mustard greens, or turnip greens. Then add smaller amounts of flavorful greens or herbs such as parsley, sorrel, spinach, chard, beet greens, fennel fronds, or dill. The goal is not to recreate one fixed grocery list, but to build a useful medieval-style greens mixture.

What Makes These Wortes “White”?

The “white” in Whyte Wortes does not mean the greens themselves are white. The color comes from the almond milk and rice flour used to enrich and thicken the dish.

Medieval cooks often cared about color. White dishes could suggest refinement, smoothness, and careful preparation. Almond milk, rice, and pale sauces appear in many recipes where the finished dish is meant to feel gentle, rich, or elegant.

The saffron complicates the color slightly. It adds golden warmth rather than leaving the dish purely white, but medieval recipe titles often point toward the intended character of a dish rather than a perfect modern paint-chip description. Here, “white” likely signals the almond milk and rice-flour base more than a literal snow-white finished color.

Why Almond Milk Mattered

To a modern cook, almond milk in a medieval greens dish can feel unexpected. Yet almond milk appears constantly in medieval cookery, especially in pottages, sauces, and fasting dishes.

Part of the reason was practical. Fresh animal milk spoiled quickly without refrigeration and could vary in quality depending on season, storage, and household conditions. Almonds, by contrast, could be stored dry and transformed into milk when needed. That made almond milk flexible, reliable, and useful in both everyday kitchens and elite households.

Almond milk was also valuable during fasting periods, when dairy products might be restricted. But it was not merely a substitute for “real” milk. Medieval cooks appreciated almond milk for its own flavor, texture, and ability to enrich dishes gently without overwhelming other ingredients.

In Whyte Wortes, almond milk softens the sharper edges of boiled greens, while rice flour creates body and honey rounds the flavors just enough to keep the dish from becoming harsh.

If you would like to learn more about how almond milk functioned in historical kitchens, including fasting traditions and medieval culinary practice, see my article on the importance of almond milk in medieval cooking.

Modern Almond Milk Note: Homemade almond milk is usually richer and more historically useful than many boxed almond milks. If using store-bought almond milk, choose plain, unsweetened almond milk without vanilla. Avoid strongly flavored or sweetened versions.

Rice Flour, Honey, and Texture

Rice flour thickens the almond milk into a soft sauce. That matters because almond milk alone is fairly thin. The rice flour gives the pottage body, helping it cling to the chopped greens rather than pooling loosely beneath them.

The honey is equally important because the manuscript gives a warning:

“nowt to moche, þat it be nowt to swete”

Not too much, so that it is not too sweet.

That instruction tells us how the dish should behave. This is not a dessert. It is a savory greens pottage with just enough sweetness to soften the almond milk and greens. Too much honey would push it out of balance.

The final texture should be spoonable and rich. It can be loose enough to serve as a pottage, or thicker and more like creamed greens. If serving as part of a feast course, I prefer it thick enough to hold together on the plate without becoming stiff.

Texture Note: Medieval pottages were not always thin soups. This dish can be served as a soft pottage, a thickened greens dish, or a first-course accompaniment. The rice flour controls where it lands.

Why Boil the Greens First?

This step is easy to overlook, but it matters.

The manuscript tells the cook to boil the greens in water until soft, then bruise and dry them as much as possible before chopping. This removes some bitterness, softens tough leaves, and prevents the finished almond milk pottage from becoming watery.

That step also makes the final dish easier to control. Instead of trying to cook raw greens directly in almond milk, the cook begins with prepared greens and then enriches them. It is a practical medieval kitchen technique, and it still works.

Whyte Wortes: Medieval Creamed Greens with Almond Milk

Serves: 8 as a first-course pottage or side dish

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds (680 g) sturdy greens such as kale, cabbage, collards, mustard greens, turnip greens, or mixed wortes
• 2 to 3 cups (480 to 720 ml) plain unsweetened almond milk, preferably homemade or rich almond milk
• 1 to 2 tablespoons rice flour, or up to 3 tablespoons for a thicker feast-service version
• 1 to 2 teaspoons honey, or to taste
• Pinch of saffron
• Salt, to taste

Method

1. Wash the greens well. Remove tough stems if needed.
2. Bring a large pot of clean water to a boil. Add the greens and boil until they are soft, about 8 to 12 minutes depending on the greens used.
3. Lift the greens from the water and drain well. Press them in a clean towel to remove as much water as possible.
4. Bruise or press the drained greens on a board, then chop them small.
5. Place the chopped greens in a clean pot and sprinkle with the rice flour. Stir to coat the greens evenly.
6. Add the almond milk gradually, stirring well to prevent lumps. Start with 2 cups (480 ml) for a thicker dish and add more as needed for a softer pottage.
7. Add the saffron, a small amount of honey, and salt.
8. Cook gently over medium-low heat, stirring often, until the almond milk thickens and the greens are coated in a soft sauce.
9. Taste and adjust salt and honey. The dish should be gently sweet, not dessert-sweet.
10. Serve warm as a pottage or thickened greens dish.

Modern Kitchen Notes

For a manuscript-first texture: Use 1 to 2 tablespoons rice flour and enough almond milk to create a soft, spoonable pottage.

For a thicker feast-service dish: Use up to 3 tablespoons rice flour and cook gently until the almond milk thickens enough to coat the greens.

For a looser pottage: Use less rice flour or add more almond milk.

For a vegan version: Replace the honey with sugar or leave it out. The almond milk base is already dairy-free.

For a nut-free version: This recipe depends on almond milk, so a nut-free version is a modern adaptation rather than a manuscript-first reconstruction. Oat milk or rice milk can work as substitutes, though the flavor will change.

For feast service: The greens can be boiled, pressed, chopped, and refrigerated earlier in the day. Finish the dish with almond milk and rice flour shortly before service.

Why This Is a Good Feast Dish

One of the reasons I like Whyte Wortes for feast service is that it solves several practical problems at once. It is meatless, dairy-free, inexpensive, and surprisingly satisfying. The greens can be cooked and pressed ahead of time, while the almond milk and rice flour finish quickly before service.

It also offers a useful contrast on the table. Beside fish, bread, eggs, or sharper sauces, this dish brings softness and richness without relying on butter, cream, or cheese. That makes it especially useful for first courses, fasting menus, or mixed tables where some diners need meatless options.

How I Would Serve It

Whyte Wortes belongs beautifully in a first course. It is rich enough to feel satisfying, but not so heavy that it overwhelms the table. I would serve it with bread, fish, eggs, or other greens dishes from Harleian MS 279.

It would also work well beside tench prepared one of three ways, fresh bread, simple egg dishes, or a mild cheese.

Feast Planning Note: This is an excellent meatless dish for a feast. It is economical, scalable, and more appealing than many modern diners expect from cabbage or kale. The almond milk makes it feel rich without using dairy cream.

Humoral and Historical Flavor Notes

In medieval dietary thought, greens were often treated as cooling and moistening. Almonds were nourishing and rich, while rice flour helped bind and steady the dish. Saffron added warmth and fragrance. Honey softened bitterness but was used carefully so that the dish would not become too sweet.

Read this way, Whyte Wortes balances green, soft, moist ingredients with aromatic warmth and gentle sweetness. It is not simply cabbage in almond milk. It is a carefully managed pottage where texture, richness, and balance matter.

The first boiling of the greens helps tame bitterness and excess moisture. The almond milk then rebuilds the dish into something richer and more polished. That two-step movement, first plain water, then almond milk, is part of what makes the recipe work.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are Whyte Wortes?

Whyte Wortes are a 15th-century medieval greens pottage from Harleian MS 279. Greens are boiled, pressed dry, chopped, and cooked with almond milk, rice flour, honey, saffron, and salt.

Why are they called white wortes?

The “white” likely refers to the almond milk and rice flour base rather than the greens themselves. Saffron may tint the dish golden.

What greens should I use?

Use sturdy greens such as cabbage, kale, collards, mustard greens, turnip greens, or mixed pot herbs. Softer greens such as spinach, chard, sorrel, or parsley can be added in smaller amounts.

Is this recipe vegan?

The manuscript uses almond milk and no dairy or eggs. To make it vegan by modern standards, replace the honey with sugar or omit it.

Can I use store-bought almond milk?

Yes, but use plain unsweetened almond milk. Homemade almond milk or a richer almond milk gives a better texture and flavor.

Why does the recipe use almond milk instead of dairy milk?

Almond milk was common in medieval cooking because it was useful for fasting days, could be made from stored almonds, and enriched dishes without relying on fresh dairy. Fresh animal milk spoiled quickly without refrigeration, while almonds were easier to keep and prepare as needed.

