The Thorngrove Table

Fifteenth Century Frugality: Stewed Cold Cuts

Other people send you chocolate-flavoured candy - or if you're really lucky, real chocolate - for Easter. My mother sent me a leg of New Zealand lamb. Is she not awesome?

(There was also a bottle of lovely rosé champagne, some baby potatoes & a bunch of mouthwateringly tender asparagus, but as this post is about the lamb they don't really get a mention. Though yes, I definitely have a wonderful mother.)

As my housemates had swanned off to Czech for a fortnight however, I was left to consume the whole leg of lamb by myself. Of course this meant I could cook it to my preferred level of 'medium rare to medium', rather than the 'well done to briquette' that Mark prefers, but still, no easy task. After seeding it with garlic, covering it in rosemary & oil and roasting it, I was left with a lovely dinner - for several nights. I did visit friends for Easter Monday, but as they're vegetarians I couldn't really share any roast lamb with them!

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After a couple of nights of reheated roast and cold cuts, I was tossing up whether or not to make Shepherd's Pie, when I remembered a rather tasty dish, "Stewed Roast Mutton or Chicken", which I'd served at a medieval re-enactment feast, and made a couple of times since. I used cold roast chicken for the feast, and roast beef leftovers the other times, and both results were very nice.

This is a good 'example' recipe - the sweet and sour taste of meat, wine & vinegar, laced with cinnamon & saffron gives you a dish characteristic of the flavour of C.15th English cuisine. The recipe comes from Harleian MS 4016, a manuscript in the British Library and is very typical of medieval stews, which as I've previously mentioned, consisted of little more than meat, onions, spices and/or herbs, and liquid.

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Original Receipt
Harleian MS 4016
Take faire Mutton that hath ben roste, or elles Capons, or suche other flessh, and mynce it faire; put hit into a possenet, or elles bitwen ij siluer disshes; caste thereto faire parely, And oynons small mynced; then caste there-to wyn, and a litel vynegre or vergeous, pouder of peper, Canel, salt and saffron, and lete it stue on the faire coles, And then serue hit forthe; if he have no wyne ne vynegre, take Ale, Mustard, and A quantite of vergeous, and do this in the stede of vyne or vinegre.

My Transcription
Take good Mutton that has been roasted, or else Chickens, or other such meat, and mince it finely; put it into a possenet* or else between two silver dishes; add to it good parsley, and onions minced small; then add to it wine, and a little vinegar or verjuice, powder of pepper, cinnamon, salt and saffron, and let it stew on the good coals, and then serve it forth; if he [you] have no wine or vinegar, take ale, mustard and a quantity of verjuice, and use this instead of wine or vinegar.

*A possenet was specifically a small, three-legged metal cooking pot, usually with a handle and used for boiling and stewing.


Modern Redaction
About 400 g cold roast lamb (or other meat)
2 tsp chopped parsley
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 tsp cinnamon, preferably freshly ground
salt & pepper
1 large pinch of saffron strands
1 Tb lukewarm water
2 tsp wine vinegar
150 ml wine (I used Shiraz)

1. First leave the saffron strands to soak in a tablespoon of lukewarm water, to soften them and release the flavour. This will take about 15 minutes and the water should be yellow by then.
2. Dice or chop the meat into small pieces
3. Put in a heavy pot or frypan.
4. Add the parsley, onion and cinnamon stick.
5. Season to taste.
6. Sprinkle the saffron strands (and their water) over the meat.
7. Pour the vinegar and wine over the meat.
8. Bring to the boil.
9. Reduce temperature to a simmer and cook until the onion is soft and the meat heated through.
10. Add a little extra wine if the 'stew' looks like drying out, but do not make it sloppy.
11. When served, the liquid should be almost reduced to a syrup or glaze.

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Bibliography
AUSTIN, Thomas, ed. "Two fifteenth-century cookery-books : Harleian MS. 279 (ab 1430), & Harl. MS. 4016" London: Oxford University Press, 1964.
Available online here at The University of Michigan's Middle English Compendium.

