Brawn of Swyne / Brawn with Mustard — Harleian MS 279 vs. Forme of Cury vs. Good Huswife’s Jewel

Period-inspired brawn served cold with sharp mustard — a fifteenth-century English favorite.

Brawn of Swyne / Brawn with Mustard

Last updated: October 10, 2025

This post compares the medieval dish Brawn of Swyne across three sources: Harleian MS 279 (c.1430), Forme of Cury (c.1390), and the late-Tudor The Good Huswife’s Jewel (1585/1596). You’ll find original texts, plain-English renderings, a contrast table, an authenticity explainer for new cooks, and a concise Harleian-leaning modern redaction.

TL;DR: All three sources agree: brawn (boar/pork) is served cold with strong mustard. Harleian 279 uniquely adds a brief wine soak. Forme of Cury is earlier but near-identical. Dawson’s Good Huswife’s Jewel shows the same dish living on in the 16th century.

1) Harleian MS 279 (c.1430) — “Brawn of Swyne”

Middle English: Brawn of Swyne. Take Brawn of Swyne, and seþe hit; and whan hit is y-sothe, pare hit and lay hit in wyne, and serue hit forth with mustard.

Modern rendering: Boil the pork brawn; when cooked, slice/trim it and lay it in wine; serve with mustard.

• Distinctive feature: the quick wine soak before service.
• Service: cold, thin slices with sharp mustard.
• Text: Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books (EETS 1888), p. 25.

2) Forme of Cury (c.1390) — “Brawne of Swyne”

Middle English (abridged): Brawne of Swyne... sethe it and serve it forth with Mustard.

Modern rendering: Boil pork brawn and serve it with mustard (no wine soak specified).

• Text: Forme of Cury (ed. Pegge), p. 95.

3) The Good Huswife’s Jewel (1585/1596) — “Brawn with Mustard”

See my late-Tudor descendant here: Brawn with Mustard (Dawson).

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Compare & Contrast at a Glance

Source	Date	Core Method	Unique Step	Mustard Note
Harleian MS 279	c.1430	Boil → slice → lay in wine → serve cold	Wine soak before service	Rustic wet mustard (seed + wine/vinegar + salt)
Forme of Cury	c.1390	Boil → slice → serve cold	—	Same condiment; simple instruction
Good Huswife’s Jewel	1585/1596	Boil/cure → slice → serve cold	Printed domestic tips; seasonings trend sweeter	Mustard with wine/vinegar; later sugar appears in print culture

What “brawn” really means — and how it was prepared

In period, brawn was cured pork or boar—typically shoulder, neck, or head—put up in salt during autumn for winter feasts. When Harleian says “Take brawn of swyne, and seþe hit,” it assumes the meat is already salted. Boiling softens and reheats the preserved meat for slicing; the wine soak perfumes it; mustard completes the service.

Household records mention both “brawn of boor salte and fresshe” in service. See the Household Ordinances of Edward IV and the Harleian text itself: Harleian MS 279, “Brawn of Swyne”; compare Forme of Cury, “Brawne of Swyne”. A late Tudor descendant appears in The Good Huswife’s Jewel (1585).

1) The basic medieval cure

Plain coarse salt (sometimes a little saltpetre) for a week or more, then gentle boiling and a brief wine soak before service.

2) Aromatic “luxury” cures

Noble kitchens sometimes added peppercorns, cloves, mace, sage, or bay, mirroring salted fish/venison methods: “To Salt Fresh Salmon” and “To Salt Venison” (Harleian MS 279).

3) Preparing brawn today

• If using cured meat: start with unsmoked salt pork, salt-cured ham, or brined shoulder; soak overnight to reduce salt before simmering gently.
• If using fresh pork: a simple brine for 3–5 days under refrigeration (per quart water: 1/4 cup coarse salt, a few peppercorns, 2–3 cloves, 1–2 bay leaves, splash of white wine or vinegar). Rinse, then simmer gently.
• To serve: slice thin, lay briefly in wine (Harleian), and serve cold with sharp mustard.

🕯️ “Lord’s Salt” (optional, elite cure): Some noble households kept a perfumed preserving mix called Lord’s Salt (sal domini): fine salt blended with a little saltpetre and warming spices (pepper, cloves, mace), sometimes with sage or bay. It yields rosy, aromatic brawn for display tables. Ordinary kitchens used plain salt. References: EETS intro (sal domini), Household Ordinances, Liber Cure Cocorum, Boke of Kervynge (1508).

Modern Redaction (Harleian-leaning)

Serves 10–12 as slices with mustard.

