Pottage Recipes

The over-riding purpose of this chapter is to offer the opportunity to study and experience one of the most interesting and varied forms of medieval English food. To do this, it presents a sequence of late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manuscript recipes in modern form, starting with meat pottages, then on through those of fish, dairy, vegetables, fruits, flowers, cereals, almonds, flour-pastes, bread-sops, caudles, and jellies. It is by no means comprehensive, however, and anyone wishing to study this topic in greater detail is advised to consult the many excellent volumes of transcribed medieval recipes such as C.B. Hieatt and S. Butler’s Curye on Inglysch (Oxford 1985), C. B. Hieatt’s An Ordinance of Pottage (London 1988) and G. A. J. Hodgett’s Stere Htt Well (Adelaide n. d.). For the origins of many of their recipes, M. Rodinson, A. J.Arberry and C.Perry’s Medieval Arab Cookery (Totnes 2001) is invaluable.