Sallet of all kinde of hearbes, 1587

 To make a Sallet of all kinde of hearbes, from The Good Huswifes Jewell (1587): 

Take your hearbes and picke them very fine into faire water, and picke your flo∣wers by them selues, and wash them all cleane, and swing them in a strainer, and whē you put them into a dish, mingle them with Cowcumbers or Lemmons payred and sliced, and scrape Suger, and put in vineger and Oyle, and throw the flowers on the top of the Sallet, and of euery sorte of the aforesaid things, and garnish the dish about with the foresaide thinges, and hard Egges boyled and laide about the dish and vpon the Sallet.

So, which are these "all kinde of hearbes?" In the contemporary A Book of Cookrye (1591), the only salad recipe is a boiled salad of spinach (with a sauce of currants, sugar, and vinegar). The earlier Forme of Cury (c.1390) gives a "salat" that truly features all kinds of herbs:

Take persel, sawge, garlec, chibolles, oynouns, leek, borage, myntes, porrectes [porrets], fenel and ton tressis [cresses], rew, rosemarye, purslarye [purslain], laue and waische hem clene, pike hem, pluk hem small wiþ þyn honde and myng hem wel with rawe oile. lay on vynegur and salt, and serue it forth.

In a more modern spelling, I read this as

Take parlsey, sage, garlic, chibolles [spring onions], onions, leeks, borage, mint, porret [scallions, young leeks, or small onions], fennel, cresses, rue, rosemary, purslane. Lave [rinse] and wash them clean, pick them, pluck them small within hand and mingle well with raw oil. Lay on vinegar and salt, and serve it forth.

Meanwhile, Eleanor Fettisplace's Receipt Book (edited by Hilary Spurling, started c.1604) apparently mentions salads of lettuce, radish, cress, and 'other greens' interspersed with olives, currants, nuts, and decorated with flowers. None of these recipes made the printed addition in full.

Being limited by what was available in the garden, I had to use a purchased spinach/baby lettuce combination as the bulk of the greens, supplemented by curly cress (lots in the garden already), roquet/arugula, parsley (doing well in the container garden), sage (ditto), mint (likewise), and green onions (also coming along in the garden). I technically could have grabbed some leeks and borage as well, but I didn't like how either of them looked in the necessary interval between when I picked them and when I started assembling the salad--and I simply forgot to pick any rosemary. I opted for the cucumber over the lemon (this being for an event, and feeling that cucumbers require less of an explanation), and did remember to grab some chive flowers to decorate the sallet.   

Sallet of all kinde of hearbes, after a recipe of c.1587.

Per the instructions, I washed and drained all the vegetables, then sliced the cucumbers and tore up all the leafy greens. Mounding the greens on a plate, I set the cucumber slices over them, and poured white wine vinegar and olive oil over the whole thing. I finished it the sallet by setting slices of three hard-boiled eggs around the edges and putting the chive flowers on top.

Overall the salad was fine, I just found it really bland. In many respects, it's not that different from my usual Victorian salads, so I think the main issue is the dressing not having that extra zip of mustard and cayenne. It might also just have been too cool of a day for salad to really be appealing. I was worried about the more pungent herbs, and the sheer number of onion variations called for, but it ended up not being a huge deal. The few bits of green onion I included went very nicely with the egg and cucumber, while the sage wasn't bad, and even the mint worked better than I feared. I'm not sure this will hold true for a salad with more mint and onion all together, but in small amounts, it sort of worked. I'd definitely inflict this one on other people in the name of historical accuracy (it's weird, but not awful). 

I did forget the sugar, but otherwise feel pretty good about the accuracy of this salad. For one thing, I think there's room to interpret "all kinde of hearbes" as 'this recipe can be many with any kind of green salad vegetables' as much as it can be read as 'this recipe requires as many different vegetables as possible,' and in that case, not including every plant isn't a failure. Furthermore, the herb list I used was a good 200 years older than the salad recipe itself, so while I think it was a potentially useful suggestion, I don't think it's a binding matter of accuracy to includes all of them in this one specific recipe. I think there's room to argue that the cucumbers should be mixed into the greens instead of laid on top, so I might try that instead next time, though I like the look of the cucumbers on top.