• 3–4 lb boneless pork shoulder (or unsmoked salt pork / salt-cured ham; see notes)
• Dry white wine (about 1 bottle; divided: 1 cup for simmering, remainder for brief soak)
• A few whole peppercorns or a pinch of powdour fort; a little salt to taste
• Mustard (period-style): 3 Tbsp mustard seed (coarsely ground), 2–3 Tbsp wine or wine vinegar, pinch of salt

1. If using fresh pork: brine 3–5 days (see explainer). Rinse before cooking.
2. Simmer: Cover meat with water and add 1 cup wine, pepper, and a little salt. Simmer gently until very tender (about 2–3 hours for shoulder; less for cured ham).
3. Chill: Cool and chill under light weight for neat slicing.
4. Slice & soak: Slice thin; lay in a shallow dish with enough wine to scent (10–20 minutes). Drain well.
5. Mustard: Grind mustard seed; wet with wine or vinegar and salt to a thick paste. (For a 16th-c. profile, whisk in a little sugar.)
6. Serve cold with mustard alongside.

🥕 Dietary notes: Naturally gluten-free if mustard ingredients are GF. Contains pork. Substitutions: cured ham or salted beef (period-plausible).

Humoral & Menu Placement

In meat-day first courses (like Russell’s), brawn is a hot & dry food offset by moist wine and mustard. It signals winter plenty and often appears at Christmas or Twelfth Night.

Sources & Editions

• Harleian MS 279 (c.1430), in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books (EETS, 1888).
• The Forme of Cury (c.1390), ed. Pegge.
• Thomas Dawson, The Good Huswife’s Jewel (1585/1596), Internet Archive.

Labels: Appetizer, Medieval Finger Food, Pork, Feast Planning, Period Techniques, Medieval, Harleian MS 279, Forme of Cury

Balloke Brothe – Medieval Eel Broth (Harleian MS. 279, c.1430)

Balloke Brothe – Medieval Eel Broth (Harleian MS. 279, ab. 1430)

                                 Eel from the 13th-century  Ashmole Bestiary

Source: Harleian MS. 279, ab. 1430, recipe xxv.

📜 Original Recipe

xxv - Balloke Brothe. Take Elys and fle hem, an kytte hem in gobouns, an caste hem in-to a fayre potte with fayre water; than take Percely and Oynonys, an schrede hem to-gederys nowt to smal; take Clowes, Maces, an powder Pepyr, an caste ther-to a gode porcyon of wyne; then take 3est of New ale an caste ther-to, an let boyle: an when the Elys byn wyl y-boylid, take fayre stokfysshe, an do a-way the skyn, an caste ther-to, an let boyle a whyle; then take Safroun and Salt, an a lytil Venegre, an caste ther-to, an serue forth.

Lady Graie’s Manchet Bread – Elizabethan White Bread Recipe

Elizabethan Manchet Bread – three loaves from one batch

Originally published 8/30/2015 / Updated 10/2/2025

Introduction

Can you imagine eating two to three pounds of bread a day? Or washing it down with a gallon of ale? During the late medieval and early modern period, that was the standard ration for households and garrisons alike. Bread wasn’t just food—it was the staple at every table. It appeared as trenchers, used as edible plates, or as the fine “table bread” known as pain de mayne or manchet.

The Menagier de Paris even instructs his wife that four-day-old trencher bread was best for entertaining, as it held its shape beneath sauced meats. From castle to cottage, bread marked rank: the nobility received pale white wheat bread, while darker maslin loaves went to servants. This post focuses on one of the most celebrated “white breads” of Elizabethan England: manchet.

What is manchet?

Manchet was the “best” white household bread of the late Tudor and early Stuart period. These were small, hand-sized loaves or rolls made from double-bolted flour (finely sifted to remove bran and germ), yielding a pale crumb and firm crust.

Leavening

Recipes call for a piece of old dough (sourdough-style leaven) opened with water and mixed with ale barm—brewer’s yeast skimmed from fermenting ale. In a modern kitchen, this is easily mimicked with commercial yeast and a splash of mild ale.

Deep dive: see my pillar post on White Bread in Early Modern England.

Historical Recipe

The following comes from The Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin (1594), under the title “The making of manchets after my Ladie Graies use.” It is one of the earliest printed bread recipes in English.