Can I use spinach?

Yes, but spinach cooks down quickly and releases a lot of water. Sturdier greens such as kale, collards, cabbage, or mustard greens are closer to the spirit of the recipe.

Is this a pottage or a side dish?

It can be either. With more almond milk, it reads as a soft pottage. Cooked thicker, it becomes a creamed greens dish suitable as a side or first-course accompaniment.

Is this a Lenten dish?

It fits well with Lenten or fasting cookery because it uses almond milk rather than dairy milk and contains no meat or eggs. Replace the honey if following a stricter modern vegan interpretation.

More Medieval Greens and Wortys Recipes

• Medieval Wortys: A Harleian MS 279 Greens Recipe Hub
• Lange Wortys de Chare: Medieval Greens in Broth
• Joutes: Braised Greens from Harleian MS 279
• Lange Wortys de Pesoun: Medieval Greens with Peas
• Browse More Greens Recipes

Sources and Further Reading

• Thomas Austin, ed., Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, Harleian MS 279 and Harleian MS 4016.
• Harleian MS 279, c.1430.
• Quick Homemade Almond Milk Recipe.
• Medieval Cooking Basics: The Importance of Almond Milk in Medieval Cooking.
• Additional interpretation based on practical cooking experience with medieval pottages, greens, almond milk, and manuscript cookery.

Final Thought: I understand why my teenage taste testers were suspicious of this dish. Cabbage, kale, almond milk, and rice flour do not sound exciting to a modern audience. But this is one of those medieval recipes that proves how much good cooking can happen with humble ingredients. Boil the greens well, press them dry, thicken the almond milk gently, and the result is far better than expected.

Would you serve Whyte Wortes as a soft pottage, or as thick creamed greens beside the rest of the first course?

Hidden tags: Whyte Wortes, Whyte Wortys, Harleian MS 279, medieval greens recipe, medieval almond milk recipe, almond milk pottage, vegan medieval recipe, vegetarian medieval recipe, Lenten recipe, fasting food, wortes, wortys, pottage, medieval pottage, creamed greens, saffron, rice flour, almond milk, 15th century English cookery, manuscript cookery, pot herbs, Fromond List, historical food research

Medieval Braised Greens with Peas | Lange Wortys de Pesoun (Harleian MS 279, c.1430)

Originally published December 13, 2015. Updated June 12, 2026 with revised interpretation notes, manuscript-first cooking guidance, modern substitutions, recipe schema, and additional historical context.

AI-assisted formatting and editing note: This article was updated with the assistance of ChatGPT for organization, grammar, HTML formatting, and checklist review. Historical interpretation, recipe judgment, cooking experience, and final editorial decisions are my own.

Medieval Braised Greens with Peas | Lange Wortys de Pesoun

One of the unexpected gifts of keeping a historical cooking blog for many years is the chance to return to earlier work with better tools, more experience, and kinder eyes.

When I first interpreted Lange Wortys de Pesoun in 2015, I was still learning how slippery medieval recipe categories can be. If something was cooked in a pot, I tended to think of it as soup. That made sense at the time. Many medieval recipes do live somewhere near the broad family of pottages, broths, sewes, bruets, and spoonable dishes.

But after more years of cooking from manuscripts, I have learned that a pot does not always mean soup.

Sometimes it means a thick pottage. Sometimes it means a braised vegetable dish. Sometimes it means greens lightly coated in a drawn pea broth. Sometimes, wonderfully, it can be all of those things depending on how much liquid the cook chooses to leave in the pot.

Lange Wortys de Pesoun, from Harleian MS 279, is one of those flexible dishes. It can be served brothy as a first-course pottage, especially with bread, or cooked down into a softer braised greens dish to accompany fish, eggs, cheese, bread, or a larger medieval meal.

Either way, it is lovely.

Lange Wortys de Pesoun, a 15th-century dish of greens, peas, onion, saffron, and broth from Harleian MS 279.

A Note from My 2015 Kitchen: My first version of this dish used beef broth because that was what I had made and had available in the kitchen. Today, reading the manuscript more closely, I would treat oil or fresh fish broth as the manuscript-first choices. Vegetable stock also makes a useful modern substitution, especially for a vegan or vegetarian table.

That earlier version was still delicious, but this update brings the interpretation closer to the wording of the original recipe.

The Original Recipe

The recipe appears in Thomas Austin’s edition of Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, from Harleian MS 279, dated to about 1430.

.ij. Lange Wortes de pesoun.—Take grene pesyn, an washe hem clene an caste hem on a potte, an boyle hem tyl þey breste, an þanne take hem vppe of þe potte, an put hem with brothe yn a-noþer potte, and lete hem kele; þan draw hem þorw a straynowre in-to a fayre potte, an þan take oynonys, and screde hem in to or þre, an take hole wortys and boyle hem in fayre water: and take hem vppe, an ley hem on a fayre bord, an cytte on .iij. or iiij., an ley hem to þe oynonys in þe potte, to þe drawyd pesyn; an let hem boyle tyl þey ben tendyr; an þanne tak fayre oyle and frye hem, or ellys sum fresche broþe of sum maner fresche fysshe, an caste þer-to, an Safron, an salt a quantyte, and serue it forth.

A Working Translation

Take green peas, wash them clean, and put them in a pot. Boil them until they burst. Then take them from the pot, put them with broth in another pot, and let them cool. Draw them through a strainer into a clean pot. Then take onions and cut them into two or three pieces. Take whole wortes and boil them in clean water. Lift them out, lay them on a clean board, and cut them into three or four pieces. Add them to the onions in the pot with the strained peas. Let them boil until tender. Then take good oil and fry them, or else add fresh broth from some kind of fresh fish. Add saffron and salt in quantity, and serve it forth.

Manuscript Interpretation Note: The recipe does not begin with chopped frozen vegetables and a modern stock cube. It begins with fresh green peas cooked until they burst, strained into a pea broth or purée, whole greens cooked separately, onions cut in large pieces, and a final enrichment with either good oil or fresh fish broth.

What Are Wortys?

Wortys, or wortes, refers broadly to edible greens, especially members of the cabbage and brassica family. For this recipe, kale, collards, cabbage leaves, mustard greens, or similar sturdy greens are more faithful choices than tender spinach or chard.

The manuscript tells the cook to boil the greens whole, lay them on a board, and cut them into three or four pieces. That suggests a dish with soft, recognizable pieces of greens rather than finely chopped greens dissolved into soup.

This is one of the reasons I now read the dish as sitting between pottage and braise.

Why So Many Greens?

Greens appear frequently in medieval cooking because they were practical, nourishing, and widely available. Cabbage-family plants, leafy greens, and garden herbs could fill out a meal without requiring expensive ingredients. They were useful in household cooking, feast kitchens, fasting meals, and first-course dishes.

They also gave medieval cooks enormous flexibility. Greens could be boiled, chopped, braised, strained, enriched with broth, dressed with oil, colored with saffron, sharpened with vinegar, or thickened into a pottage. In manuscript cookery, wortes are not merely background vegetables. They are part of a larger system of economical, seasonal, and adaptable cooking.

Peas in the Medieval Kitchen

Peas are among the oldest cultivated foods, and they were familiar in Europe long before Harleian MS 279 was copied. Roman cookery includes recipes for peas, and medieval cooks inherited a long tradition of using both fresh and dried legumes.

By the Middle Ages, peas were not exotic. They were useful food. Dried peas could be stored and cooked into thick pottages during leaner seasons, while fresh green peas belonged more naturally to spring and early summer tables. That matters for this recipe because the manuscript calls for grene pesyn, or green peas.

Modern readers may picture bright, sweet garden peas. Medieval peas were probably not exactly the same as the tender frozen peas in our grocery stores. Many period peas were field peas: starchier, earthier, and often better suited for drying, boiling, and thickening. Fresh peas were certainly known, but the sweetness and tenderness of many modern varieties are the result of later selection.

Modern Pea Note: Frozen English peas are the easiest modern substitute and work very well. Marrowfat peas give a starchier, earthier result that may feel closer to older field peas. Split peas can be used in a pinch, but they make a thicker pea pottage and change the texture of the dish.

Peas, Pottage, and Texture

The peas are not simply tossed into the pot as a vegetable. They are boiled until they burst, cooled with broth, and drawn through a strainer. This creates a soft pea base that thickens and flavors the dish.

Fresh peas would make this a natural spring or early summer dish. Dried peas could also be used, though they require longer soaking and cooking. Either way, the peas provide body, sweetness, and substance.

In 2015, I treated this as a soup, and it works beautifully that way. With extra liquid, Lange Wortys de Pesoun becomes a comforting first-course pottage. With less liquid, it becomes braised greens in a pea-rich sauce.