Book Review: The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England

A few winters ago now, The Met had an exhibit on Tudor artwork, and I was very excited to get my hands on a copy of the exhibition catalog (before the exhibit ended even!), though I procrastinated writing it up. In a fun turn, however, I recently discovered that the museum put a walk-through video of the exhibit online, and that inspired me to finally finish the review.

The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England

The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England by Elizabeth Cleland and Adam Eaker is the exhibition book for the Metropolitan Museum's Winter 2022-2023 exhibit of 16th century English art and portraiture. As the title suggests, that exhibit mostly looked at the portraiture and decorative arts of Tudor England, particularly that of the royal family, and how such artworks helped shape the Tudor dynasty's public image.

The book is organized around the 123 artifacts in the exhibit (or intended to be in the exhibit as originally conceived before 2020 happened), grouped chronologically and thematically into four sections. These explore the role of art in defining the Tudor dynasty, creating its public image, enhancing the prestige of its court, and shaping its historic legacy. Nine essays divided between these contextualize the art, providing overviews of the historic events concurrent with their making, as well as the artists, stylistic movements, customs, and physical spaces which informed them. Holbein, naturally, gets his own essay.

Each artifact has its label, a full-color picture, and 1-3 pages of accompanying narrative discussing the specific artwork's provenance, purpose, symbolism, maker (as best as can be determined), construction techniques, etc. Many of these artifact write-ups also contained additional photographs of related artworks not included in the exhibit itself (such as buildings). In addition to the numerous portraits and miniatures, the featured artifacts include tapestries, embroideries, garments, armor, ceremonial plate, sketches, plans for buildings and decorative features, medals, sculpture, and prints. All of the Tudor monarchs are included, though Elizabeth I and Henry VIII's relatively long reigns are most heavily featured.

As an exhibit book, this volume is focused on interpreting specific artworks. While the essays do provide historic context and link these pieces to wider artistic movements, the history that is being covered spans over a century, and so is handled in very broad strokes. I liked that the what theory is discussed ends up thoroughly grounded in physical artifacts, though that might not be to everyone's taste. With so much material to cover, close-up and detail shots are not included. Also, while there is a very wide variety of objects included, paintings are far and away the largest category. If, for example, you're looking for many images of original 16th century armor, this isn't the right book; if you want two suits of armor discussed context of the splendor of Henry VIII's court, it just might be.

In size and photograph quality, this is a coffee table book. It's quite pretty, with large, full-color photographs (249 total). Not being able to attend the exhibit in person, this book is the next best thing. I am also excited to add to my library a physical book of high-quality visual references from this period.

Score: 4.5 stars.

Accuracy: High. Lots of photographs of original 16th century art, and the text is all discussion of these pieces.

Strongest Impression: A gorgeous book. Very useful for anyone interested in 16th century English art history, 16th century English royals, or who just wants a physical reference book for the classic portraits of that time. This isn't going to be particularly useful for the hands-on aspect of recreating garments, or for a thorough grounding in the period's history, but it's top-notch for inspiration and has interesting insights into artistic trends during the time period.

Book Review: The Domestic Revolution

The Domestic Revolution by Ruth Goodman

 

I have a new favorite Ruth Goodman book. Embarrassingly enough, I ordered The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Our Homes Changed Everything when it first came out in 2020, read it three times, but somehow never actually finished this post. The book is a bit of a departure from the author's previous titles, spanning the 16th to 19th centuries instead of focusing on a single century/reign, and it really delves the changes over that period rather than giving a snapshot of a particular time. As the subtitle suggests, this book explores the causes and effects of adopting coal as the primary domestic fuel in England. 

The book is 302 pages (excluding the bibliography), divided into nine chapters. The first of these discusses the various fuels that were used before the widespread adoption of coal; later chapters explore the factors which led to coal replacing wood as Britain's main fuel coal, the evidence for how/where coal use spread through the island, and the resulting the changes in land-use patterns, cooking methods, house fixtures, and cleaning practices that arose from domestic coal use. The primary sources are eclectic, including wills/inventories, charitable bequests, household manuals, cookbooks, surviving buildings, advertisements, patents; I find their use persuasive and the conclusions drawn from them plausible. The author also describes her own historical experiments where relevant (particularly concerning cooking and the idiosyncrasies of using different fuels) which I think adds a unique practical dimension to the discussion.