Renaissance Recipes for Breakfast I

For those who like myself find the idea of ale & leftovers, or toast in wine a bit much to stomach first thing in the morning (I swear beer & cold pizza has no correspondence to those combinations at all!), here is the first of a few medieval fast-breaking recipes you might find more to your taste:

Carbonata
Translation: To make carbonata, take salt meat layered with lean and fat, and cut it in slices, and put it in a pan to cook; do not let it overcook. Then put it on a plate and sprinkle it with a little sugar, a little cinnamon, and a little finely chopped parsley. And you can do the same to prepare salt pork [?] or ham, using orange or lemon juice in place of vinegar, whichever you prefer; it will make you drink all the better.
Maestro Martino, Libro de arte coquinaria, Italian, mid 1400s

Redaction for 2:
1 pkt Unsmoked Bacon Rashers or Pancetta or Ham (4 slices each)
Juice of 1 Lemon or Seville Orange, or 2 Tb Vinegar
2 tsp Sugar
1/2 tsp ground Cinnamon
2 TB chopped Flatleaf Parsley

Fry the meat in it's own fat, olive oil or butter. At this point you can either squeeze or pour the citrus or vinegar over the meat, then sprinkle over the sugar, parsley and cinnamon, and serve. Alternately you can set the meat aside, covered, then heat the sugar in the juice in the frying pan until dissolved, throw in the cinnamon and parsley, boil it briefly and then pour it over the meat and serve it forth. Simple!

A few comments...
Maestro Martino was head cook for the Patriach of Aquileia in Rome in the mid-fifteenth century. He was as famous in his time as Escoffier or Mrs Beeton or Gordon Ramsay is in ours and for very good reason, being the author of the first 'all-rounder' treatise on Renaissance cuisine, Libro de arte Coquinaria (The Art Of Cooking).

Carbonata is one of my favourite brunches - not only is it quick and simple, but the combination of salt, sweet and sour with spice & herb accents is delicious and just the thing to pair with hot buttered toast, strong black coffee and a glass of orange juice. If you are cooking it with a very strong vinegar, water the vinegar down, so as not to overpower the dish. Balsamic vinegar is especially nice in carbonata, and I'm particularly fond of the white balsamic vinegar myself. Don't use distilled vinegars if possible, as these weren't available back then, so won't give you the authentic effect.

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Bibliography
REDON, Odile et al. The Medieval Kitchen : Recipes from France and Italy June 1998, Univ of Chicago Press ISBN: 0226706842

P.S. The picture is a bad pun, it's a picture of a young Francis Bacon.

"Cormarye" - a delicious C.14th Pork Roast with wine & spices

Somewhere back in the deep, dark depths of my online life resides the recipe for Cormarye, the medieval cook's solution to bland pork roast. Pig is one of those meats that when it's good it's very, very good, and when it's bad it's as interesting as a Yanni concert. True, this dish tastes even more fantastic with a good quality cut, but it's also notable for its ability to rescue poor quality pork from the doldrums and raise it into something you aren't ashamed to present for Sunday dinner.

Recently I did three 90 seconds shorts for Optomen Television's "Market Kitchen" daytime TV show, and this recipe starred in one of those shorts. So rather than forcing viewers to search it out, here again is the recipe:

Cormarye
Original Text from The Forme of Cury, C.14th English:
Take Colyaundre, caraway smale grounden, powdour of peper and garlec ygrounde, in rede wyne; medle alle [th]ise togyder and salt it. Take loynes of pork rawe and fle of the skyn, and pryk it wel with a knyf, and lay it in the sawse. Roost it whan [th]ou wilt, & kepe [th]at [th]at fallith [th]erfro in the rostyng and see[th] it in a possynet with faire broth, & serue it forth wi[th] the roost anoon.

Modern Redaction:
3 lb/1.5 kg boneless, skinned Pork Loin Roast*
1/2 bottle Red Wine
1/2 c canned Chicken Broth or Stock
1/2 cup Water
1-2 cloves crushed Garlic
1 tsp ground Coriander Seed*
1 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Pepper
1/4 tsp ground Caraway Seed
Coriander Leaf (optional)

1. Mix together the spices, seasoning, garlic and wine.
2. Prick the skin of the meat and add to the sauce. I usually have the butcher remove the fat layer beforehand.
3. Leave to marinate for a minimum of an hour. I usually leave it overnight in the fridge, and then it is sure to invigorate even the blandest pork cut!
4. Preheat oven.*
5. Put in a roasting tray and roast until done. Use your favorite cookbook to get time and temperature right.
6. When the meat is roasted, take sauce and drippings from the roasting pan, add the chicken broth and water, and simmer briefly to make a sauce
7. Slice the roast, pour over sauce, and serve.
8. It's especially nice with a garnish of chopped fresh Coriander leaf.

Notes:
*This is a large amount for four, but a piece of pork much less than 3 pounds/ 1.36 kg won't roast properly. So make it all, and have left-overs.
*Don't leave out the caraway because you are afraid it will taste like rye bread. And don't leave out the coriander seed either - they make it taste wonderful.
*Preheating the oven to above the roasting temperature sears the meat nicely and makes sure it doesn't dry out.

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Bibliography:
HIEATT, Constance B. & BUTLER, Sharon. (transcription) ANONYMOUS. "Curye on Inglysch" (includes 'The Forme of Cury'); London, Oxford Early English Text Society, 1985. Pg.109, #54.

