DIETETIC DAINTIES OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XX, Issue V, 29 January 1898, Page 140

DIETETIC DAINTIES OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

Not only do the cookery books of the fifteenth century give long lists of dainty dishes, but the directions given for their cooking show that the viands themselves were spiced anti seasoned to a degree which would astonish a nineteenth century palate. . Soups were flavoured with cinnamon, game was stewed and fish boiled in ale.while sauces were made of such piquant material as ginger, cloves, garlic, vinegar, verjuice and wine—a fair example being •galendyne,’ described as ‘a sauce for any kind of roast fowl,’ and composed of grated bread, cinnamon, ginger, sugar, claret wine, and vinegar, made as thick as gruel. Of raw materials, too, they had, in addition to those we use ourselves, many that would be strange to us. Birds were common then which one does not find on any modern game list—the bustard, the crane, the egret, the bittern; and all these appeared on the table, in company with heron,swan —which the present writer of his own experience can commend—and peacock. Others of their dishes would seem not only strange to us, but also somewhat repulsive. There was whalefish, now relegated to the Esquimaux, and even at that time considered “the hardest of all other’ (meats), ‘and unusual to be eaten of our countrymen,no, not when they be very young and tenderest,’ notwithstanding that whale’s liver smelt like violets, and, when salted, gave ‘competent nourishment.’ There was porpoise, which, when baked like venison, ‘many gentlemen and ladies loved exceedingly.’ Our ancestors also ate snails, like any Frenchman,and did not shrink even from the unprepossessing tortoise and the unsavoury seagull. We find, too, here and there on the cookery lists names which, from purely accidental reasons, provoke a smile. The ‘colde creme’ which figured at the wedding banquet of an Earl of Devonshire was a sweet dish not in the least resembling the wellknown cosmetic of the same name. Another ‘sweet.’ pleasant to meet with

when wading through page after page of strange names,is ‘viande ardente* —very evidently something of the nature of an omelette au rhum, or of a Christmas pudding, destined, when a light was applied to the inflammable liquids with which it was saturated, to give great delight in hall. The pleasing of the eye was, indeed, no small feature of mediaeval hospitality. The roasted peacock was thought but poorly of if it did not flaunt its tail and sport a gilded beak, whilst each course at grand entertainments included a separate ‘sotletly’—a device in sugar or jelly; perhaps a hunting scene, or a ship in full sail, once, even —supreme triumph of the confectioner’s art!— an abbey church with all its altars. Passing from the consideration of separate dishes to their grouping on the board, one need not look in mediaeval menus for an arrangement of courses quite similar to the modern sequence—the division, that is to say,into hors d’oeuvres, soups, fish, entrees, jointes, sweets, cheese and dessert-, though the ordering of viands follows a somewhat like rule. Cookery books of that time appear to consider dishes under the three great heads of potages divers, leche meats and baked meats. The word ‘potage’ in those days stood for far more than the mere liquid soup with which we associate it now, for it comprised stews of various kinds, and, indeed. every dish in the composition of which liquid predominated over solid. Leche, or slice, meats were in many rspects analogous to entrees, baked meats to joints. The especial feature of a fifteenth century dinner was that each course—and there were generally three and sometimes four—formed a complete dinner in itself, according to modern ideas, beginning, as it did, with an appetiser, followed by soup or small game; then working through the various large dishes to the sweets, with which each course closed. Fifteenth century appetisers were, it may be here conveniently stated, of far more solid kind than the dainty hors d’oeuvre of to-day, though of the present. system one may see the germ in Dr. Andrew Boorde’s ‘Dyetary,’ published in 1562, where six or seven dam-

sons are recommendetl as likely to give an appetite to a languid dinerout.

But no doubt the best and completest idea of a mediaeval menu can be given by selecting an actual dinner for consideration in detail. The Harleain MSS. provide many to select from—coronation feasts of kings, episcopal banquets, the wedding dinners and suppers of great noblemen. Yet, as such massive entertainments were as exceptional as a city banquet, it is perhaps better to fall back upon John Russell’s ‘Book of Nature’ for a menu suitable for the dinner of a nobleman or gentleman only decently wealthy—a mere three courses and dessert. Here we see brawn with mustard opening the dinner and preceding ‘such soup as the cook hath made of herbs, spice and wine;’ then come the pheasant and the swan, the capon and the ‘pygg,’ the venison roast or baked, the meat fritters and the leche lombard, a strange medley of pork, eggs, pepper, cloves, currants, dates and sugar, powdered together, boiled in a bladder, cut into slices and served with rich sauce. Course two opens with a blanc mange, not the trifle so-called to-day, but a solid structure of poundedmeat; two soups follow, and a jelly; venison, kid, fawn, coney, crane, peacock, stork, heron, and bittern represent the joints, whilst a bream, seeming sadly out of place, hides among the assemblage of flesh and fowl; and the whole concludes with cheesecakes, buns and fritters. The third course is a lighter one than the two preceding. Almond cream —a favourite mediaeval dish, made with fine sugar and rosewater and eaten with violets —heads a list of such small game as quails, snipes, martens and sparrows; the inevitable fritters appear; and then baked quinces lead naturally to a dessert of white apples, caraway, wafers and spiced wine. Fish dinners were also favourite entertainments. In their menus appear such dainties as porpoise and peas, baked herrings with sugar, minows, dory in syrup, and whelks, besides almost all the varieties of fish common on our own tables.

Nor was the kindred subject of appropriate drinking neglected. The wise diner took ‘meane wines such as claret,’ with his food, reserving the ‘hot wines for the dessert.’ France, Gascony, and the Rhinelands sent over their ‘meane w’ines’ to English dinner tables. Half Europe contributed ‘hot wines’—a list of which gives Malmsey, Wyne of Corse, Wyne Greeke, Romanysk, Romny, Sack, Bastarde, Tyre, Osay, MuscadelL Capryke, Tynte, Roberdany. Neither were wines of the grape only appreciated. Alygaunt wine—that is, of Alicante—was made of the mulberry, whilst Respyne was the acknowledged juice of the raspberry. Less extravagant diners patronised ale, which Dr. Boorde says ‘comes naturally to an Englishman,’ and is the best drink of all. Beer, on the other hand, the doctor evidently did not like. He describes it as ‘a Dutch drink lately come into England * * ♦ and now of late days * * * much used, to the detriment of Englishmen; specially it killeth them the which be troubled with the colic,

* * * for the drink is a cold drink.’ Yet, if ‘fined, and not new,’ it was of some service in qualifying the heat of the liver. Cider was little better, being ‘cold of operation;’ it engendered evil humoure, hindered digestion, and hurt the stomach. Mead was good—but not for the colic; methelgyn—a concoction of honey, water, and herbs boiled and sodden together—much better. But most deleterious of all drinks was, the doctor thought, water. For ‘water is one of the four elements of which divers liquors or drinks for man’s sustenance be made of, taking their original or substance of it, as ale, beer, mead, and methelgyn, and is not wholesome by itself, for it is ‘cold, slow and slack of digestion.’ Verily, our ancestors were not a nation of total abstainers.