This is a fairly text-heavy book. The images, averaging just over six per chapter, are often copied from period sources. There are no color illustrations, and the modern images are mostly simple illustrations or diagrams (including grates, coppices, peat cooking fires, the reconstructed Mary Rose galley.) There were times when I wished I was standing next to a reconstructed oven with the author pointing out the relevant features, but overall the text carries the message and the book doesn't really suffer from having few illustrations. As always, the writing is approachable, and reads like a friend telling you all about their latest historic research project. The text does not use numbered citations, but the bibliography is divided by chapter.

Overall, I found the book enjoyable, and thought-provoking. I particularly like how the author ties the different subtopic to eachother: how land-use affects the availability of different fuels, how those fuels affect cooking styles and oven design; tracing the changes to English cuisine as coal replaced slower fuels; and even the different cleaning methods needed in a coal-burning versus wood-burning households.

*In addition to wood, the first chapter explores the practical aspects of other domestic fuels used in Britain prior to and aside from coal, including peat/turves, heather, gorse/ling, furze, and animal dung.

Score: Five Stars.

Accuracy: High.

Strongest Impression: An interesting synthesis of Ruth's many areas of expertise, this book caused me to seriously rethink the interconnected-ness of housework, energy, land-use, and foodways, as well as offering insight into how fuel choice shapes cooking (and many other things.)

Another Typical Tudor Smock, mid-16th century

So I apparently never posted one project from last summer: a second Typical Tudor smock, this one all hand-sewn to use the 'hem each piece then whip-stitch the seams together' method. And because my older smocks were suffering catastrophic seam failure all through the first weekend of Faire.

The place where this method shines.

Compared to run-and-fell seaming, this method takes about 50% more sewing per seam (since both sides of each seam is getting finished individually before they're even joined). However, it makes the square gussets fit beautifully with no weird lumps or bulk where the felled finishes of the gusset overlaps with the sleeve and body seams. Other benefits include most of the project being very portable (the sleeves and gusset pieces fit very easily in my to-go work bag, so that most of the hemming could be done in odd minutes), and very easy repairs (since the seams under stress can be replaced without compromising the edge finish).

Managed to photograph this smock before wearing it on the last day of the event.

Tudor Garters

Knit garters, based on the Typical Tudor recipe for...knit garters. Appropriately worked in garter stitch, with two strands of undyed wool singles.

Garters as knit.

I made mine long enough for cross-gartering, only to find that my knees really aren't the right shape for it. Fortunately, the garters work just as well tied single. 

I tried to dye the garters blue (messed up my indigo vat this time, got a pale yellow that dried to absolutely nothing), then red/orange/pink/brown (madder vat, any color would be fine, except that I got a shade I call "world's palest oatmeal"), and finally yellow/green (pomegranate...but instead ended up with darkest brown-black instead). Functionally, this was the only color I was not going for at any point, but they still work fine and it's not like my garters are ever visible under a kirtle. 

And dyed brown.

June Mending

 Busy month for repair work. I fixed the seams in both pairs of linen hose; put new ties on my plaid petticoat, Victorian nightcap, and plain coif; replaced the waistband on my white linen apron and reattached that of the green; put darts in my green kirtle to fix the neckline gap; and finally finished the buttonholes on my new(er) drawers.

Nearly emptied the workbasket. For now.

HFF 6.24: Beverages

The Challenge: Beverages. Make something to drink.

The Recipe: Claret cup from Lady Elinor Fettisplace's Receipt Book

To Make Claret Wine Water
Take a Quarte of strong aquavitae, as much of goode Claret wine, a pound of the beste sugar, beat yr sugar small, then powre the wine and the aquavitae to the sugar and stir the sugar and the wine togather untill yr sugar be dissolved, then ad to it whigt pep, ginger, nuttmegg, large Mace, Red jylloflwers...put some bruised Cloves therein when you put in the other spices.

The Date/Year and Region: 1604 or later, English

 

How Did You Make It: I scaled this down to just a cup each of wine and brandy, using a merlot for the claret since I couldn't find anything closer at the store (claret can refer to any red wine from Bordeaux). Being on a 1/4 scale, I used 4 oz of granulated white sugar. The spices don't have specific quanitites involved, so I guessed: a generous dash of powdered mace, 3 white peppercorns, 3 cloves, a 1/2" piece of ginger, and about four gratings of nutmeg. I bruised the pepper and cloves in a mortar and coarsely chopped the ginger,

 

Time to Complete: About five minutes, though letting the spices steep for 1-2 days improved the flavor.