A Tudor Tarte of Prunes

As requested, here is the recipe for the prune tartlets from last fortnight's afternoon tea:

To make a Tarte of Prunes. Take Prunes and wash them, then boil them with faire water, cut in halfe a peny loaf of white bread, and take them out and strain them with Claret wine, season it with sinamon, Ginger and Sugar, and a little Rosewater, make the paste as fine as you can, and dry it, and fill it, and let it drie in the oven, take it out and cast on it Biskets and Carawaies.

Modern Redaction
1x 410gm can prunes in syrup / 350 g dried prunes
100 g fresh white breadcrumbs
200 ml red wine
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
100 g sugar
1 Tb rosewater
Short Pastry

1. Preheat the oven to GM 7/425°F/220°C.GM 7/425°F/220°C.
2. Soak dried prunes for a couple of hours, or preferably overnight. This step isn't necessary for canned prunes in syrup.
3. Preheat the oven to GM 7/425°F/220°C.GM 7/425°F/220°C.
4. Line a flan or pie dish with the pastry. Small individual tartlets are also ideal as this is very rich.
5. Bake pie case or tartlets blind at GM 7/425°F/220°C for 15 minutes or so until a light golden colour.
6. Remove baking beans/beads and paper and turn the oven down.
7. Simmer the prunes for 10 - 15 minutes until tender.
8. Drain and stone the prunes. Don't forget to do this!
9. Blend the prunes and other ingredients together to form a smooth thick paste.
10. Spoon the filling into the pastry case/s. The prune mixture will puff up, so don't overfill.
11. Bake at GM4/350°F/180°C for 1 hour - 1 hour 30 minutes (tartlets will require less time than a single tart).
12. Serve either hot or cold.

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Bibliography:
BREARS, Peter Food and cooking in C16th Britain: History and Recipes English Heritage Food Series, 1985.
This contains the original recipe which comes from the Tudor cookbook "A.W.: A Book of Cookrye Very necessary for all such as delight therin".

Waiter, There's Something In My... Easter Basket: C.14th Tart de Bry

Easter was an occasion of great celebration in medieval times in the Western Christian world - not just for religious reasons, but for culinary reasons also. It was the termination of Lent, the seemingly endless 'tithe days of the year', meaning no more preserved dried fish! Meat, eggs, cheese, milk and butter were back on the menu; fasting was finished and the single daily Lenten meal reverted back to two official daily meals (and any number of smaller unofficial ones).

There was a practical reason for Lent in addition to its purpose of religious penance - it was the end of winter. Food was scarce, with medieval households relying on the provisions stored and preserved during autumn. By early spring, the chickens would not be laying many eggs, the majority of the cheese and salt meat will have been eaten, the only surviving animals were being kept to breed and the cows wouldn't be giving milk yet.

By the end of Lent, all the new shoots and vegetables would be coming into season, the chickens would be laying again and the animals breeding and producing milk, making for a magnificent feast at the end of the fasting.

One of the dishes that would have been a sure fire hit at Eastertide is my offering to this month's "Waiter, There's Something In My... Easter basket" challenge - an egg & cheese tart from the fourteenth century. This is an English recipe (once again, taken from "The Forme of Cury", cookbook of Richard II's chefs), which specifies 'chese ruayn'. This means cheese from Ruayn or rather, modern day Rouen. This was apparently being a soft fresh cheese rather like a modern-day rindless Brie. I actually made these for an afternoon tea as individual tartlets (and must admit to overcooking them a little!). They puff up into beautiful golden mounds and work very well like this because as well as being pretty and delicious, they're also rather rich.

Tart de Bry. Take a crust ynche depe in a trap. Take 3olkes of ayren rawe & chese ruayn & medle it & Þe 3olkes togyder. Do Þerto powdour ginger, sugur, safroun, and salt. Do it in a trap; bake it & serue it forth.

Brie Tart
1 wedge of Brie, de-crusted
8 egg yolks
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp normal sugar*
4 threads saffron
¼ tsp salt
Short Pastry **

1. Soak the saffron in a tablespoon or so of lukewarm milk or water for at least 10 minutes. This softens it and releases the flavour.
2. Chop the Brie into ½ inch cubes.
3. Mix the eggs together but don't beat them.
4. Mix together the eggs and cheese.
5. Add the ginger, sugar, saffron and salt.
6. Line a flan or pie dish or small individual tartlets with the pastry.
7. Bake the tart for 30 - 40 minutes at GM5/375°F/190°C.
8. After 25 minutes, check the tarts every 5 minutes or so. They are baked when the top goes golden and pastry browned.
9. Serve either hot or cold.