That flexibility is part of its charm.

Oil, Fish Broth, and Fasting Food

The final instruction gives two options: use good oil, or else add fresh broth made from fresh fish.

That detail matters. It places the recipe comfortably within the world of medieval fasting and fish-day cookery. It can be made without meat broth, without dairy, and without eggs. With oil, it becomes fully vegan by modern standards. With fish broth, it remains appropriate for many medieval fast-day tables while adding depth and savor.

Modern Kitchen Choice: For a manuscript-first version, use olive oil or a light fish broth. For a vegetarian or vegan version, use olive oil and vegetable stock. Beef broth or chicken broth will make a delicious dish, but those are modern substitutions rather than the strongest reading of this specific recipe.

Lange Wortys de Pesoun: Medieval Greens with Peas

Serves: 8 as a first-course pottage or side dish

Ingredients

• 2 cups (280 g) fresh or frozen green peas
• 2 cups (480 ml) light fish broth, vegetable stock, or water, plus more as needed
• 1 large onion, peeled and cut into halves or thirds
• 1 1/2 pounds (680 g) sturdy greens such as kale, collards, cabbage leaves, or mustard greens
• 2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil, or additional fresh fish broth
• Pinch of saffron
• Salt, to taste

Method

1. Place the peas in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook until the peas are very soft and beginning to burst.
2. Drain the peas, then combine them with 1 cup (240 ml) of the broth, stock, or water. Let them cool slightly.
3. Mash the peas well or blend briefly. Press them through a strainer for a smoother medieval-style drawn pea base.
4. Bring a separate pot of clean water to a boil. Add the whole greens and cook until softened.
5. Lift the greens from the water, drain well, and lay them on a board. Cut them into three or four large pieces.
6. Place the strained peas in a clean pot. Add the onion pieces and enough broth, stock, or water to make a thick pottage or loose sauce.
7. Add the cooked greens. Simmer until the onions and greens are tender.
8. Stir in the olive oil, or add fresh fish broth if using that option. Add saffron and salt to taste.
9. Serve warm. Leave it brothy for a pottage, or cook it down slightly for a braised greens dish.

Modern Kitchen Notes

For a brothy pottage: Add more liquid and serve with bread. This version works well as a first-course dish.

For braised greens: Use less liquid and cook the dish gently until the pea base lightly coats the greens.

For a vegan version: Use olive oil and vegetable stock or water.

For a fish-day version: Use a light fresh fish broth. Avoid a broth that is too strong or oily, since the greens and peas are delicate.

For dried peas: Soak dried green or marrowfat peas overnight, then cook until very soft before straining. The cooking time will be much longer than with fresh or frozen peas.

For softer greens: Spinach or chard may be used in a modern kitchen, but they cook down quickly and do not behave quite like sturdier medieval wortes.

How I Would Serve It

This dish belongs beautifully in a first course. It can sit beside bread, fish, eggs, or mild cheese. For a feast table, I would serve it in a broad dish with enough pea broth to keep it moist, but not so much that the greens disappear into soup.

For a spring-inspired first course, I can imagine Lange Wortys de Pesoun served with a light fish dish such as tench prepared one of three ways, fresh bread for sopping, simple egg dishes, and a mild cheese.

That gives the table variety without heaviness: greens, peas, fish, bread, eggs, and cheese. It is simple, seasonal, and very satisfying.

Feast Planning Note: This is an economical first-course dish. Peas and greens stretch well, the recipe can be made meatless, and the final texture can be adjusted depending on the rest of the menu. Serve it looser if the course needs a pottage, or thicker if you need a vegetable accompaniment.

Humoral and Historical Flavor Notes

Medieval medical and dietary thought often understood foods through qualities such as hot, cold, moist, and dry. Greens were often treated as cooling and moistening. Peas added substance and nourishment, but could also be considered heavy if not well cooked. Onion brought warmth. Saffron was warming and aromatic. Oil added richness and moisture, while fish broth made the dish more savory without turning it into a meat-day preparation.

Read this way, Lange Wortys de Pesoun is not merely greens and peas in a pot. It is a balanced preparation: green, soft, nourishing, lightly sweet, gently aromatic, and suitable for a fasting or first-course table.

The long cooking and straining of the peas also matters. It softens what might otherwise be a coarse legume and turns it into a gentle base for the greens. The saffron and onion lift the dish from plain boiled vegetables into something warmer, more fragrant, and more feast-worthy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Lange Wortys de Pesoun a soup?

It can be served as a soup-like pottage, especially if more broth is added. The manuscript also supports a thicker braised interpretation, where the strained peas coat the greens rather than surrounding them with liquid.

What does “wortys” mean?

Wortys, or wortes, refers to edible greens. In this recipe, sturdy brassica greens such as kale, collards, cabbage leaves, or mustard greens are good choices.

What kind of peas should I use?

Fresh peas are closest to the wording of the recipe, but frozen English peas are the easiest modern substitute. Marrowfat peas give a starchier result. Split peas can be used, but they will make the dish thicker and closer to pea pottage.

Should this recipe use beef broth?

The manuscript specifies good oil or fresh fish broth. Beef broth can make a tasty modern version, and I used it in my earlier interpretation because I had homemade beef broth available, but it is not the manuscript-first choice.

Can this be made vegan?

Yes. Use olive oil and vegetable stock or water. The oil option in the manuscript makes this one of the easier Harleian recipes to adapt for a vegan table.

Can I use frozen peas?

Yes. Frozen peas are an excellent modern substitute for fresh green peas. Cook them until soft, then mash or blend and strain them to create the pea base.

Is this a Lenten dish?

It fits comfortably with Lenten or fasting food because it can be made with oil or fish broth rather than meat broth, dairy, or eggs.

More Medieval Greens and Wortys Recipes

• Medieval Wortys: A Harleian MS 279 Greens Recipe Hub
• Lange Wortys de Chare: Medieval Greens in Broth
• Whyte Wortes: White Greens from Harleian MS 279
• Joutes: Braised Greens from Harleian MS 279
• Browse More Greens Recipes

Sources and Further Reading

• Thomas Austin, ed., Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, Harleian MS 279 and Harleian MS 4016.
• Harleian MS 279, c.1430.
• Additional interpretation based on practical cooking experience with medieval pottages, sewes, bruets, greens, and drawn dishes.

Final Thought: Revisiting this recipe reminded me why old posts are worth preserving and updating. My 2015 version captured the pleasure of the dish. My 2026 reading understands the manuscript more carefully. Between the two is the real work of historical cooking: learning, cooking, returning, and learning again.

Would you serve Lange Wortys de Pesoun as a brothy first-course pottage, or as braised greens beside the rest of the meal?

Hidden tags: Lange Wortys de Pesoun, Lange Wortes de Pesoun, Harleian MS 279, medieval greens recipe, medieval peas recipe, wortes, wortys, pottage, medieval pottage, braised greens, Lenten recipe, fasting food, vegan medieval recipe, vegetarian medieval recipe, saffron, onion, beans and legumes, 15th century English cookery, manuscript cookery, medieval vegetables, historical food research, medieval peas, field peas, marrowfat peas, first course medieval meal

Let Lory (Larded Milk): Medieval English Custard Recipe | Harleian MS 279

Let Lory, also called larded milk, from Harleian MS 279

First Published: February 8, 2017
Updated: June 2026

Few medieval dishes feel as curious and unexpected to modern diners as Let Lory, sometimes called larded milk. Found in Harleian MS 279, dated to about 1430, this unusual English dish sits somewhere between a soft custard, a fresh cheese, and a delicate entremet. Milk scented with saffron is gently curdled with eggs, drained, and dressed with a warm sauce of sweetened yolks and warming spices.

To modern eyes, Let Lory may appear unusual, yet medieval cooks seem to have delighted in dishes of curdled milk and eggs. Similar preparations appear across Europe, from the English Forme of Cury recipe for Letelorye to French recipes for larded milk. These dishes blurred the line between custard, cheese, and composed delicacy.

Rather than a hearty pottage or broth of the first course, Let Lory feels especially at home among the entremets, the often-overlooked dishes served between courses to delight guests and shift the rhythm of the feast. Soft, rich, and lightly perfumed with saffron and spice, it makes an excellent conversation piece for historical dinners, reenactment feasts, or anyone curious about the stranger corners of medieval cookery.

Æppla Syfling: Following the Trail of an Anglo-Saxon Apple Butter

Æppla Syfling: Following the Trail of an Anglo-Saxon Apple Butter

Sometimes revisiting an old recipe does not reveal mistakes. Sometimes it reveals how much care went into the reconstruction in the first place.

