Cameline Sauce

PERIOD: France, 14th century | SOURCE: Le Viandier de Taillevent | CLASS: Authentic

DESCRIPTION: Sauce of vinegar and cinnamon

ORIGINAL RECEIPT:

155. Cameline: To Make Cameline Sauce. Grind ginger, a great deal of cinnamon, cloves, grains of paradise, mace, and if you wish, long pepper; strain bread that has been moistened in vinegar, strain everything together and salt as necessary.

- Scully, Terence, ed. Le Viandier de Taillevent. An Edition of all Extant Manuscripts. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1988.

MODERN RECIPE:

• 1 cup each cider vinegar and water 
• ½ tsp. cinnamon
• ¼ tsp. each of ginger, cloves, mace, grains of paradise, pepper, and salt

OPTION: The original receipt calls for breadcrumbs (see note below); if this sauce is not being used to make Cameline Meat Brewet, it may be thickened by whisking or thoroughly blending in fine unseasoned breadcrumbs until the desired consistency is reached. 

Unlike many sauces, this one is unboiled as per Terence Scully's description in Le Viandier de Taillevent, p. 219: "Cameline has cinnamon as its predominant ingredient and is unboiled." Scully also advises us that not all sauces contained binding agents (p. 23-24). Bearing that in mind, the bread crumbs have been left out of this version of the recipe. In place of the Grains of Paradise, which is often hard to find, I will occasionally substitute cardamom, which adds a lovely "bite" to the sauce.