Smale Byrdys y-stwyde - Small Birds Stewed in Wine and Spices

Harleian MS 279, about 1430, Smale Byrdys y-stwyde - Small Birds Stewed

Originally published April 18, 2016. Updated June 2026.

Medieval cooks were practical cooks. A recipe did not always name a single bird, cut of meat, or exact modern equivalent because the medieval kitchen often worked with what the household, market, dovecote, poultry yard, or hunt provided. Smale Byrdys y-stwyde, or “Small Birds Stewed,” from Harleian MS 279 is one of those wonderfully flexible recipes.

The instruction is not for chicken alone, nor for one specific game bird. It is a method for preparing small birds in a richly seasoned wine sauce. The birds are first fried, then drained, then returned to a pot with onions, wine, cinnamon, cloves, mace, pepper, saffron, sugar, ginger, and salt. In modern terms, this is less a plain stew and more a medieval braise: browned meat finished gently in a fragrant cooking liquor.

This recipe belongs to the same family of sauced poultry dishes as several other recipes in Harleian MS 279, including Gelyne in Dubbatte - Chicken in Wine Sauce, Henne in Bokenade - Stewed Chicken in Sauce, Pertrich y-stwyde - Partridge Stewed, and Quystis Scun. What makes Smale Byrdys especially interesting is the breadth of the title. It assumes a kitchen familiar with many kinds of birds and gives a flexible method rather than a narrowly fixed recipe.

Brawn en Peuerade | Medieval Pork Pottage in Pepper Sauce (Harleian MS 279)

Brawn en Peuerade, a medieval pork pottage in pepper sauce from Harleian MS 279.

Originally published March 11, 2016. Updated June 24, 2026 with expanded historical notes, seasonality discussion, pottage classification, internal links, and a copy-friendly modern reconstruction.

Brawn en Peuerade is a fifteenth-century English pork pottage from Harleian MS 279. The dish combines pork, wine, onions, vinegar, pepper, ginger, and warming spices into a sharply flavored pepper sauce that the manuscript tells us should be "as potage shulde be."

That phrase matters. Although the modern title may sound like a meat dish with sauce, the original recipe gives us a strong clue about its intended texture and service. It should be neither too thick nor too thin, but spoonable, saucy, and substantial. For that reason, this recipe belongs among Pottages & First Course Dishes rather than among dry roasted, fried, grilled, or baked meats.

Auter Brawn en Peuerade | Medieval Pork Pottage with Pepper Sauce (Harleian MS 279)

Auter Brawn en Peuerade, a medieval pork pottage with pepper sauce from Harleian MS 279.

Originally published March 14, 2016. Updated June 24, 2026 with expanded historical notes, feast placement discussion, color theory context, internal links, and a copy-friendly modern reconstruction.

Auter Brawn en Peuerade, or "another brawn in pepper sauce," is a fifteenth-century English pork pottage from Harleian MS 279. It combines pork, onions, broth, wine, vinegar, pepper, saffron, and warming spices into a richly colored dish that sits somewhere between a stew, a sauce, and a medieval pottage.

This recipe is especially useful because it appears alongside another version of Brawn en Peuerade. The earlier version is based more heavily on wine, while this "auter" version begins with a strong broth of beef or capon. Together, the two recipes show how medieval cooks could adapt the same flavor family to different ingredients, textures, and service styles.