* The sugar here is used mainly to bring out the flavour, like salt or MSG, rather than as a sweetener.
** I got 14 tartlets from half a block of Saxby's Shortcrust Pastry i.e. aprx. 250 gm. I also used the small tin disposable tartlet cases.

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Bibliography:
HIEATT, Constance B. & BUTLER, Sharon. (transcription) ANONYMOUS Curye on Inglysch (includes 'The Forme of Cury') London, Oxford Early English Text Society, 1985.
WILSON, C.Anne Food and Drink in Britain Penguin Books, 1973, reprint 1984 ISBN 0-14-046.546-4

Fourteenth Century Macaroni Cheese

It's Spring.

It's snowing.

Eep.

For a girl brought up in the moderation of the Auckland climate this is more than a little disconcerting. It's also cold. So what can you do other than huddle up at home in the warmth, with a glass of red wine and some comfort food? Definitely the best thing to do. Comfort food in this instance being a delicious hot dish of makerouns, otherwise known as medieval Macaroni cheese.

Contrary to popular thought, Marco Polo didn't bring pasta back from China with him. Nor is there currently any solid evidence for pasta dishes in Roman cuisine. Previously pasta was thought to be descended from the Roman dish 'tracta', but this is now considered to be a flour and water dough crumbled into boiling liquid for use as a thickener, and to bind sauces.¹ The word means 'a sheet of dough' and is also the meaning of another Roman dish, 'lagana', which has also been claimed as the origin of pasta. However lagana/laganum additionally means 'a thin cake fried in oil' and was baked, not boiled, so the relationship to pasta is debatable.²

This is not to say medieval European pasta definitely didn't evolve from Roman cuisine, but more probably pasta was introduced from the Middle East. There are several distinct types of pasta described in medieval Islamic cookbooks dating from the tenth century, and even earlier in Persian cuisine. In the fourteenth century the Tacuinum Sanitatis in Medicina, an Italian health handbook which is actually based on a C.12th Arabic manuscript, describes and depicts pasta noodles (see picture below), and specifically mentions the Arabic word for them.

English cookbooks contain pasta dishes as early as the thirteenth cenury - one of the Anglo-Norman cookery manuscripts (B.L.Add.32085) lists three. Firstly Cressee (#5), which is a decorative dish of saffron-coloured and plain uncoloured noodles criss-crossed into an eye-catching latticework and then boiled; Ravieles (#8), sweet dough ravioli stuffed with cheese and herbs; and finally Kuskenole (#25), fruit-stuffed pasta (or pastry?) that are boiled and then grilled.

The source of my recipe is "The Forme of Cury" (which roughly translates as The Method of Cookery/Cooking). This manuscript was written in the fourteenth century, compiled by the master chefs of King Richard II. It also contains a ravioli recipe, Rouioles (#94), this time stuffed with fresh farm cheese ('wete chese'), eggs, saffron and butter, then boiled and covered with more cheese and butter and powder douce (a standard mix of sweet spices such as cinnamon, sugar, ginger, etc). Definitely not a dish for cholesterol conscious! but delicious nonetheless.

The third pasta recipe in the manuscript is for Losyns (#50), a layered pasta dish such as lasagne. The manuscript instructs the cook to make 'thynne foyles as paper with a roller; drye it harde'. The pasta is then boiled in broth and layered with powder douce and a grated soft cheese similar to a young rindless Brie³, which is layered 'so twyse or thryse' and then served.

The macaroni recipe I made is the most simple of the three, with the pasta being a water and flour mixture, although water, flour and egg pasta was also prevalent at the time. Macaroni, by the way, does not mean the little curly shapes we use nowadays and which are a later development. Here the pasta is flat strips or lozenges, paired with cheese and butter. An oldy (much older than you realised, right?) but a goody.

Tagliatelle (Noodles)
The housewife kneads the dough on a table with vigorous movements, and from time to time the young girls turn the noodles with light fingers as they hange them on the racks to dry. The dough - 'trij' in Arabic - is rich in nourishment and suited to those with hot stomachs, young people, the winter, and all regions. It is good for the chest and throat and is harmful only to people with weak stomachs or weak intestines, in which case barley sugar is the remedy. This is a food that should be 'complete operato', thoroughly and carefully prepared.
[picture & excerpt from Tacuinum Sanitatis in Medicina, C.14th Italian manuscript]

Original recipe:
Makerouns. Take and make a thynne foyle of dowh, and kerue it on peces, and cast hum on boillyng water & seeÞ it wele. Take chese and grate it, and butter imelte, cast bynethen and aboven as losyns; and serue forth.

