The Boke of Cokery

Treasures turn up all the time, and a pristine copy of the very rare first English collection of recipes, Boke of Cokery, has recently been discovered in the archives of Longleat House near Bath, England. The text is based on a fifteenth-century manuscript, which in turn draws on at least two fourteenth-century handwritten books. First published in London in 1500 by the pioneer printer Richard Pynson, Boke of Cokery just makes the cutoff date as an incunabulum. On the one hand, the book is firmly rooted in the medieval past, with classics such as frumenty, daryolites (custard tarts), and moumbles, a stew of entrails for lesser guests that led to the expression “to eat humble pie.” Brouets abound, including one from Germany (a spicy, sugarless broth) and one from Spain (also sugarless). The filling for chicken pie is not only spiced but sweetened with dried dates and the little black raisins of Corinth that we call currants, already demonstrating the English penchant for balancing pungency with sweetness that was to mark their dishes in the next century and beyond. On the other hand, the future direction of English cookery can be discerned, with its love of pure flavors and lack of pretension, so suited to the merchants and gentry who were forming an increasingly prosperous middle class.