A Chaucerian Feast for Penn State University

Barley-breed, Broun Breed, Wastel-breed - oat, wheat, & white bread
Boter - whipped butter
Chese - Ricotta cheese spread for bread
Wortes - salad of lettuce & green vegetables dressed with fruit juices, vinegar, & oil

Pesen - snow peas sautéed in olive oil, seasoned with lemon juice, cinnamon, & sugar
Fecches - a fava bean & raisin pudding with almond milk, honey, & wine
Chicknes with the Marybones - chicken breasts in a beef & herb sauce
Walsh-notes - candied walnuts

Wortes

78. Salat. Take persel, sawge, grene garlec, chibolles, letys, leek, spinoches, borage, myntes, prymos, violettes, porrettes, fenel, and toun cressis, rew, rosemarye, purslarye; laue and waishe hem clene. Pike hem. Pluk hem small wiþ þyn honde, and myng hem wel with rawe oile; lay on vyneger and salt, and serue it forth.

Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). London: For the Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

Our version: when Chaucer speaks of wortes, he is referring to fresh herbs & greens; he has his Chanticleer in The Nun's Priest's Tale dream of a sly "col-fox," hiding in a bed of herbs: "And in a bed of wortes stille he lay." To the medieval cook, though, wortes were more than just the plants used for seasonings and spices, and included such vegetables as cabbage leaves, spinach, beet greens, borage, parsley, leeks, etc., namely, any combination of greens and members of the onion family. For our salad of wortes, we have combined elements of the Salat recipe - parsley, lettuce, leeks, spinach, oil, vinegar, & salt - with items mentioned in Gervase Markham's instructions for salads in Country Contentments, in Two Bookes, 1615: almonds, cucumbers, oranges, & lemons. Our salad is served during the first course after the advice of the 15th c. De Honesta Voluptate et Valetudine, which states that the eating process should begin with "lettuce and whatever is served with vinegar and oil, raw or cooked."

Ingredients: various leaf lettuces, fresh spinach, leeks, fresh parsley, cucumbers, oranges, lemons, almonds, red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt.

Pesen

Piselli cum carne salada. Get peas in the shell and bring them to a boil; get marbled salt pork and cut it into slices half a finger long, and fry them a little; then set the peas to fry with the pork, and add in a little verjuice, a little must, sugar and cinnamon. The same can be done with beans.

Scully, Terence. Cuoco Napoletano. The Neapolitan Recipe Collection (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS Buhler, 19): A Critical Edition and English Translation. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2000.

Our version: many medieval receipts for peas involve mashing or pureeing the vegetable; however, here is an Italian recipe that leaves the peas in the shell. Our modern snow peas make a fine substitute for the varieties of peas that would have originally been used. In order to keep this a vegetarian-friendly dish (an important consideration for today's diners), we have eliminated the salt pork and are instead sautéing the peas in olive oil. Lemon juice substitutes for verjuice, which was a common medieval product found in many recipes, made of unfermented wine or fruit juices.

Ingredients: snow peas, olive oil, lemon juice, cinnamon, sugar.

Fecches

81. For to make a potage fene boiles, tak wite benes & seþ hem in water, & bray þe benys in a morter al to noyt; & lat þem seþe in almande mylk & do þerin wyn & honey. & seþ reysouns in wyn & do þer to & after dresse yt forth.

Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). London: For the Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

Our version: Fecches are vetches, which are strictly defined as legumes, but a looser translation is "beans" (which is exactly what Chaucer means when he writes "nought worth two fecches," or "not worth two beans"); the modern fava bean is probably the closest we can come to a medieval-type bean. For the contemporary gourmand, a bean pudding is an unusual food item, but such a potage was common fare in the Middle Ages.

Ingredients: fava beans, almond milk, white wine, honey, raisins.

Chicknes with the Marybones

.Cxliiij. Schyconys with the bruesse. Take halfe a dosyn Chykonys, & putte hem in-to a potte; þen putte þer-to a gode gobet of freysshe Beef, & lat hem boyle wyl; putte þer-to Percely, Sawge leuys, Saurey, noyt to smal hakkyd; putte þer-to Safroun y-now; þen kytte þin Brewes, & skalde hem with þe same broþe; Salt it wyl.