Rough translation:
Macaroni. Take and make a thin sheet of dough, and carve/cut it into pieces, and cast them in boiling water and seeth/simmer/cook it well. Take cheese and grate it, and melted butter, cast beneath and above the lozenges; and serve it forth.

Makerouns - modern redaction:
2 cups pasta flour
water
1 cup soft white cheese, grated (I used Wensleydale but something like Brie or Edam or Jack would be good)
1 Tb butter, melted

1. Mix the water into the flour slowly, kneading all the time.
2. When the flour has reached a firm dough, run it through your pasta machine until smooth and non-stick. If you don't have a pasta machine you get to do it the hard way, through continuous kneading and rolling with a rolling pin (which will show you that you definitely need a pasta machine!).
3. Roll the pasta until it's very thin, then cut into strips. You can cut them into long lozenges (diamond shapes) if you want. If you don't want to use the pasta immediately, hang it on a drying rack (or something similar) so it airs and dries evenly. Store in an airtight container or the fridge.
4. Heat either water or broth to boiling.
5. Cook the pasta in the water to al dente.
6. Put the pasta in a dish and cover with the cheese and butter.
7. Serve. Devour.

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Bibliography:

HIEATT, Constance B. & BUTLER, Sharon. (transcription) ANONYMOUS "Curye on Inglysch" (includes 'The Forme of Cury') London, Oxford Early English Text Society, 1985.

HIEATT, Constance B. & JONES, Robin F. (transl.) ANONYMOUS "Two Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections Edited from British Library Manuscripts Additional 32085 and Royal 12.C.xii" Speculum Issue 61/4 1986
PERRY, Charles Old Non-Pasta Los Angeles Times - Los Angeles, Calif. 05 Mar 1997. Food section.
SPENCER, Judith (trans.) ANONYMOUS The Four Seasons of the House of Cerruti (Tacuinum Sanitatis in Medicina) Outlet, June 1987. ISBN: 9780816001385
Stefan's Floriligium Online collection of articles & discussions on medieval topics.

Notes:
1. PERRY, Charles Old Non-Pasta Los Angeles Times - Los Angeles, Calif. 05 Mar 1997. Food section. See also: PERRY, Charles "The Oldest Mediterranean Noodle: A Cautionary Tale." Petit Propos Culinaires #9, pp.42-45. 1981.
2. Stefan's Floriligium; post by GLONING, Thomas, 03 Oct 1999.
3. 'chese ruayn' Ruayn being modern-day Rouen, France.

Addendum to the Long Pepper brief

I've just acquired the book "Dangerous Tastes: the story of spices" by the excellent food writer Andrew Dalby. He has an interesting section on long pepper, which includes an elaboration on its disappearance from medieval Western cuisine. Rather than paraphrase him, I'm just going to quote the book verbatim:

"The fact that long pepper continued to appear in all the European medical books, and in some of the cookery books, until the nineteenth century is deceptive. It suddenly dropped in price in the later sixteenth century. Soon after that it fell out of common use, although it was still in the reference books. . . . The reason, perhaps, was the discovery in central America of yet a third 'long pepper'*, the chilli. This is quite a different spice but it was occasionally called 'long pepper' in Europe because it had the same shape and served the same purpose of adding a powerful hot taste to food. And the chilli was cheap: unlike long and black pepper it propagated easily; it was readily transplanted - as it was to Spain and Hungary, for example - and it will grow indoors or in a greenhouse even in northern Europe...  [Long pepper's] price eventually fell to only one-twelfth of that of black pepper, a price at which it no longer repaid the cost of gathering and transport."  p.90

The rest of the book looks equally fascinating, so if you've enjoyed other similar culinary history books, you might like to check it out.

* in addition to Piper longum and Piper retrofractum.

DALBY, A. "Dangerous Tastes: the story of spices",  British Museum Press, 2000. ISBN: 0714127205.

Lindow Stew & Long Pepper

I'm going to call this creation Lindow Stew - it tastes great, but there's no denying it resembles nothing so much as one of those ancient bodies pulled out of a peat bog!

On the plus side it's a no-brainer to make, especially if you own a crockpot (slow cooker) with an automatic setting like I do. The one I have is small, only taking about 1.8 litres, so if you have a bigger one, add more liquid. Just throw the recipe together in the morning before work, and you'll come home to the delicious scent of chicken stew wafting through the house. The prunes and their sauce add richness and depth to the meat as well as visual entertainment. Add some cooked rice or a salad as an accompaniment, and dinner is served...

Lindow Stew
4 - 5 chicken thighs, skinned
1 large red onion, diced
1 can of prunes in syrup
1 cup of white wine
½ tsp long pepper, ground

1. Put the chicken thighs, onion, prunes (including all that lovely syrupy goodness they come stored in), wine and ground long pepper into the crockpot.
2. Turn on Automatic or Low setting. Leave for 3 -4 or more hours.
3. Serve!
   
