The first recipe, most elaborate for such a simply named dish, was collected in the year 1709 and is quoted here mainly as a curiosity but also because a ‘pottage’, whether of meat or fish, was a kind of feast-day stew, an excellent dish, of which the distinctive characteristic was a conglomeration of delicious ingredients chopped or mashed, in a highly spiced broth, which was poured over the central whole meat or fish.

This recipe comes from a great house on the Norfolk coast and i