Take two peckes of fine flower, which must be twice boulted, if you will have your manchet verie faire: Then lay it in a place where ye doe use to lay your dowe for your bread, and make a litle hole in it, and put in that water as much leaven as a crab, or a pretie big apple, and as much white salt as will into an Egshell, and all to breake your leaven in the water, and put into your flower halfe a pinte of good Ale yeast, and so stir this liquor among a litle of your flower, so that ye must make it but thin at the first meeting, and then cover it with flowre, and if it be in the winter, ye must keepe it verie warm… Of one pecke of flower ye make ten caste of Manchets faire and good.

White Bread in Early Modern England: Manchets (1594) vs. Robert May’s French Bread (1685)

Fine white breads on the English table, 16th–17th c.

Can you imagine eating two to three pounds of bread a day—and washing it down with ale? In late medieval and early modern kitchens, bread was the staple, from four-day-old trencher loaves to fine white table bread. This overview compares two elite white breads I bake often: manchet “after my Ladie Graies use” (1594) and Robert May’s “French bread” (1685).

Almond Milk Recipes in the Middle Ages — Variants from Water to Wine

Almonds were the medieval cook’s “milk” on fast days—drawn with water, sugar-water, broth, or even wine.

Almond Milk in Period Sources — How Medieval Cooks Made It (and Variations)

Originally published 1/2/2015 / updated 10/1/2025

For roughly a third of the medieval calendar—Lent and other fast days—cooks avoided meat, dairy, and eggs. Far from the stereotype of endless roasts, elite kitchens leaned on almond milk as a flexible stand-in for dairy: it could be drawn “thick” or “thin,” seasoned sweet or savory, and tailored to the dish at hand.

Because every trained cook knew how to make it, many manuscripts don’t bother giving a basic recipe. When they do spell it out, we learn that medieval almond milk could be drawn with plain water, sugar-water (white or “black”/brownish sugar), or tempered with honey—and in practice, cooks also drew it with broth for savory dishes, or wine for rich Lenten fare and sweets. Below are period texts with clean translations, followed by kitchen-ready modern methods for each variant.

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Primary Recipes (Original & Translation)

Harleian MS 279 (c. 1430) — “Froyde almoundys” (Cold Almond Milk, sugar-water)

Original

xj. Froyde almoundys. Take blake sugre, an cold water, an do hem to in a fayre potte, an let hem boyle to-gedere, an salt it an skeme it clene, an let it kele; j^an take almaundys, an blawnche hem clene, an stampe hem, an draw hem, with fe sugre water thikke y-now, in-to a fayre vessel: an [yf] fe mylke be nojt swete y-now, take whyte sugre an caste fer-to.

Modern English

11. Cold Almond Milk. Take black sugar and cold water and put them in a pot; let them boil together, salt and skim clean, and let it cool. Then take almonds, blanch them, and grind them; draw them with the sugar-water thick enough into a fair vessel. If the milk is not sweet enough, add white sugar.

Source: Austin, Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books, Harl. MS 279.

Harleian MS 4016 (c. 1450) — “Froyte de almondes” (Cold Almond Milk, sugar-water)

Original

Froyte de almondes. Take blak sugur and cold water, and caste the sugur and þe water in a potte; and lete hem boile togidre, and salt, and skeme hem clene, and let hit kele; And þen take Almoundes, and blanche hem clene, and stampe hem in a morter al smal, and drawe hem thik ynowe thorgh a streyner with sugur water… And serue hit forth in maner of potage, And namely in lenton tyme.

Modern English

Cold Almond Milk. Boil black sugar with water, salt and skim clean, let cool. Blanch and grind almonds very fine; draw them thick enough through a strainer with the sugar-water… Serve it as a kind of pottage, particularly in Lent.

Source: Austin, Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books, Harl. MS 4016.

MS Pepys 1047 — “To make gode almondys mylke” (Honey-tempered)

Original

Take brokyn sugure or for fawte ther of take claryfied hony and put hit into fayre water And set hit on the fyre and boyle hit and skymme hit clene and set hit be syde the fyre and let hit cole and then blanche thy almondys cast them yn a morter and bray them small temper hem up with þe same water.

Modern English

Take crushed sugar—or, if lacking that, clarified honey—and put it in fair water. Set it on the fire, boil and skim clean; set aside and let cool. Then blanch almonds and grind them small; temper them with the same water.

Source: MS Pepys 1047 (transcription at OldCookery.com).

Notes: These texts show the core technique (blanch → grind → draw/strain) and clearly attest to sugar-water and honey-water variants. In practice, medieval recipes also direct cooks to “draw with broth” for savory pottages and sauces, or with wine for certain feast dishes and sweets. “Thick” vs. “thin” is a matter of almond-to-liquid ratio.