   Note: You can use water or stock instead of wine if you feel abstentious, but it won't taste as good.

This recipe make use of my most frequently used cooking pepper for both modern and not-so-modern recipes; Long pepper.

Long pepper (Piper longum and Piper retrofractum)¹ is a close relative of Black Pepper (Piper nigum), but possesses a more complex, slightly sweeter and more firey taste. It has an unusual rod-like shape rather like an elongated pinecone, or as Wikipedia says "the fruit of the pepper consists of many minuscule fruits — each about the size of a poppy seed — embedded in the surface of a flower spike".

Long pepper has a slightly higher content than black pepper of piperine, the pungent component of peppers. The taste is quite distinctive and to my mind it's by far the more interesting pepper. It also has a lovely smell (please note however, that snorting it up your nose is not recommended! Not that I've ever done that).

Although nowadays it's only beginning to impinge on the consciousness of the general household cook, in medieval times long pepper was a popular spice with the well-to-do, and had been for centuries. It was imported from South East Asia and arrived in Europe before black pepper did. The earliest Western documentation for pepper comes around 400 BCE, from the physician Hippocrates, in a medical context. In the third century BCE the Greek philosopher Theophrastus describes long pepper in his work Historia Plantarum (Enquiry into Plants), as "long and black, with small seeds like those of the poppy, the stronger of the two..."².

Long pepper also enjoyed an enormous amount of culinary popularity in Roman times. In the 1st century CE Pliny the Elder complains in his Historia Naturalis about the prices of piper longum and piper nigum, considering them much too high for this spice; long pepper cost 60 sestertius, white pepper 28 sestertius and black pepper 16 sestertius a pound. During the reign of Nero (when this work was written), a cup of house wine cost a quarter of a sestertius, 6.5 kg of wheat cost 3 sestertius, and a tunic cost 15 sestertius.³ The normal daily wage for an unskilled labourer or common soldier was about 4 sestertius at the time. So by no means a cheap spice.

As with most spices in ancient and medieval times, long pepper had medicinal purposes as well as culinary (in fact, the two purposes blended much more closely together in those times than they do nowadays), and is mentioned as a component of health-fortifying spiced wine recipes. Although both types of peppers were superseded in fashionable appeal after the fourteenth century by the spice 'grains of paradise', long pepper fell out of general use upon the discovery of the New World and the more easily grown and imported American chilli pepper.

Nowadays long pepper is mostly used in Indonesian, Malay, Indian and North African - particularly Ethiopian - food. You won't find it in a general store, but online vendors or The Spice Shop will stock it. Ethnic grocers are also probably a good place to try. If you live or work near an African restaurant, beg them for the name of their long pepper supplier - you won't be disappointed at the trouble you went to once you get your hands on some.

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Bibliography
FAAS, P. Around the Roman Table Translation, Macmillan 2003; ISBN 033390466
KATZER, G. Gernot Katzer's Spice Pages
MILLER, J.I. The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire Oxford University Press, 1969. Reprinted 1998; ISBN 0198142641
SCULLY, T. The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages Boydell & Brewer, 1997; ISBN 0851154301

Notes
1. Piper retrofractum from Indonesia has rods a little bit smaller than Piper longum from India (Bengal pepper). In Western countries, mostly the latter is available. - Gernot Katzer's Spice Pages
2. Theophrastus describes the second pepper as "round and reddish, with a kelujoz or capsule", which Miller considers to be Malabar cardamom, which the Romans also termed a pepper. Miller STRE pp.72-3. This could also possibly refer to grains of paradise however.
3. FAAS, P. Around the Roman Table Appendix, p.350

Waiter, there's something in my. . . Tudor Chicken & Barberry Pie with Sauce

This is for the Pie Challenge of the "Waiter, there's something in my..." Foodbloggers' Event - this time hosted by Jeanne of Cook Sister!.

Pies were a commonplace food in medieval times and a popular 'takeaway' food, sold by stalls in the market. Unlike today, ovens weren't actually common kitchen equipment - most households wouldn't own an oven, especially amongst the lower classes. Instead, the housewife would make their pie and then take it to the town baker to cook for them. During fairs and festivals, portable ovens were also sometimes available.

Pies were also a useful method of keeping food safely preserved - an essential in a time without refrigeration. Sometimes the pastry used would be nothing more than an inedible mixture of flour and salt, which would be discarded once the crust was broken into. Filling the pie with gelatine or pectin-rich ingredients was another useful method of preserving. Food was used as tax or tithe payment in medieval times, and pies were used as such.