A few weeks ago, while revisiting an Anglo-Saxon feast I originally prepared in 2003, I found myself in a strange place: ten pages deep into Google searching for Æppla Syfling.

The odd thing?

Most of the results led right back to me.

Or rather, to a much younger version of myself.

Back in 2003, for Ceilidh XVI, I prepared an Anglo-Saxon inspired feast using recipes from Mary Savelli’s Tastes of Anglo-Saxon England. Like many historical cooks of my generation, I trusted her work because she attempted something genuinely difficult: taking fragmentary evidence and transforming it into dishes that modern cooks could understand, discuss, and place on the table.

One of those dishes was Æppla Syfling, translated simply as apple butter.

At the time, the recipe felt entirely reasonable. Apples, cider, honey, mint, cumin, and black pepper cooked into a soft accompaniment to bread or the feast table. I made it, served it, enjoyed it, and moved on.

More than twenty years later, curiosity got the better of me.

What exactly had Mary seen in this recipe?

And perhaps more importantly:

What did Anglo-Saxons mean by the word syfling?

Ceilidh XVI, March 29, 2003. The original Anglo-Saxon inspired feast where Æppla Syfling first appeared on my table.

Original Feast Context: Æppla Syfling was originally prepared for Ceilidh XVI, an Anglo-Saxon inspired feast held on March 29, 2003.

📜 Read the original feast record:
Ceilidh XVI – March 29, 2003

🍏 Explore the updated feast research:
Reconstructing an Anglo-Saxon Feast: Ceilidh XVI Revisited

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The Value of Revisiting Old Recipes

One of the gifts of maintaining a long-running historical cooking blog is that older work remains visible. That is not always comfortable. Old recipes can show what sources were available, what assumptions were common, and what questions had not yet been asked.

But older work also preserves something precious: the moment when a cook took the evidence available and made it practical.

That matters especially for Anglo-Saxon food. Unlike later medieval English cookery, we do not have a large collection of household recipe books telling us exactly how these dishes were made. Instead, we work from scattered clues: medical texts, glossaries, archaeology, food rents, monastic rules, comparative sources, and later culinary habits.

In 2003, that work was harder than it is today. Searchable manuscript databases, digitized medieval texts, OCR search tools, online dictionaries, and high-resolution scans from major libraries were not sitting one click away.

Most historical cooks worked from the books they owned, interlibrary loans, photocopies, conference notes, handwritten bibliographies, and the generosity of other researchers.

A Note on Mary Savelli’s Work: This revisit is not an attempt to correct Tastes of Anglo-Saxon England. If anything, it has deepened my appreciation for it. Mary Savelli was doing something genuinely useful: building practical bridges between fragmentary Anglo-Saxon evidence and modern kitchens.

That is the spirit in which I returned to Æppla Syfling.

Not to ask, “Was Mary wrong?”

But to ask, “What was Mary seeing?”

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What Does Syfling Mean?

That question led me somewhere unexpected.

Not first to a recipe.

Not even to a manuscript.

It led me to a dictionary.

According to the Bosworth–Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, the Old English word syfling refers broadly to a food eaten with bread, an accompaniment, or something supplemental served alongside a staple food. Even more intriguingly, the dictionary glosses æppla syfling as apple sauce.

That stopped me for a moment.

Had I misunderstood the recipe all these years?

The longer I sat with the idea, the more I found myself circling back to Mary Savelli’s original interpretation with fresh appreciation.

If syfling means an accompaniment eaten with bread, then translating Æppla Syfling as apple butter begins to make practical sense. Historical cooks often choose familiar language to help modern readers understand unfamiliar ideas, and “apple butter” immediately communicates an apple-based preparation meant to accompany bread or a meal.

English speakers have long used the word butter for soft fruit preparations:

• Apple butter
• Pear butter
• Pumpkin butter

Not dairy butter, but soft, spoonable fruit accompaniments.

Seen through that lens, Mary’s choice feels less like a literal translation and more like an interpretive bridge between Anglo-Saxon foodways and a modern kitchen.

Language Note: Syfling does not need to mean “butter” in the dairy sense. It points toward an accompaniment eaten with bread. That makes “apple butter” a surprisingly sensible modern way to describe a soft apple preparation served at table.

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Following the Flavor Trail

If the word syfling started making more sense, the next question became flavor.

Why mint? Why cumin? Why pepper?

At first glance, these seem unusual companions to apples. Yet the deeper I looked into Anglo-Saxon medicine and comparative culinary traditions, the more thoughtful Mary Savelli’s reconstruction began to feel.

What I expected to find, if I am being honest, was evidence that I might reinterpret the recipe dramatically.

Instead, I found evidence that Mary may already have understood more than I first realized.

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Bald’s Leechbook, Digestion, and Familiar Flavors

Bald’s Leechbook is not a cookbook. It is a 10th-century Old English medical manuscript, deeply influenced by earlier Mediterranean medical traditions inherited through Greek, Roman, and Byzantine learning.

That matters because Anglo-Saxon medical texts often preserve familiar kitchen ingredients in practical use: apples, herbs, honey, vinegar, butter, milk, ale, grains, and warming spices.

While revisiting Mary Savelli’s reconstruction, I found something in Bald’s Leechbook that stopped me in my tracks.

In Book II, Chapter XII, a digestive remedy “for spewing, and in case that a man’s meat will not keep down” combines several ingredients that felt immediately familiar:

• Mint
• Pepper
• Cumin
• Sour apples
• Wine

“For spewing, and in case that a mans meat will not keep down… take one ounce of seed of dill, four of pepper, three of cumin… put into water in which mint has been sodden and sour apples… if the man be not in a fever, eke it with wine.”

Thomas Oswald Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, Vol. II, Book II, Ch. XII.

That does not prove Æppla Syfling exactly. Historical evidence rarely works so neatly.

But it demonstrates something important:

Anglo-Saxon medicine already understood apples, mint, pepper, cumin, and wine as ingredients that belonged together.

Even more fascinating, Cockayne notes that this remedy partly reflects the medical writings of Alexander of Tralles, a Byzantine physician whose work helped transmit older Mediterranean medical traditions into medieval Europe.

In other words:

Anglo-Saxon medicine did not emerge in isolation.

It inherited centuries of medical thinking in which foods, herbs, and spices were understood to warm, cool, stimulate digestion, soothe discomfort, and support bodily balance.

Bald’s Leechbook, Book II, Chapter XII. Digestive remedies preserve combinations of mint, cumin, pepper, sour apples, and wine.

Primary Source Trail

• Bosworth–Toller Dictionary Entry for Syfling
• View Bald’s Leechbook in the British Library Manuscript Viewer
• Cockayne Translation: Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, Vol. II
• Explore Apicius Online

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Ann Hagen, Fruit Sauces, and Digestion

Ann Hagen’s work on Anglo-Saxon foodways provides another fascinating clue.

Hagen notes that fruit sauces were traditionally served with meat and fish dishes and could help “cut the fat,” making richer foods easier to digest.

Even more intriguingly, she points out that Anglo-Saxon leechdoms mention sauces of vinegar, honey, and herbs, observing that there is little reason to suppose these belonged only to medicine.

In one discussion, Hagen references:

“sweet apples, marinaded in wine, then stewed and sweetened with honey and peppered.”

That combination immediately caught my attention.

Not because it proves Æppla Syfling exactly, but because it demonstrates something important:

apples, honey, pepper, herbs, and sharp liquids already belonged together in Anglo-Saxon thinking.

Apples provide tartness and body. Honey softens the edge. Mint brightens. Pepper and cumin warm.

Seen this way, Æppla Syfling begins to feel less like an odd reconstruction and more like a very plausible accompaniment for richer foods on an Anglo-Saxon table.

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Roman Echoes: Apicius

Mary also pointed toward Apicius, the Roman cookbook tradition.

This does not mean Anglo-Saxons were cooking Roman recipes unchanged. Rather, it suggests that flavor families survived and evolved across centuries.

In John Edwards’ The Roman Cookery of Apicius, a cumin sauce for oysters combines:

• Pepper
• Mint
• Cumin
• Honey
• Sharp liquids such as vinegar

No apples, of course.

But the flavor logic feels strikingly familiar.

Sweet. Sharp. Herbal. Peppery.

Modern cooks sometimes find these combinations surprising. Ancient and medieval cooks clearly did not.

Explore Apicius Online:
Roman Cookery of Apicius

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Mary Savelli’s Original Reconstruction

One of the things I expected to find while revisiting this recipe was evidence that I might want to reinterpret it more dramatically. Instead, revisiting Mary Savelli’s original instructions revealed something surprising:

She was closer to an Anglo-Saxon interpretation than many may have recognized.