Austin, Thomas. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1429, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS 55. London: for The Early English Text Society by N. Trübner & Co., 1888.

Our version: Chaucer's cook was proficient at this dish, and was probably one of the food items prepared by him for his clients on their pilgrimage in Canterbury Tales. It is essentially chicken boiled with beef marrow bones, which would impart the "rich" or "fat" broth quality often desired by medieval cooks. In the original receipt, the chicken is boiled in the marrow-enhanced broth; small slices or dices of toast or dried bread are laid on the serving dish, a little broth is poured on the bread, and the chicken is served on top. In our version, we have decided to thicken the broth into a sauce by using bread crumbs, the most common medieval thickening agent, and are serving the chicken in this sauce, which is also flavored with savory & sage. The use of marrow, or "mary," was ubiquitous in medieval cooking.

Ingredients: chicken breasts, beef bouillon, parsley, sage, savory, unseasoned bread crumbs, toasted white bread.

Bake Mete

.iij. A-nother manere. Tak fayre porke y-broylid, & grynd it smal with yolkys of Eyroun; þan take Pepir, Gyngere, & grynd it smal, & melle it with-al, & a lytel hony, & floryssche þin cofyns with-ynne & with-owte, & hele hem with þin ledys, & late hem bake, & serue forth.

Austin, Thomas. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1429, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS 55. London: for The Early English Text Society by N. Trübner & Co., 1888.

Our version: at first glance, bake mete would appear to be simply "baked meat;" however, mete translates as food, dinner, something to eat, etc. This is in fact a "baked meal," resembling our modern pot pie but a completely different sort of meat pie. Such pies contained a variety of meats & fish, fruits, nuts, and enough other diverse ingredients to make it literally a meal within a meal. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books has an entire section devoted to Bake Metis, from which this recipe comes. It is a variation, or "a-nother manere" of a pie called Tartes de chare, which appears in the original MS on the same page as a-nother manere. The original Tartes de chare is a far more complex recipe, and contains, among other ingredients, currants & pine nuts, which we have added to our version of a-nother manere. We have also replaced the pork of the original receipt with beef. In Canterbury Tales, pies such as this were a common feature at the Franklin's table, where it "snewed" meat and drink.

Ingredients: beef, egg yolks, pepper, ginger, honey, currants, pine nuts, salt, pie pastry.

Peres

.xxxv. Perys en Composte. Take Wyne an Canel, & a gret dele of Whyte Sugre, an set it on þe fyre & hete it hote, but let it nowt boyle, an draw it þorwe a straynoure; þan take fayre Datys, an pyke owt þe stonys, an leche hem alle þinne, an caste þer-to; þanne take Wardonys, an pare hem and sethe hem, an leche hem alle þinne, & caste þer-to in-to þe Syryppe; þanne take a lytil Sawnderys, and caste þer-to, an sette it on þe fyre; an yif þow hast charde quynce, caste þer-to in þe boyling, an loke þat it stonde wyl with Sugre, an wyl lyid wyth Canel, an caste Salt þer-to, an let it boyle; an þan caste yt on a treen vessel, & lat it kele, and serue forth.

Austin, Thomas. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1429, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS 55. London: for The Early English Text Society by N. Trübner & Co., 1888.

Our version: we are following the recipe essentially as is; pears & dates are cooked in a sauce of red wine, sugar, & cinnamon. Sawnderys, or sandalwood, was a common medieval ingredient used primarily for coloring food red; we have left it out.

Ingredients: pears, dates, red wine, sugar, cinnamon, salt.

Voidë

The voidë was a small repast, usually consisting of wine & cakes, taken just before retiring. In addition, John Russell's 15th c. Boke of Nurture recommends fruit and wafers (flat cakes cooked in a grill, similar to a modern pizzelle or waffle) as the closing foods of a dinner or feast, and so our voidë consists of a small dessert board with fresh grapes, cakes, & wafers. The molded cakes, or cookies, presented here were a popular item in the late Middle Ages & Renaissance.

The names of the first 3 courses are derived from John Russell's Boke of Nurture.