In more wealthy households however, the job of pastry making for pies was specialised, with a cook whose job was doing only that. The cooks in the main kitchen would put together the pie filling, then take it to the pastry cook to place in a case and bake. Pies were also considered healthy according to humoral doctrine, the dietary theory of medieval times. A balance of the humors (fire, air, earth and water, and their appropriate qualities of hot, cold, dry and moist) was considered essential to preserving good health. Pies were an approved method of infusing ingredients and meats that were considered to be of 'dry' humor with warmth and moisture, and were therefore especially good for first courses - to open up the stomach - and for the autumn months.

As well as the mundane everyday cooking, the pastry cook got to have some fun too however. Pies presented at feasts could be elaborate and artistic affairs - endored with egg yolk or saffron to turn them golden, brushed with crushed herbs or flowers to turn them green or pink, or even layered with microscopically thin sheets of beaten gold or silver to impress the feast goers. They were decorated with sliced almonds, crystallised blooms and dragees (those little silver and gold balls our Mums stuck on our birthday cakes when we were little!), formed into fantastical shapes and covered with the hides of real animals and birds. As the nursery rhyme states, 'four and twenty black birds' could be baked into a pie (or rather, put in it just before serving) to burst into song and freedom when the pie was cut open. Another interesting medieval nursery rhyme refering to pies which has survived to this day (although first published in 1725) is 'Little Jack Horner'', which relates a case of sixteenth century stewardly corruption.

Medieval pastry recipes are rather like medieval meat roast recipes - non-existent. Probably because 'everybody knew how to do it' and it was therefore uncalled for to write them down. The first extant recipe for pastry written in English is from a mid-sixteenth century book called "A proper New Booke of Cokerye", which is where I have chosen today's recipe from.

Recipe: "To Bake Chekins in Like Paest"

Although this recipe specifies you can either use barberries, grapes or gooseberries for the pie, I was curious to find out what the former tasted like. Barberries used to be a popular fruit with English housewives, as they are extremely high in pectin and have pleasant tang to them which seems to bring out the flavour in other foods (useful for when you have no lemons).

Unfortunately they serve as a vector for wheat rust, so have been eradicated wholesale in the UK now and are difficult to find. Fortunately I managed to find some Lebanese Barberries in that ever-wonderful emporioum The Spice Shop near Portobello Road, and apparently they can also be found in Middle Eastern grocery stores. Fond as I am of gooseberries, I definitely recommend trying out the barberries for this recipe!

This recipe also includes a sauce of sorts, to be eaten with the pie. It seems to me to be somewhat like a very primitive mayonnaise, and it's definitely worth making this as well as the sauce offsets the tang of the barberry flavour. I didn't have any verjuice so I used white basalmic vinegar instead, which makes an acceptable substitute (alternately you can use unsweetened white grape juice).

As you can see from the text, pie cases were often called 'coffins', for somewhat obvious reasons. As a firm believer in sticking to one's strengths and knowing that pastry is not one of mine, the pie is a collaboration of myself and Mr Saxby pastry. I actually used a terracotta dish to bake the pie in - not through any great yen towards authenticity but because I realised just as I started to cook that I only actually owned flan cases. Not a pie case in sight! It worked fairly well however, merely requiring slightly longer cooking. The result is a tangy but sweet, moist chicken pie and accompaniment which is ideal for winter evenings and is also delicious as a cold lunch the next day.

To Bake Chekins in Like Paest
Take your chekins and ceason them with a lytle Ginger and salte, and so putte them into your coffin and so put in them barberies, grapes or goose beryes, and half a dyshe of butter, so cloose them up, and sett them in the ouen and when they are baken, take the yolkes of syxe eggs and a dyshfull of vergis and drawe them through a streyner and sett it upon a chafingdyshe, then drawe youre baken chekins and put therto this foresayde egges and verygys and thus serve them hoate.

Chicken & Barberry (or Grape or Gooseberry) Pie with Sauce
Shortcrust Pastry (I used commercial)
250 gm Chicken, diced
25 gm dried Lebanese Barberries (or Grapes or Gooseberries - probably 1/2 cup)
20gm Butter, in small cubes
1/2 tsp Ginger, ground
1-2 pinches Salt

Sauce:
3 Egg Yolks
1 -2 Tb verjuice (or white basalmic vinegar or white grape juice or mild white vinegar)