Her recipe does not resemble the thick, heavily reduced modern apple butter many of us imagine today.

Instead, it produces something softer, brighter, and far more sauce-like.

Æppla Syfling – Apple Butter
Makes 1½ cups

• 2 medium apples, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 cup apple cider (or apple juice)
• 2 tbsp honey
• ⅛ tsp ground black pepper
• ¼ tsp each dried mint and cumin leaves

Method:
Boil the apples in the cider for 30 minutes or until soft; purée. Thoroughly mix the remaining ingredients into the apple purée and cool.

Recipe adapted from Mary Savelli, Tastes of Anglo-Saxon England.

At first, I thought I might reinterpret this dish as something looser and more relish-like.

Looking back at Mary’s original instructions, however, I realized she may already have been aiming for exactly that.

What changed for me was not the recipe itself.

It was understanding the historical logic behind it.

My 2026 Interpretation: I would keep the heart of Mary’s recipe and its soft, sauce-like texture. If anything, I would be careful not to reduce it too far. I would aim for a tart, herbal apple accompaniment eaten with bread or served beside richer foods.

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Æppla Syfling: A Modern Historical Reconstruction

Serves 8

Ingredients

• 6 medium tart apples, peeled, cored, and chopped
• 1 cup apple cider or unsweetened apple juice
• 1 to 2 tablespoons honey, or to taste
• 1 tablespoon fresh mint, finely chopped, or 1 teaspoon dried mint
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• Pinch of salt, optional
• 1 to 2 teaspoons cider vinegar, optional, if your apples are not tart

Method

1. Place the chopped apples and cider in a saucepan over medium heat.
2. Bring to a gentle simmer, then reduce the heat and cook until the apples are soft, stirring occasionally.
3. Mash the apples with a spoon or potato masher. For a smoother sauce, press through a sieve or use an immersion blender briefly.
4. Stir in the honey, mint, cumin, pepper, and salt if using.
5. Taste. If the sauce is too sweet or flat, add a small splash of cider vinegar.
6. Continue cooking only until the mixture is soft and spoonable. Do not reduce it into a dense preserve unless you prefer a more modern apple butter texture.
7. Serve warm or at room temperature.

To Serve

Serve Æppla Syfling with warm bread, oatcakes, roast pork, sausage, fish, sharp cheese, or as part of an Anglo-Saxon inspired feast board.

Cook’s Note: For a version closer to modern apple butter, continue cooking the mixture over low heat until thick and deeply reduced. For my current interpretation, I prefer to leave it looser and more sauce-like, preserving the tartness of the apples and the brightness of the mint.

2003 Version vs. 2026 Interpretation

In 2003, I understood this dish primarily through the modern phrase apple butter. In 2026, I still think that phrase is useful, but I understand it more broadly.

A syfling was an accompaniment. Something eaten with bread. Something that made the staple more flavorful, nourishing, or pleasant.

So yes, Æppla Syfling can still be understood as apple butter.

But perhaps not only as the thick sweet preserve many of us grew up with.

It may also be apple sauce. Apple relish. Apple accompaniment. A tart, herbal spoonful of something bright beside bread and meat.

And in that sense, Mary’s original translation may have been doing exactly what good reconstruction often does: giving modern cooks a doorway into a much older kitchen.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What does Æppla Syfling mean?

Æppla means apples. Syfling refers broadly to a food eaten with bread or an accompaniment. Bosworth–Toller glosses æppla syfling as apple sauce.

Is Æppla Syfling really apple butter?

It can reasonably be understood that way if “apple butter” is used broadly to mean a soft apple accompaniment served with bread or at table. It may not have resembled the thick, heavily reduced sweet preserve many modern cooks associate with apple butter.

Why does the recipe include cumin and pepper?

Cumin and pepper may seem surprising with apples today, but they make sense in a historical context where sharp, sweet, herbal, and warming flavors often appeared together. Bald’s Leechbook, Ann Hagen, and Apicius all help contextualize this flavor family.

Would this have been eaten with meat?

Possibly. Ann Hagen notes that fruit sauces could accompany meat and fish dishes and help cut richness. Æppla Syfling would make sense with sausage, pork, beef, fish, cheese, or bread.

Was Anglo-Saxon food medicinal?

Food and medicine overlapped in Anglo-Saxon culture. Medical texts regularly used common kitchen ingredients, including fruits, herbs, honey, vinegar, dairy, and grains. This does not mean every dish was medicinal, but it does show that food and bodily comfort were closely connected.

More Like This

• Ceilidh XVI – March 29, 2003: Original Feast Record
• Reconstructing an Anglo-Saxon Feast: Ceilidh XVI Revisited
• Medieval Cooking Basics: Spice Powders
• Five Medieval Breakfast Dishes Worth Waking Up For

Sources and Further Reading

• Mary Savelli, Tastes of Anglo-Saxon England. Anglo-Saxon Books, 2002.
• Ann Hagen, Anglo-Saxon Food: Processing and Consumption. University College London, 1992.
• Bosworth–Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, entry for syfling.
• Thomas Oswald Cockayne, ed., Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, Vol. II.
• Bald’s Leechbook, British Library Manuscript Viewer.
• Apicius, The Roman Cookery of Apicius, translated and adapted by John Edwards, 1984.
• Apicius Online, LacusCurtius.

Final Thought: Revisiting this recipe made me appreciate Mary Savelli’s work more. With modern tools, digitized sources, and twenty years of additional cooking experience, I understand Æppla Syfling differently today. But the trail she followed still feels thoughtful, plausible, and very much worth tasting.

Would you serve Æppla Syfling with warm bread, or beside sausage and roast pork?

Reconstructing an Anglo-Saxon Feast: Ceilidh XVI Revisited (2003–2026)

Reconstructing an Anglo-Saxon Feast: Ceilidh XVI Revisited (2003–2026)

What began as a simple update to an old feast post became something much more interesting: a return to the table with better sources, sharper questions, and a little culinary archaeology.

Ceilidh XVI, March 29, 2003. An Anglo-Saxon inspired feast revisited more than twenty years later through updated sources, culinary archaeology, and historical reconstruction.

Original Feast Record: This post revisits an Anglo-Saxon inspired feast cooked for Ceilidh XVI on March 29, 2003, and later documented on Give It Forth in 2015.

Read the preserved original feast post here.

In March of 2003, I prepared an Anglo-Saxon inspired feast for Ceilidh XVI. At the time, I relied heavily on the sources available to me, especially Mary Savelli’s Tastes of Anglo-Saxon England. Twelve years later, in 2015, I documented the menu and recipes on Give It Forth. Now, more than two decades after the feast itself, I am returning to that table with fresh eyes.

This revisit is not meant to erase the original feast. The old post remains part of the record: a snapshot of what I knew, what I could access, and how I interpreted Anglo-Saxon foodways at the time. Instead, this new hub gathers updated research, source links, and revised questions as I work through the menu dish by dish.

Some recipes may stand up better than expected. Others may need to be reframed as interpretive, Roman-influenced, or modern stand-ins. A few may even prove more historically thoughtful than their critics have allowed.

Culinary Archaeology Note: For this revisit, I am separating the original feast record from the updated research. The 2015 post preserves the menu and recipes as they were remembered and recorded. This hub asks what we can learn now by returning to the sources.

The Original Menu

First Course

• Mearh Smeamete – Sausage Casserole
  Updated recipe post: Mearh Smeamete – Reconstructing an Anglo-Saxon Sausage Delicacy
• Hlaf – Bread
  Updated recipe post: coming soon
• Æppla Syfling – Apple Butter, or Savory Apple Sauce?
  Updated research post: Æppla Syfling: Following the Trail of an Anglo-Saxon Apple Butter
• Caules Wyrtmete – Cabbage Salad
  Updated recipe post: coming soon

Second Course

• Hriðer Smeamete – Stewed Beef
  Updated recipe post: coming soon
• Beren Briw – Barley Polenta
  Updated recipe post: coming soon
• Hunigbæe Moran – Honeyed Carrots
  Updated recipe post: coming soon

Third Course

• Sciellfisc – Shellfish
  Updated recipe post: coming soon
• Brǣdan Fisc – Fish Baked with Coriander
  Updated recipe post: coming soon
• Pisan – Peas with Salt and Oil
  Updated recipe post: coming soon

Fourth Course

• Sumerlio Mearhgehæcc – Summer Pudding
  Updated research note: coming soon
• Hunigæppel – Honey Nut Cakes
  Updated recipe post: coming soon

Anglo-Saxon Dining at a Glance

• Seasonality mattered. Fresh foods, preserved foods, dairy, fish, and meats all followed the rhythm of the year.
• Bread was central. Many meals were built around bread with an accompaniment, relish, cheese, meat, fish, or pottage.
• Boiling and stewing were common. These methods made practical use of tough meats, salt meats, grains, legumes, and vegetables.
• Food and medicine overlapped. Medical texts regularly used common kitchen ingredients such as apples, herbs, honey, vinegar, butter, milk, and ale.
• Sharp sauces had a purpose. Tart fruit, vinegar, herbs, and spices could help balance rich foods and aid digestion.

