In “Piers of Fulham (14th century),” we hear of the good store of fat eels imported into England from the Low Countries, and to be had cheap by anyone who watched the tides ; but the author reprehends the growing luxury of using the livers of young fish before they were large enough to be brought to the table. The most comprehensive catalogue of fish brought to table in the time of Charles I. is in a pamphlet of 1644, inserted among my “Fugitive Tracts,” 1875; and includes the oyster, which used to be eaten at breakfast with wine, the crab, lobster, sturgeon, salmon, ling, flounder, plaice, whiting, sprat, herring, pike, bream, roach, dace, and eel. The writer states that the sprat and herring were used in Lent. The sound of the stock-fish, boiled in wort or thin ale till they were tender, then laid on a cloth and dried, and finally cut and his Food. 23 into strips, was thought a good receipt for book-glue. An acquaintance is in possession of an old cookery-book which exhibits the gamut of the fish as it lies in the frying-pan, reducing its supposed lament to musical notation. Here is an ingenious refinement and a delicate piece of irony, which Walton and Cotton might have liked to forestall. The 15 th century Nominale enriches the catalogue of dishes then rn vogue. It specifies almond-milk, rice, gruel, fish-broth or soup, a sort of fricassee of fowl, collops, a pie, a pasty, a tart, a tartlet, a charlet (minced pork), apple-juice, a dish called jussell made of eggs and grated bread with seasoning of sage and saffron, and the three generic heads of sod or boiled, roast, and fried meats. In addition to the fish-soup, they had wine-soup, water-soup, ale-soup; and the flawn is reinforced by the froise. In- stead of one Latin equivalent for a pudding, it is of moment to record that there are now three : nor should we overlook the rasher and the sausage. It is the earliest place where 24 The Early Englishman we get some of our familiar articles of diet — beef, mutton, pork, veal — under their modern names ; and about the same time such terms present themselves as “a broth,” “a browis,” “ a pottage,” “ a mess.” Of the dishes which have been specified, the froise corresponded to an omelette au lard of modern French cookery, having strips of bacon in it. The tansy was an omelette of another description, made chiefly with eggs and chopped herbs. As the former was a common dish in the monasteries, it is not improbable that it was one grateful to the pal- ate. In Lydgate’s “ Story of Thebes,” a sort of sequel to the “ Canterbury Tales,” the pil- grims invite the poet to join the supper-table, where there were these tasty omelettes : moile, made of marrow and grated bread, and haggis, which is supposed to be identical with the Scottish dish so called. Lydgate, who belonged to the monastery of Bury St. Edmunds, doubtless set on the table at Can- terbury some of the dainties with which he was familiar at home ; and this practice, which runs through all romantic and imaginative and his Food. 25

AI-modernized reading of the original text

In “Piers of Fulham (14th century),” we hear of the good store of fat eels imported into England from the Low Countries, and to be had cheap by anyone who watched the tides ; but the author reprehends the growing luxury of using the livers of young fish before they were large enough to be brought to the table. The most comprehensive catalogue of fish brought to table in the time of Charles I. is in a pamphlet of 1644, inserted among my “Fugitive Tracts,” 1875; and includes the oyster, which used to be eaten at breakfast with wine, the crab, lobster, sturgeon, salmon, ling, flounder, plaice, whiting, sprat, herring, pike, bream, roach, dace, and eel. The writer states that the sprat and herring were used in Lent. The sound of the stock-fish, boiled in wort or thin ale till they were tender, then laid on a cloth and dried, and finally cut and his Food. 23 into strips, was thought a good receipt for book-glue. An acquaintance is in possession of an old cookery-book which exhibits the gamut of the fish as it lies in the frying-pan, reducing its supposed lament to musical notation. Here is an ingenious refinement and a delicate piece of irony, which Walton and Cotton might have liked to forestall. The 15th century Nominale enriches the catalogue of dishes then in vogue. It specifies almond-milk, rice, gruel, fish-broth or soup, a sort of fricassee of fowl, collops, a pie, a pasty, a tart, a tartlet, a charlet (minced pork), apple-juice, a dish called jussell made of eggs and grated bread with seasoning of sage and saffron, and the three generic heads of sod or boiled, roast, and fried meats. In addition to the fish-soup, they had wine-soup, water-soup, ale-soup; and the flawn is reinforced by the froise. Instead of one Latin equivalent for a pudding, it is of moment to record that there are now three : nor should we overlook the rasher and the sausage. It is the earliest place where The Early Englishman we get some of our familiar articles of diet — beef, mutton, pork, veal — under their modern names ; and about the same time such terms present themselves as “a broth,” “a browis,” “ a pottage,” “ a mess.” Of the dishes which have been specified, the froise corresponded to an omelette au lard of modern French cookery, having strips of bacon in it. The tansy was an omelette of another description, made chiefly with eggs and chopped herbs. As the former was a common dish in the monasteries, it is not improbable that it was one grateful to the palate. In Lydgate’s “ Story of Thebes,” a sort of sequel to the “ Canterbury Tales,” the pilgrims invite the poet to join the supper-table, where there were these tasty omelettes : moile, made of marrow and grated bread, and haggis, which is supposed to be identical with the Scottish dish so called. Lydgate, who belonged to the monastery of Bury St. Edmunds, doubtless set on the table at Canterbury some of the dainties with which he was familiar at home ; and this practice, which runs through all romantic and imaginative and his Food.

Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine