Much superior to the Heinz.
Posted on 12/02/2009 3:40:52 PM PST by Fenhalls555
Dishes of chicken blancmange and porpoise porridge are unlikely to whet the appetite of most modern food lovers.
But such recipes were apparently fit for a king 600 years ago.
Written by chefs employed by Richard II, they are included in what is thought to be the world's oldest cookbook.
The unusual dishes rival modern creations by British TV chef Heston Blumenthal, who is famous for his snail porridge.
Experts from Manchester University's John Rylands Library, who discovered the manuscript, have translated a handful of its 150 recipes, which are written in Middle English and date back to 1390.
They include frumenty, a porridge-type dish made of bulghar wheat, chicken stock and saffron, and payn puff, a dish of boiled fruits wrapped in pastry.
The unusual cookbook, called the Forme of Cury, is believed to have contained dishes to feed servants and the royal family alike
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Much superior to the Heinz.
Since dormice taste like chicken anyway, just substitute game hens.
Looks terrible, sounds horrid in the discussion...especially the ‘grain mustard with horseradish to stuff the fish’...
...BUT, reading the recipe, it actually seems something worth trying.
We call that minced meat here in the colonies.
Hardly the world’s oldest recipe book...
Ancient Greeks - Athenaeus’s from the the Deipnosophists.
Ancient Roman food, second-century cookbook of Apicius.
The Byzantines: plenty of recipes from the writings of Theodore Prodromus
Here's the Wikipedia page which discusses both series:
Here's a link to a short YouTube video featuring the cook preparing eels for a meal from the Restoration Period:
Well said.
This was also very good:
The Victorian Kitchen
One of several spin-offs from this excellent series:
The Victorian Kitchen Garden
Historian Ruth Goodman does an excellent job, along with the two archaeologists in the program. Goodman also participated in a Tudor Feast program that was filmed at Haddon Hall.
Aye.
Yorkshire pudding is a favorite here. It’s really easy to make it. We prefer to have it popover-style. It’s a very nutritious alternative to potatoes, rice, etc.
1 c flour
1/2 c water
1/2 c milk
2-4 eggs (more = more protein for the kids!)
Preheat oven to 400. Put a non-stick muffin tin in the oven as it heats, with a dab of butter in the bottom of each well.
Put all ingredients in a mixer. Mix on HIGH.
When butter is browned, pull tin out of oven. Let it cool for a minute (while the mixer still runs). Distribute the batter into each well. Immediately plunge the tin back into the oven, without delay— this helps it puff up.
Cooks for about 20 minutes. Serve immediately. Any leftovers are great the next day with jam.
Trifle pudding is another marvelous Brit foodstuff. These two food inventions, plus cheddar and stilton cheeses and rum, make up for the rest of their cuisine, IMHO.
“As a person of Scottish descent...”
I too have Scottish blood in my ancestry (my great-great g’ma was Scottish. I lived in N. Ireland three years and spent many a weekend in Scotland. I enjoyed fresh Loch Ness salmon and haggis where we stayed in Ft William on one visit. And you are correct about the cuisine there being different from the bland English cusine. Scots also generally consider themselves Scots, and not a part of England or what is English.
False Scot, Sold your King for a Groat.
lol Let me know what you think after you try it.
OTOH, 1,500 miles from the nearest coast, that might be awhile
Guess I shouldn’t wait for the dinner invitation to sample the pie. :)
Yorkshire pudding ... hey, thanks for the recipe. But how do I mix in the beef drippings?
Dittos about Cheddar cheese. And British beef cattle also yield taste-bud treats.
Credit where credit is due. Ode to a Haggis by Robert Burns. One of my cousins sent me two small tins (they were red tartan) with haggis inside. I kinda’ like haggis but even I wouldn’t eat it out of a tin. I gave one to my Dentist who gives it pride of place on his desk as a paper weight.
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