Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine

taken “ by the assent and avisement of masters of physic and of philosophy, that dwelled in his (Richard II.’s) court,” which illustrates the ancient alliance between medicine and cookery, which has not till lately been dissolved. The directions were to enable a man “ to make common pottages and common meats for the household, as they should be made, craftily and wholesomely so that this body of cookery was not prepared exclusively for the use of the royal kitchen, but for those who had not the taste or wish for what are termed, in contra-distinction, in the next sentence, “ curious pottages, and meats, and subtleties.” It is to be conjectured that copies of such a MS. were multiplied, and from time to time reproduced with suitable changes; but with the exception of two different, though nearly coeval, collections, embracing 31 and 162 receipts or menus, and also successively printed by Pegge and Warner, there is no apparent trace of any systematic compilation of this nature at so remote a date. The “Form of Cury” was in the 28 Eliz., Cookery Books. in the possession of the Stafford family, and was in that year presented to the Queen by Edward, Lord Stafford, as is to be gathered from a Latin memorandum at the end, in his lordship’s hand, preserved by Pegge and Warner in their editions. The fellowship between the arts of healing and cooking is brought to our recollection by a leonine verse at the end of one of the shorter separate collections above described : — “ Explicit de Coquina Quae est optima Medicina.” The “ Form of Cury ” will amply remunerate a study. It presents the earliest mention, so far as I can discern, of olive oil, cloves, mace, and gourds. In the receipts for making Aigredouce and Bardolf, sugar, that indispensable feature in the cuisine , makes its appearance; but it does so, I should add, in such a way as to lead to the belief that the use of sugar was at this time becoming more general. The difficulty, at first, seems to have been in refining it. We encounter here, too, onions under the name borrowed from Cookery Books. the French instead of the Anglo-Saxon form “ ynne leac and the prescriptions for making messes of almonds, pork, peas, and beans are numerous. There is “ Saracen sauce,” moreover, possibly as old as the Crusades, and pig with sage stuffing (from which it was but one step to duck). More than one species of “galantine” was already known ; and I observe the distinction, in one of the smaller collections printed by Warner, between the tartlet formed of meat and the tartlet de futures, of which the latter approaches more nearly our notion. The imperfect comprehension of harmonies, which is illustrated by the prehistoric bag-pudding of King Arthur, still continued in the unnatural union of flesh with sweets. It is now confined to the cottage, whence Arthur may have himself introduced it at Court and to the Knights of the Round Table. In this authority, several of the dishes were to be cooked in white grease, which Warner interprets into lard ; others de manded olive oil ; but there is no allusion to butter. Among the receipts are some for Cookery Books. dishes “in gravy”; rabbits and chickens were to be treated similarly ; and the gravy appears to have consisted merely of the broth in which they were boiled, and which was flavoured with pounded almonds, powdered ginger, and sugar.