 

Total Cost: In the $5-$10 range. I don't recall the exact prices and was only using a small fraction of each ingredient.

 

How Successful Was It?: Better with time. On the first day, it mostly tasted like wine with a bit of burn from the brandy and some mixed spice flavor; after sitting two days, the ginger flavor came through better and the sugar cut a bit of the burning. 

I tried mixing this with hot water (like the Irish cordial), and while the beverage was nice warm, a 50-50 mixture with water made it taste thin and faint (though it still burned a bit). I'd be tempted in the future to add warmed wine instead of water for cutting this with (or just using a higher proportion of wine to brandy in the first place).

How Accurate Is It? I could have worked harder to find a bordeaux, but I think brandy was a reasonable approximation for aquavitae (which the editor's notes indicated to a "neat spirit" distilled from wine or beer). While I didn't notice any grittiness, I expect the texture could be improved by find whole mace and crushing rather than grating the nutmeg, but given the spices available to me, I don't expect I'll be able to try that.

Served in a cordial glass because that's fun.

 

Twelfth Cake

Yes, those are marzipan squirrels and flowers.

Revisiting Elinor Fettisplace's Great Cake for Twelfth Night. In addition to actually baking it as one great cake, this time I made a double-batch of the dough (~1/4 the original scale), and finished it with the recommended sugar-rosewater glaze (actually from the marchpane recipe in the same book). 

This time, I used the exact amount of liquid called for in the modern translation (12 oz each of ale and milk for a double-batch), and that was a mistake. The dough was very tough and I could not work it smooth, however much I kneaded it. Especially once I added in the currants, the dough tended to split and spew dried fruit instead of forming a smooth mass. 

The spice flavor remains nice and not over-bearing, with the cinnamon predominating slightly over the nutmeg and ginger. The sugar glaze added a hint of sweetness and a light rose flavor to some of the cake, but the rest still tasted like unsweetened cinnamon-raisin bread. I would like to keep working on this recipe, but I think from here on out I definitely need to increase the liquids, and likely also the sugar content, in order to get something that will be accepted as 'cake.' For what it's worth, the original instructions call for using 'enough barm to make a light cake', so I think I'm on good historic footing to add more ale.

To make it more festive, I decorated the cake with subtleties; I used commercially-prepared almond paste, but did bake and glaze the figures as called for in Lady Fettisplace's marchpane recipe. I cut out the upper squirrel and the four-lobed flowers with cookie cutters, but used a candy molds to make the 3D squirrel at the center front. This went easier than I had feared, but it was good that I made two of them, since both fell apart a bit during the baking. I also found that even a few minutes at 350F was enough to start browning the paste, especially at the thinner points of the shapes, before the centers were cooked through; next time, I should use a cooling oven or else see if the bread-proofing setting is high enough to dry it out.

Early Modern Cookery Books

On the second day of Christmas: a compilation of medieval and early modern cooking references I've found online. This is more of a gift to myself, in that the eclectic spelling makes it difficult to search for some of these by name, even when I know which book I'd like to use.

The Forme of Cury (c.1390) 

Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks: Harleian MS 279 & 4016 (c. 1430-40 & c.1450)

Wynkyn de Worde's The Book of Kervynge/ The Book of Carving (1508) 

Le Grant Cuysinier de Toute Cuysine (1550, French)

The Good Husvvifes Jevvell/ The Good Huswifes Jewell (1582)

A Book of Cookrye (1584/1591)

Edward Allde's The Good Hous-wiues Treasurie/ The Good Housewife's Treasury (1588)

A Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin (1593)

A Boke of Cookerie and the Order of Meates to Bee Serued to the Table (1629)

Gervaise Markham's English Housewife (1631)

Hannah Wooley's The Cooks Guide (1664)

The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt. Opened (1669) Transcription.

The Accomplish'd Lady's Delight (1677)

 

W. Carew Hazlitt's Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine (1902) lists additional early cookbook titles, some of which I have not yet found available online.

HFF 6.23: Sweets for the Sweet

 

The Challenge: Sweets for the Sweet. Make something sweet!