Why Revisit This Feast?

Anglo-Saxon food is difficult to reconstruct. Unlike later medieval English cookery, we do not have a large body of direct culinary recipe collections from the period. Instead, evidence must be gathered from many places: medical texts, herbals, glossaries, food rents, archaeology, monastic rules, later culinary traditions, and comparative Roman or early medieval sources.

That means any reconstructed Anglo-Saxon feast requires caution. It also means that some older reconstructions, especially those written for practical cooks, may be more thoughtful than they first appear. They may not always show their full source trail, but that does not mean there was no trail.

One of the most interesting examples from this feast is Æppla Syfling, originally presented as “apple butter.” At first glance, the recipe looks odd to modern readers: apples, apple juice, honey, black pepper, mint, and cumin. But when examined beside Ann Hagen’s work on Anglo-Saxon food, Bald’s Leechbook, and Apicius, the dish begins to look less like a sweet spread and more like a tart, savory sauce meant to accompany meat or fish.

Food as Medicine in Anglo-Saxon England

One of the most useful ways to understand this feast is through the idea that food and medicine were not sharply separated. Anglo-Saxon medical texts often use ordinary ingredients: apples, herbs, butter, honey, vinegar, milk, ale, grains, and meats. These foods could nourish, strengthen, soothe, stimulate, cool, warm, or aid digestion.

This does not mean every meal was planned according to the fully developed humoral theory familiar from later medieval medicine and cookery. But it does suggest that Anglo-Saxon cooks and healers understood food as something that affected the body. A dish could be pleasurable and practical. A sauce could taste good and help rich food sit better in the stomach.

Food as Medicine: The pantry and the pharmacy were close neighbors in early medieval England. Herbs, fruits, honey, vinegar, dairy, and grains appear in medical texts not as exotic curiosities, but as everyday materials used to restore, strengthen, soothe, and balance the body.

Medical and herbal texts circulating in Anglo-Saxon England also support this broader food-as-medicine context. The Old English Herbarium, derived from the late antique Herbarium of Pseudo-Apuleius, survives in several manuscripts and belongs to the same world of practical plant knowledge as the leechbooks. These texts show a culture in which herbs and foods were understood through their effects on the body.

For this feast, that matters. Mint, cumin, pepper, vinegar, honey, apples, and other ingredients were not merely flavorings. They carried associations with digestion, appetite, preservation, and bodily comfort.

Bald’s Leechbook, a 10th-century Old English medical manuscript preserving remedies using familiar foods and herbs, including preparations involving apples, mint, cumin, and pepper.

Source Spotlight: Bald’s Leechbook

Bald’s Leechbook is a 10th-century Old English medical collection. It is not a cookbook, but it is filled with preparations using familiar foods and herbs. That makes it valuable for understanding how Anglo-Saxon people thought about ingredients, digestion, and bodily effects.

The apple preparation that seems most relevant to Æppla Syfling involves sour apples or crabapples with mint, pepper, and cumin in a digestive context. This does not prove that the dish was served at table exactly as Mary Savelli reconstructed it. It does show that apples, herbs, and warming spices belonged together in an Anglo-Saxon medicinal-food vocabulary.

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Roman Echoes: Apicius

Roman Influence: Apicius preserves a number of sharp, savory sauces that combine herbs, spices, honey, vinegar, and fish or shellfish broth. These are not Anglo-Saxon recipes, but they help show a wider ancient and early medieval taste for sweet, sour, herbal, and savory combinations.

A Roman parallel? John Edwards’ The Roman Cookery of Apicius includes cumin sauces for oysters and shellfish using mint, cumin, pepper, honey, and vinegar. While not Anglo-Saxon, these flavor combinations help contextualize the sharp, herbal qualities of Æppla Syfling.

This matters because Mary Savelli’s apple recipe includes honey, mint, cumin, and pepper: a combination that looks much less strange when compared with Roman sauces for fish and shellfish. The Roman evidence does not make Æppla Syfling Roman, but it helps explain the culinary logic behind a sharp, spiced sauce served with rich or savory foods.

Case Study: Æppla Syfling

The apple dish may become the first full deep-dive in this revisit because it reveals how complex early food reconstruction can be.

Mary Savelli’s recipe uses apples, apple cider or juice, honey, black pepper, mint, and cumin. At first glance, calling this “apple butter” encourages modern readers to imagine a sweet spread for bread. But the evidence points in another direction.

• Hagen: Fruit sauces could accompany meat and fish and help “cut the fat.”
• Bald’s Leechbook: A preparation involving sour apples or crabapples appears with mint, pepper, and cumin in a digestive context.
• Apicius: Roman sauces for shellfish include sharp combinations of pepper, mint, cumin, honey, vinegar, and broth.

Taken together, these sources suggest that Æppla Syfling may be more plausible as a savory apple sauce than as a modern-style apple butter. It may belong beside sausage, pork, beef, or fish rather than on breakfast toast.

Working Interpretation: Æppla Syfling was likely tart, herbal, lightly sweetened, and digestive. A modern reconstruction should probably lean toward crabapples or tart apples, less honey, and a sauce-like texture rather than a heavily reduced preserve.

Full research post: Æppla Syfling: Anglo-Saxon Apple Butter or Savory Apple Sauce? 

Reconsidering Mary Savelli

Tastes of Anglo-Saxon England has often been criticized because many of its recipes are interpretive. That criticism is understandable. Anglo-Saxon cooking sources are sparse, and modern readers often want direct manuscript recipes with clear instructions.

However, this revisit suggests that at least some of Savelli’s reconstructions may deserve a more generous reading. The apple dish, for example, appears to draw from a recognizable source pattern: Hagen’s discussion of fruit sauces, Bald’s Leechbook and its apple preparation, and Apicius as a comparative model for sharp, spiced sauces with honey, mint, cumin, and pepper.

That does not make the reconstruction certain. It does make it historically defensible. For Anglo-Saxon foodways, where the evidence is fragmentary, that distinction matters.

What I Would Change Today

Revisiting a feast after more than twenty years feels a little like opening an old cookbook written by another version of myself. Some choices still surprise me. Some make me wince a little. Others, unexpectedly, make more sense now than they did then.

Historical cooking changes as research changes. Revisiting old work is not about proving younger versions of ourselves wrong. It is about understanding the choices we made, learning what we missed, and asking better questions. Sometimes old recipes need correction. Sometimes they need context. And sometimes they turn out to have a better source trail than expected.

That is what makes this revisit so exciting. It is not simply a recipe update. It is a chance to ask how Anglo-Saxon people may have thought about food: as nourishment, medicine, status, seasonality, pleasure, and comfort.

Recipe Status and Research Notes

As I revisit each dish, I will sort the recipes into broad categories:

• Historically Grounded: Recipes or dishes with strong support from Anglo-Saxon sources or foodways.
• Interpretive Reconstruction: Dishes built from plausible ingredients, methods, archaeology, or comparative evidence.
• Roman or Classical Influence: Recipes drawn from Apicius or other Roman sources used to fill gaps or show culinary continuity.
• Modern Stand-In: Dishes included for feast service, seasonality, or practical reasons but not directly Anglo-Saxon.

This does not make the original feast “wrong.” It makes the update more transparent. Readers can see where the evidence is strong, where it is speculative, and where the cook made practical choices.

Updated Recipe Links

As each recipe is revisited, I will add the updated posts below.

• Mearh Smeamete – Sausage Casserole 
• Hlaf – Anglo-Saxon Bread (coming soon)
• Æppla Syfling – Apple Sauce, Not Apple Butter?  
• Caules Wyrtmete – Cabbage Salad (coming soon)
• Hriðer Smeamete – Stewed Beef (coming soon)
• Beren Briw – Barley Pottage (coming soon)
• Hunigbæe Moran – Honeyed Carrots (coming soon)
• Sciellfisc – Shellfish (coming soon)
• Brǣdan Fisc – Fish Baked with Coriander (coming soon)
• Pisan – Peas with Salt and Oil (coming soon)
• Sumerlio Mearhgehæcc – Summer Pudding (coming soon)
• Hunigæppel – Honey Nut Cakes (coming soon)

Frequently Asked Questions About Anglo-Saxon Food

Did Anglo-Saxons use spices?