1. Preheat your oven to 400°F/200°C/GM6.
2. Mix together the chicken, ground ginger (try to use freshly ground/grated dried ginger - once you've tried it you'll realise the stuff you buy in the supermarket is nothing more than ginger-flavored sawdust), salt, barberries and the butter. The latter adds moisture to the pie - mine ended up with a slightly soggy bottom, so I've reduced the amount in this recipe.
3. Divide the pastry into two and roll one into a circle, about 3mm thick.
4. Lay in pie case and place the filling on top.
5. Roll out remaining pastry into a similar circle.
6. Dampen the edge of the pie with water, milk or egg yolk or a mixture thereof.
7. Lay the second pastry circle on top of the pie and crimp together.
8. Decorate the top of the pie with any remaining pastry if you want (or just save it for jam tartlets).
9. Cut a small hole (about 1cm diameter) in the pastry to allow steam to escape.
10. If you want, coat the pie with melted butter, milk or egg yolk or a mixture thereof.
11. Put the pie in the oven for 30 - 45 minute, until the pastry is cooked and golden.
12. While the pie is baking, mix the egg yolks together with a tablespoon of verjuice (or whatever you are using).
13. Heat very briefly in a saucepan. The sauce will thicken but you don't want it to get too solid, so add more verjuice to keep it liquid if necessary.
14. Serve the pie with the sauce.

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Photographs
The photographs of the swan pie and the travelling oven were taken by myself at the Museum of London's exhibition "London Eats Out: 500 Years of Eating Out in London" in January 2000. Further photographs and commentary can be found here on my website.

Bibliography
BLACK, Maggie Food and Cooking in Medieval Britain1985. English Heritage Food Series, ISBN 185074081X Softback
HUGGET, Jane (transcription) ANONYMOUS A Proper Newe Booke of Cookery (orig. London 1545?) Stuart Press 1995 Softback
BREARS, Peter Food and Cooking in 16th Century Britain 1985. English Heritage Food Series, ISBN 1850740828
SCULLY, Terence The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages August 1997 Boydell & Brewer; ISBN: 0851154301
WILSON, C.Anne (edit.) Waste Not, Want Not: food preservation from early times to the present day (Papers from the fourth Leeds Symposium on food history and traditions. April 1989) Edinburgh University Press 1991.

A quick comment regarding Flour & Buckwheat in medieval times

In reply to Sam of Becks & Posh's enquiry regarding the type of flour used and whether crepes of Bretagne would have used buckwheat in medieval times:

According to Terry Decker, a re-enactor specialising in breadmaking and baking history, buckwheat is period, but its use may have been primarily as animal fodder. Taking a quick scan through Stefan's Florilegium, apparently there is an article on buckwheat in Waverly Root's "Food", sans backup documentation, which credits the introduction of buckwheat from Asia Minor by either the Turks, the Crusaders and/or the Moors to places in Europe where other grains didn't grow well and where the people ate "robustly" - such as Brittany, Finland, Styria, central France and the Tyrolian Alps.

There is reference later to the use of buckwheat in pancakes in The Domestroi (a C.16th Russian cookbook/household management manual), but the buckwheat flour was added to a wheat flour batter, not used solely itself (there's also a receipt for Russian buckwheat haggis!). It also appears to be what was fed to Russian servants at the time.

Buckwheat doesn't however appear in Eastern Europe until the 13th or 14th century. It is very unlikely therefore to be what is refered to in the c.1393 Crespes recipe, even positing an earlier introduction to France. The common wheat in medieval Europe was emmer (Triticum dicoccum), and the writer was also a member of the haute bourgeoisie, so would have used the best flour available. It's highly doubtful buckwheat would have been considered such.

Going back to what type of flour would have been used in this recipe, Terry Decker states that medieval wheats were white-skinned and soft (low in gluten). Modern wheats, especially those grown in North America are red, amber or yellow-skinned and are hard (high in gluten). Medieval wheat was also stone ground rather than our modern mill ground, and only provided about 75 % - 85 % extraction of flour from the grain as opposed to the modern 90+ %.

The fineness of the two flours is comparable however - after milling, medieval flour was sieved (bolted) through a bolting cloth and could come to pretty much the same fineness as that put through a modern steel mesh sieve. The germ was not removed so medieval flour was oilier (or rather, not so dry as modern flour) and had a shorter lifespan. After milling, flour was aged for a couple of months but wasn't bagged and stored for ages like we do nowadays. There would have been some 'bleaching' or rather whitening of the flour due to storage, but they didn't chemically bleach the flour or introduce additives as we do nowadays.

So a modern-day, plain unbleached wholegrain flour would be about the same as a medieval fine flour (one with two boltings), although our gluten content would probably be higher. Alternately, pastry flour is low gluten and could be used, especially whole wheat pastry flour (if you can actually find it).

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And Sam made some lovely-looking Buckwheat Wine Pancakes over at Becks & Posh - I think I'll give them a whirl myself next time. Buckwheat crepes are always yummy!