The Recipe: Great Cake (12th Night Cake) from Elinor Fettisplace's Receipt Book (edited by Hilary Spurling)

The Date/Year and Region: c.1590, English

 

How Did You Make It: I followed the modern 'translation', which primarily is a 1/8 reduced scale version of the given ingredients (the main difference is that no specific quantity is given for the sugar in the original). I started by weighing out the flour, adding the ginger, cinnamon and dried currants, then making a 'posset' with ale and milk and sugar, and starting the yeast in that. After the yeast proofed, I combined the dry and wet ingredients, kneaded the dough, and left it rise for an hour. After beating down the dough, I shaped it into individual rolls, and let those rise for an hour, then baked at 350F for about 30 minutes.

 

Time to Complete: With rise time, about 4 hours.

 

Total Cost: About $5 for the currants and beer; everything else on hand.

 

How Successful Was It?: Fine. It tasted like cinnamon raisin bread, but not all that sweet. Compared to the later Twelfth Cake recipes I've tried, this one was much more bread-like in texture, as well as being much less sweet, and having much less fruit. Which is to say, it made tasty rolls which kept well, but comes across as rather lacking for a cake. I was hoping to make this for a 16th century Twelfth Night party, and now I'm rethinking whether I should use a 19th century recipe instead. At the very least, I think that adding the rosewater-sugar glaze that the editor suggests (from Lady Elinor's marchpane receipt) would make it a bit more sweet and festive, though I'm tempted to add more sugar and/or some honey to the cake itself to make it sweeter.

How Accurate Is It? The historic instructions and modern ones are very similar, save only that the modern ones specify a particularly (small) amount of sugar should be added to the yeast posset, where the historic version just calls for 'some' sugar near the end of the recipe. I read it as rather ambiguous about whether the sugar goes in/on the cake near the end of the process, or if it's meant to be feeding the year from the outset. I did use a 2:1 ratio of ale to milk, simply because I didn't have any use for the leftovers; this didn't cause the cake to have a noticeable ale-flavor or aroma, so I think it was inconsequential. I did intentionally make this up as 12 smaller individual servings rather than a single great cake, but that was purely for ease of serving at my Lord of the Rings party.

The only frame of reference I have for early modern Twelfth Cake is Ruth Goodman's version from Tudor Monastery Farm, and while hers is likewise more of an enriched bread with fruit and spice than it is a modern cake, I don't know enough about her sources to make a definite judgement.

Adequate, if not 'great', cakes

Original: Katarina of Sweden's Doll

Ok, one more early modern original. Dolls are very seasonal for Christmas, and this one even has a lovely muff to keep her hands warm in the winter cold.

.

Fashion Doll, c. 1600, Staten Historika Museer.

I'm relying on translation software, but I believe the museum's website describes this doll as wearing a purple silk gown with gold lace; red silk sleeves (now faded) with gold mesh and pearls, and embroidered in red, silver, and gold; silk petticoat with silver; rose-color taffeta petticoat with gold; and a yellow taffeta bodice (bodiced petticoat?). The doll's face is silk embroidery on taffeta, with real hair; headdress of gold lace and pearls. [Additional views, including the doll's braided hairstyle, are available at Isis' Wardrobe.]

This doll is attributed to either Princess Katarina of Sweden (daughter of King Charles IX and by marriage the Countess Palantine of Kleeburg; she was also Gustavus Adolphus's older half-sister and guardian to young Queen Kristina) or her mother Maria of the Palatinate-Simmern. An alternative date range of roughly the 1590s is also given in the object description; Katarina was born in 1584, and was the only surviving child at the time of her mother's death in 1589.

Typical Tudor Smock

At long last, the seam finishes are done on my new 16th century smock. It's based on the smock variations in The Typical Tudor; this time I opted for a low square neckline and sleeves gathered into cuffs. The whole smock is made of the same mid-weight linen with (bleached) linen tape to fasten the wrists.

Smock.

The garment is mostly hand-sewn, though I did cheat with some machine sewing on the long gusset seam because I was rushing to have another wearable smock for Faire. It did debut on the final day, but with only half a hem and many raw seam allowances; most of the delay in photographing the smock centered on removing the Faire stains so I could finish all the felling. Two soaks with borax and wash soda got most of the dirt out, while spot-cleaning with bleach was needed for the sunscreen/sweat discoloration.