Yes. Pepper, cumin, coriander, and other seasonings appear in medical, herbal, and comparative culinary contexts. Imported spices were not everyday peasant staples, but they were known and used in elite, medical, and monastic settings.

Was Anglo-Saxon food bland?

Not necessarily. Herbs, vinegar, honey, dairy, salt, preserved foods, and imported spices could create complex flavors. The surviving evidence suggests a cuisine that could be sharp, herbal, rich, smoky, sour, sweet, and savory.

Did Anglo-Saxons eat apples with meat?

Direct culinary recipes are scarce, but evidence from Ann Hagen’s work, Bald’s Leechbook, and later medieval English foodways suggests that fruit sauces could accompany meat and fish. Tart apple preparations may have helped balance rich foods.

Was food considered medicine?

Often, yes. Anglo-Saxon medical texts regularly use ordinary foods and kitchen ingredients. This does not mean every meal was medicinal, but it does show that food and bodily health were closely connected.

Did Anglo-Saxons use humoral theory?

Anglo-Saxon medical culture inherited ideas from classical and late antique medicine, but the elaborate humoral meal planning familiar from later medieval Europe was not yet fully developed. It is safer to speak of digestive logic, bodily effects, and food-as-medicine rather than fully formalized humoral dining.

More Like This

• Ceilidh XVI – March 29, 2003: Original Feast Record
• Five Medieval Breakfast Dishes Worth Waking Up For
• Medieval Cooking Basics: Spice Powders
• Dent-de-Lion: The Dandelion in Medieval Cuisine
• Medieval Wortes and Buttered Greens

Sources and Further Reading

• Original Give It Forth feast record: Ceilidh XVI – March 29, 2003
• Mary Savelli, Tastes of Anglo-Saxon England. Anglo-Saxon Books, 2002.
• Ann Hagen, Anglo-Saxon Food: Processing & Consumption. University College London, 1992.
• Thomas Oswald Cockayne, ed., Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England.
• Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, Volume II.
• Apicius, Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome, translated by Joseph Dommers Vehling.
• Herbarium of Pseudo-Apuleius, Old English herbal tradition.

Next in this series: The first full recipe investigation will look at Æppla Syfling and ask whether this so-called Anglo-Saxon “apple butter” is better understood as a tart apple sauce for meat and fish.

What do you think? Would you spread Æppla Syfling on bread, or serve it beside roasted meat?

Medieval Braised Kale and Collards in Beef Broth (Lange Wortys de Chare)

Medieval Braised Greens in Beef Broth - Lange Wortys de Chare

Lange Wortys de Chare, medieval braised greens simmered in beef broth and thickened with bread.

Much like Caboges, this dish of mixed greens braised in beef broth is far better than it appears at first reading.

A simple dish of greens? No. This is kale and collards, or other sturdy greens, first parboiled, then simmered again with beef, marrow bones, saffron, salt, and grated white bread. The result is not a sad little bowl of boiled leaves. It is a savory, bread-thickened pottage with rich broth clinging to the greens.

At a glance: This is a 15th-century English greens recipe from Harleian MS 279. The greens are cooked twice, enriched with beef broth and marrow bones, seasoned with saffron and salt, and thickened with grated white bread.

That is what medieval cooks did so well. They took humble ingredients and gave them structure, seasoning, fat, and patience.

What Is Lange Wortys de Chare?

Lange Wortys de Chare appears in Harleian MS 279, a 15th-century English cookery manuscript edited by Thomas Austin in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. The title may be understood as long wortes, or leafy greens, cooked with flesh. In this case, the flesh is beef with marrow bones.

This recipe belongs to the same family of medieval greens and vegetable pottages as Medieval Wortys, Lange Wortes de Pesoun, Joutes, Whyte Wortes, and Caboges.

Why Did Medieval Cooks Boil Greens Twice?

This recipe asks the cook to parboil the greens first, then cook them again in the beef broth. That may sound redundant, but it is an important part of the method.

Many sturdy greens, especially members of the brassica family such as kale, collards, cabbage leaves, and mustard greens, can be bitter or tough. The first boiling softens them and removes some harshness. The second cooking gives them flavor. Plain water takes something away; broth gives something back.

Kitchen lesson: The first boil tames the greens. The second boil feeds them. This is the difference between plain boiled greens and a medieval pottage worth serving.

That is still good kitchen sense. Modern cooks do similar things with collards, kale, mustard greens, and other bitter greens when they simmer them with stock, fat, smoked meat, or seasoning. Medieval cooks were not merely enduring greens. They were making them delicious.

Caboges and Lange Wortys: Cousins in the Pot

Caboges and Lange Wortys de Chare use nearly the same technique. Both recipes begin by parboiling the vegetable, then cooking it again in broth with marrow or marrow bones. Both use saffron and salt. Both are thickened with grated bread.

The difference is the vegetable. Caboges uses cabbage. Lange Wortys de Chare uses leafy greens. If Caboges is the cabbage cousin, Lange Wortys de Chare is the earthier, greener sibling.

What Greens Can You Use?

I used a mixture of kale and collards, which works beautifully. Both are sturdy greens and fit well with the medieval idea of wortes or coleworts. Other good choices include mustard greens, turnip greens, beet greens, cabbage leaves, or a mixture of bitter and mild greens.

I would avoid using only tender spinach unless you want a very soft result. Spinach cooks quickly and does not behave like kale or collards in a long simmer. This recipe wants greens with some backbone.

Best modern greens: kale, collards, mustard greens, turnip greens, beet greens, cabbage leaves, or a mixed pot of sturdy bitter greens.

For a deeper discussion of medieval wortes, coleworts, and the brassica family, see my post on Medieval Wortys.

Why Add Bread to Braised Greens?

The manuscript calls for a loaf of white bread to be grated into the pot. This is not filler. Bread was one of the great medieval thickeners, used in sauces, soups, stews, and pottages. Grated white bread dissolves into hot broth and gives it body, turning thin cooking liquid into something soft, rich, and spoonable.

For modern cooks, day-old manchet or another fine white bread is ideal. It grates better than fresh bread and thickens the broth more smoothly. Add it slowly, stirring well, because bread clumps are stubborn little gremlins.

Why This Dish Belongs at a Feast

Greens were inexpensive, useful, and widely available, but this recipe is not plain poverty food. Beef, marrow bones, saffron, white bread, and the labor of cooking the greens twice all raise the dish. It is budget-friendly compared with showier meats, but still rich enough to belong on a feast table.

This would be an excellent dish for an SCA feast. It is affordable, flexible, and deeply period in technique. It can be served brothier or thicker, lighter on the greens or packed with them. Greens cook down dramatically. A great heap becomes a much smaller pot. That is what greens do.

Greens and Humoral Balance in the Medieval Kitchen

Medieval cooks did not think about food only in terms of flavor. Food was also understood through the lens of humoral theory, in which ingredients were believed to possess qualities such as hot, cold, moist, or dry. Leafy greens were often considered cooling and moistening foods, useful in balancing richer or warmer dishes.

Yet greens could also be viewed as difficult if eaten raw or prepared poorly. This may help explain the careful treatment in recipes such as Lange Wortys de Chare. First the greens are parboiled, softening harshness and bitterness. Then they are cooked again in rich beef broth with marrow and saffron, ingredients associated with warmth, nourishment, and comfort. Bread thickens and softens the dish further, creating something more balanced and sustaining.

Humoral note: The greens begin as cooling, moist, and potentially harsh. The broth, marrow, saffron, and bread transform them into a warmer, richer, more sustaining pottage.

In other words, medieval cooks were not simply boiling vegetables. They were transforming them into food considered more agreeable to the body as well as the table.

Historic Recipe

The recipe below is from Thomas Austin’s edition of Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. Harleian MS. 279 (ab. 1430), & Harl. MS. 4016 (ab. 1450), with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1429, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS. 55.

.j. Lange Wortys de chare. Take beeff and merybonys, and boyle yt in fayre water; þan take fayre wortys and wassche hem clene in water, and parboyle hem in clene water; þan take hem vp of þe water after þe fyrst boylyng, an cut þe leuys a-to or a-þre, and caste hem in-to þe beff, and boyle to gederys: þan take a lof of whyte brede and grate yt, an caste it on þe pot, an safron & salt, & let it boyle y-now, and serue forth.

Modern Translation

Take beef and marrow bones, and boil them in clean water. Then take good greens and wash them clean in water, and parboil them in clean water. Take them up from the water after the first boiling, cut the leaves in two or three pieces, and put them into the beef, and boil together. Then take a loaf of white bread and grate it, and add it to the pot with saffron and salt. Let it boil enough, and serve it forth.

