The Medieval Way to Roast a Porpoise

Posted by Queuebot in Food & Drinks on June 19, 2009 at 4:42 am


For all the foodies – the John Rylands Library (U.K.) has now digitalized and published The Forme of Cury, a cookbook dating back to about 1420. Compiled by master cooks to Richard II, this book contains hundreds of recipes, and includes exotic dishes featuring porpoise and blancmange.

The recipe begins “For to make blanc mange” and goes on to say “put rice in water all night and in the morrow, wash it clean”.

“It’s not a like a modern cookery book so it doesn’t give you exact quantities and times,” said Mr Hodgson.

“The complete book – all 100 pages – is now available online so that anybody who is interested in cookery, well, you could actually make some of the recipes now.”

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by dradell.


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10 comments to "The Medieval Way to Roast a Porpoise"

  1. Greencolander
    June 19th, 2009 at 6:46 am

    Where is the link to view the cookbook online? The BBC doesn't have it!

  2. Mektoub
    June 19th, 2009 at 6:51 am

    Yeah nothing that I hate more than "available online" when there's no link (neatorama is not in cause, it's the BBC) then in google results you get only redirects to the BBC link...
    Note I already got worst, "available online" that meant at amazon...

  3. Lady C
    June 19th, 2009 at 7:22 am

    I too was hoping for a direct link...but if you are merely curious about some of the recipes, a translation of the book titled "To The King's Taste" was published some years ago. It's got the original recipe on one page, and a modern translation with amounts and times as a kitchen tested recipe on the other. Although there is a certain ... something ... about a recipe that starts "Take good fleshe of pigges and whack hem into gobbets..." It beats "2 pounds of pork loin, cubed" any day!

  4. dradell
    June 19th, 2009 at 7:35 am

    http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/eresources/imagecollections/univer sity/medieval/ .

    You need to use the special viewer at the library homepage. Then, enter username/pw (provided on page), click 'Rylands medieval collection', click 'subject' on left, click 'cookery'...and the images pop up. Double click to view each page.

    Hope your old English is up to par. =)

  5. jw
    June 19th, 2009 at 10:05 am

    Now _that_ is a truly miserable browsing experience.

  6. Kevin
    June 19th, 2009 at 10:25 am

    I'm familiar with a fair amount of British slang, but I've never heard "suck it and see". Anyone?

  7. angstrom
    June 19th, 2009 at 9:02 pm

    I think "suck it and see" comes from tasting boiled sweets, what Americans call 'candy'.
    If you don't know the flavour of a boiled sweet, how would you find out? You suck it and see. Well, that's just my guess at the origin.

    "suck it and see" certainly means that the only way to find out about something unknown is to actually try it

  8. Mektoub
    June 22nd, 2009 at 7:08 am

    Hey Dradell, many thanks for the link!

  9. Matt
    June 22nd, 2009 at 10:19 am

    Hey look, There's a recipe for unicorn in here.

  10. Matt
    June 22nd, 2009 at 10:20 am

    I wonder how many of these animals have gone extinct since the cookbook was written.


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