Chef Gordon Ramsay is very sceptical about historical recipes – he just doesn’t believe they actually work! Ever Wondered sends him to find out more at a 15th century farmstead, a part of the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum near Chichester…

Richard Fitch is a professional freelance food historian, currently involved in the Victorian cookery projects for the National Trust and Tudor cookery for the Weald and Downland Museum

Gordon: Richard – do these recipes work?  Richard Fitch: They certainly do, and there’s plenty to be learned from medieval and Tudor recipes, even for a modern chef such as yourself. The first dish we’re going to make is beef pottage.

• 2 lb joint of beef
• 4 oz each of the whole leaves of spinach, endive and white cabbage or cauliflower
• 1-2 tsp salt
• 4 tbsp wine vinegar
• 2 oz fine or medium oatmeal
• 3 English onions, sliced
• Small squares or triangles of white bread

Mix the oatmeal with 1/2 pint of cold water, and stir it into the pot.

Add the vegetables, and continue simmering for 1 1/2 hours, until the meat is tender. Then add the salt and wine vinegar.

Lift the meat out on to a dish, lift out the vegetables with a skimmer, lay them on top, and decorate the edges with the pieces of bread. Then keep them warm until the remaining stock has been served first as a pottage.
 

Richard Fitch: There’s no stated cooking time – the beef is basically poached until it’s done. The dish that comes out is boiled beef. Served sliced and accompanied by a thickened vegetable stew like a broth, but a little bit thinner. In modern terms it's two courses in one pot.

Gordon: Do you season it before cooking?  Richard Fitch: No. The thing you have to realise is the limited quantity and availability of seasoning at the time. A small amount of salt, a very expensive commodity then, would have been added toward the end of the cooking process. The most common seasoning in Britain in the Middle Ages was mustard. Pepper was also used, but to give you an idea of how precious it was, in a household of 20 staff consumption of pepper would have been less than a quarter of a teaspoon per person per week!

Gordon: Unbelievable! What about vegetables….surely they can’t have changed very much over 400 years? Richard Fitch: No. Basic vegetables are basic vegetables. The kind of things they didn’t have would have been imports from the New World and the Americas. In the 15th century and earlier, vegetables were seen as the preserve of the poor. The rich, if they did cook vegetables, would have boiled them to death and thrown away the water, losing all their goodness. What we also find 400 years ago is that we were very reliant on what we’d stored over the winter. The household would have smoked a large amount of meat – slaughtering the pigs in the autumn, keeping a little bit of fresh meat, but preserving as much as possible as it had to last all the way through until the next year.

Richard Fitch: We’re going to make quite a sweet dish – sack posset, or thick alcoholic pudding. The dish includes certain spices – some mace, cinnamon and nutmeg. These spices become more common the closer you come to the present day.

In the 15th century they would have been purely the preserve of the social elite. By the time we reach the mid-1600s they’re becoming more available to the town class.

• 4 egg yolks
• 2 egg whites
• 1/4 pint dry sherry
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ground mace
• 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
• 1 pint single cream
• 3 oz sugar

Andrew Chevallier is a lecturer on Herbal Medicine at Middlesex University. He is also a member of the National Institute of medical herbalists

Andrew Chevallier: Food and herbs were very important in recipes at the time. All they had was their fields, their gardens – food and medicine went hand in hand, and people were using food and herbs to treat infection from Roman times right up to the middle ages. People then thought there were four humours which were responsible for health in the body – blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm. You stayed healthy as long as those four humours were in balance. Gordon: So which herbs do what? Andrew, if I had an upset stomach, how would I have been treated? Andrew Chevallier: That would be too much yellow or black bile. Globe artichoke is very good to protect the liver and lower blood fat levels. Sage is very good for digestion and helps to strengthen the stomach’s action.

Gordon: If I had a bad chest…coughs and colds?

Andrew Chevallier: That would be too much yellow or black bile. Globe artichoke is very good to protect the liver and lower blood fat levels. Sage is very good for digestion and helps to strengthen the stomach’s action.

Gordon: If I had a bad chest…coughs and colds?

Andrew Chevallier: Too much phlegm. Thyme is very good for the chest and soothes dry, irritating, tickly coughs. Garlic as everyone will know is a natural antibiotic and is very good for chest infections.

Gordon: What if I’m stressed out and uptight – not difficult in my job?

Andrew Chevallier: Hops are a good strong sedative. Rosemary is best known as a culinary plant these days – but its also a good invigorating tonic and promotes energy. If you’re full of nervous energy it’ll help you relax.

Gordon rounds off his day of research by taking the ideas he’s learned and adding a dash of modern culinary technique…why not try his recipe:
 

RECIPE COMING SOON!

Books you can read

"The Art of Dining", Sara Paston Williams, The National Trust, ISBN 0707803608

"Food and Cooking in 18th-Century Britain", Jane Renfrew, English Heritage, ISBN 1850745382

"Food and Feast in Medieval England", P.W Hammond, Sutton Publishing, ISBN 0750909927

"Herbs for Common Ailments", Anne McIntyre, Gaia Books, ISBN 1856750558

"The Royal Horticultural Society Encyclopedia of Herbs and Their Uses", Deni Brown, Dorling Kindersley, ISBN 0751302031

"English Herb Gardens", Guy Copper, Weindenfield & Nicolson General, ISBN 0297791311

Links You Can Surf

http://www.herbsociety.co.uk For more information on the Herb Society

http://www.ex.ac.uk/phytonet For more information on the British Herb Association

http://www.dine-online.co.uk/Britcook.htm For more information on the history of British cooking and where to find traditional British food

http://www.godecookery.com/godeboke/godeboke.htm For more information on medieval cooking and recipes