Modern Recipe Notes

This interpretation uses kale and collards as the greens, homemade beef stock as the broth, grated bread as the thickener, and saffron as the seasoning. If you have marrow from making the stock, add it at the end so it remains visible and rich.

The original recipe begins with beef and marrow bones boiled in water. For modern kitchens, prepared beef stock is easier. Homemade stock made with marrow bones is ideal.

Wild Brassica oleracea, ancestor of many familiar greens and cabbage-family vegetables. Image originally linked from kottke.org.

Medieval Braised Cabbage with Marrow Bones – Caboges from Harleian MS 279

Medieval Braised Cabbage with Marrow Bones: Caboges from Harleian MS 279

Caboges, a medieval braised cabbage dish from Harleian MS 279, served here with bread.

A humble dish of cabbage can still surprise you.

When I first made this recipe for Caboges from Harleian MS 279, I expected something plain and useful: boiled cabbage, perhaps a little broth, a serviceable green thing on the side of the table. Instead, I found tender cabbage braised in rich broth, scented with saffron, thickened with fine bread, and finished with marrow from the bones. It was cabbage dressed for court.

Even sworn cabbage haters tried it and wanted more. Success!

This recipe is one of several vegetable-forward dishes from Harleian MS 279, a 15th-century English cookery manuscript edited by Thomas Austin in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. It belongs in the same delicious family as medieval wortes, Whyte Wortes, Lange Wortys de Chare, and Joutes.

What Are Caboges?

Caboges is the Middle English form of “cabbages.” But this is not simply boiled cabbage. The recipe directs the cook to clean and parboil the cabbage, press it dry, chop it, and then cook it again in fresh broth with marrow bones. The broth is thickened either with grated fine bread or with a strained meat gruel. At service, the marrow is knocked from the bones and placed visibly in the dish.

That finishing touch matters. This is where the recipe moves from plain vegetable cookery into feast-worthy food.

Why Was This Medieval Cabbage Recipe Fit for a Feast?

Modern readers often imagine medieval vegetable dishes as plain or rustic, but medieval cooks knew how to elevate simple ingredients. Here, cabbage becomes noble through treatment:

• It is cooked twice for better texture and flavor.
• It is simmered in fresh broth rather than plain water.
• It is enriched with marrow bones.
• It is colored and scented with saffron.
• It is thickened with grated fine bread into a soft pottage.

The cabbage may be inexpensive, but the broth, marrow, saffron, bread, fuel, and kitchen labor all add value. This is one of the joys of medieval cooking: the simplest vegetable can become something luxurious when handled with care.

How Would Caboges Have Been Served?

Caboges would likely have appeared among the wortes, pottages, or vegetable dishes of a medieval meal, served alongside roasted meats, meat pies, bread, or other greens. The marrow bones and saffron suggest a dish meant for a table with resources, not merely a plain household cabbage. This is the kind of recipe that reminds us that medieval feast food was not only about spectacular meats and subtleties. Sometimes the quiet dish at the side of the table was doing serious work.

Why Did Medieval Cooks Use Bread to Thicken Soup and Pottage?

Bread appears throughout medieval cookery as a thickener for sauces, pottages, broths, and stews. Before modern cornstarch, commercial thickeners, or the familiar flour-and-butter roux, cooks often relied on grated bread, soaked bread, ground almonds, egg yolks, or strained grain and meat mixtures to give body to a dish.

In this recipe, the manuscript calls for fayre brede, or fine bread. For a modern kitchen, a day-old manchet or other good white bread works beautifully. It grates more easily than very fresh bread and dissolves into the broth, creating a smooth, velvety texture. I originally made this with grated Rastons, but manchet is likely the better everyday recommendation for readers who want to recreate the dish.

Bread also reflects the no-waste wisdom of the medieval kitchen. Yesterday’s loaf could become today’s sauce, sop, trencher, or pottage. In Caboges, the bread is not filler. It is the quiet magic that turns broth into something spoonable and satisfying.

Why Does the Recipe Offer Bread or Meat Gruel?

The recipe gives two ways to enrich and thicken the dish: grated fine bread, or a strained gruel made from fresh meat. The bread version is more approachable for a modern kitchen and produces a smooth pottage. The meat-gruel version would have made the dish even richer, especially in a busy medieval kitchen where broth, meat, and strained cooking liquids were already part of the day’s work.

Why Do the Marrow Bones Matter?

The marrow bones are not incidental. The recipe tells the cook to boil the cabbage with marrow bones, then knock out the marrow and lay two or three pieces in the dish at service. That means the marrow is both flavoring and garnish.

For modern cooks, bone marrow can feel unfamiliar, but it brings deep richness. Think of it as the medieval equivalent of finishing a dish with butter, olive oil, or the most luxurious spoonful of beef essence imaginable. If you make your own stock with marrow bones, do not waste the marrow. Use it. The manuscript wants you to.

Cabbage in Medieval Food Philosophy

Cabbage and other brassicas were useful, filling, and widely eaten, but they could also be considered coarse, windy, or difficult if poorly prepared. This recipe manages cabbage through careful technique. Parboiling softens and tames it. Pressing removes excess water. The second cooking in broth makes it nourishing. Saffron adds warmth and fragrance, while bread gives the broth body. The result is not limp cabbage water, but a carefully balanced pottage.

Historic Recipe

The recipe below is from Thomas Austin’s edition of Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. Harleian MS. 279 (ab. 1430), & Harl. MS. 4016 (ab. 1450), with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1429, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS. 55.

.iiij. Caboges. Take fayre caboges, an cutte hem, an pike hem clene and clene washe hem, an parboyle hem in fayre water, an þanne presse hem on a fayre bord; an þan choppe hem, and caste hem in a faire pot with goode freysshe broth, an wyth mery-bonys, and let it boyle: þanne grate fayre brede and caste þer-to, an caste þer-to Safron an salt; or ellys take gode grwel y-mad of freys flesshe, y-draw þorw a straynour, and caste þer-to. An whan þou seruyst yt inne, knocke owt þe marw of þe bonys, an ley þe marwe .ij. gobettys or .iij. in a dysshe, as þe semyth best, & serue forth.

Modern Translation

Take good cabbages, cut them, pick them clean, and wash them well. Parboil them in clean water, then press them on a clean board. Chop them, and put them in a clean pot with good fresh broth and marrow bones, and let it boil. Then grate fine bread and add it, and add saffron and salt. Or else take good gruel made of fresh meat, strained through a strainer, and add that. When you serve it, knock the marrow out of the bones and lay two or three pieces of marrow in the dish, as seems best, and serve it forth.

Modern Recipe Notes

This interpretation follows the breadcrumb-thickened version of the recipe rather than the alternate strained meat gruel. The first boiling softens the cabbage and removes some of its stronger edge. Pressing the cabbage keeps the final dish from becoming watery. The second cooking in broth gives depth, while the grated bread thickens the broth into a soft pottage.

The saffron is included in the original recipe, but I mark it as optional for modern cooks because of cost. If you have it, use it. It adds color, fragrance, and a little medieval splendor.

Simple ingredients: cabbage, broth, bread, saffron, and marrow.

Soupes Jamberlayne – Sops of Bread in Mulled Wine

Soupes Jamberlayne – Sops of Bread in Mulled Wine

Originally published November 10, 2015. Updated June 7, 2026.

Soupes Jamberlayne, a medieval dish of toasted bread soaked in spiced wine.

Soupes Jamberlayne, also known as Sops Chamberlain, is a simple but fascinating dish from Harleian MS. 279: toasted bread soaked in sweetened, spiced wine and served “in manner of a potage.” It sits in that wonderfully medieval territory where bread, drink, sauce, and spoon dish all overlap.

This is not my favorite recipe from the manuscript, and I want to be honest about that. Wine can be a migraine trigger for me, so wine-heavy dishes are not recipes I return to often. Still, Soupes Jamberlayne is historically valuable because it shows us how important sops were in late medieval English cooking. Medieval cooks did not merely serve bread beside liquids; they often built entire dishes around bread absorbing broth, milk, almond milk, wine, or sauce.

Think of this less as “soggy bread” and more as a warm, spiced, wine-soaked bread pottage. The bread gives body. The wine gives warmth and acidity. Ginger, cinnamon, sugar, and blaunch powder turn the liquid into something closer to mulled wine. It may not be everyone’s perfect breakfast, but it absolutely belongs in the medieval sop family alongside Lyode Soppes, Soupes Dorye, Bruet of Almaynne in Lente, and Rastons.