Original: Dorothea Sabine's Gown

Gown, 1598, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum.

There are so few surviving garments from the 16th century, that it's a pleasant surprise to find pictures of any of them. This example, from the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum and featured in Patterns of Fashion 3, is Dorothea Sabina von Neuberg's burial gown. The young Pflazgräfin (countess palatinate) died in 1598, and was buried in this elaborate ensemble, which includes a silk velvet gown trimmed in gold with long hanging sleeves, worn over an underdress of plain-woven silk decorated in silver lace. Contrary to the photograph above (which appears to be burgundy and yellow on my screen), the museum describes the velvet gown as olive-green and the plain-woven kirtle as green.

14th/15th Century Rosaries

Mostly, I made these because I wanted to do something with the wounds of Christ gauds that Billy & Charlie make. Nevermind that my main early modern impression is Elizabethan, a time and place in which owning rosaries was illegal and had been for two decades.

Anyway.

Related to that above factoid, I have so far found exactly three intact medieval or early modern rosaries in my usual British museum collections. The Museum of London has a very simple version, made as a small loop of wooden beads. This is by far the closest to the usual pictorial depictions (a very small string or loop of beads, usually held in a figure's hand). At the opposite end of the spectrum, the Victoria & Albert has a very elaborate gold rosary from the 16th century. And also this one:

Rosary/paternoster. German, 1475-1500. VAM

According to the museum's notes, this rosary has wooden beads, one large amber bead, and a set of silver gauds representing Christ's sufferings (nails, crown of thorns, etc). The pendant depicts Saints Barbara and Catherine.

Although the country of origin is given as Germany, I decided that this example would be a thematically suitable choice for using the gauds I had in mind (though they are only five in number, and are different shapes: hands, feet, and heart). So, for my first attempt, I tried to copy the original as closely as I could, using two sizes of dark brown wood beads, one larger amber-colored glass bead (the amber itself not being available), and a reproduction 15th century pewter badge of St. Barbara.

For the second--since I accidentally purchased two sets of the gauds--I decided to try a more goth version of the same design. When I was looking for examples of extant rosaries, I came across a number of individual beads, some plain amber or bone, others much more elaborate, including several which incorporate momento mori imagery such as skulls or even multifaceted deaths heads. The Met has a lovely example of momento mori beads in an extant paternoster. My version follows the same form as the first, using small bone beads with a skull-shaped bead half-way between each gaud; the pendant is an image of the crucifixion (based on 14th/15th century examples), with a large carved coral bead.

My replicas. Design from the 15th century VAM paternoster.
Components c. 14th-15th centuries.

For the stringing material, I plaited two linen cords, based on examples of fingerloop braid in Medieval Textiles. The book includes a few fragments identified as possible beading string, some narrow tablet-woven, others finger-looped (including a fragment with beads still on it, which is none other than the amber ones linked above). I couldn't get the woven version consistently round without the weft breaking on me, so I went with the fingerloop braids: one the usual 5-loop round I like for everything, but out of fine linen thread, the other a 3-loop variant of my own devising.

Silk beading cord, 3-loop linen braid, 5-loop braid.

 

Of course, when I went to string the beads, I found that neither braid was long enough for the wooden beads. Rather than making a 4th attempt, I simply strung those on my go-to size ff beading silk. The extra braid went into my stash of odd bits, and has already found a new use on my ear-scoop (which is really handy for cleaning one's nails of Faire dust).

All told, I like how both of these turned out. I wish I had had five more of the small wooden beads, as I ran out and ended up using a few large ones out of place. Proportionately, I think the bone version looks closer to the original, though the bone beads are almost too small to count by feel. If I was making a another one of these, I'd probably aim for the beads being a size larger than those small bone ones, with the mid-point beads closer to the size of the small wooden beads. Using smaller beads would also make the "amber" piece look larger by comparison, and thus closer to the original.

HFF 6.14: Waste Not, Want Not

The Challenge: Waste Not, Want Not. Try a dish that reduces waste somehow, such as re-purposing leftovers or using parts of a plant/animal that you wouldn't normally cook.

The Recipe: Rapes in Potage from the Forme of Curry

Take rapus and make hem clene and waissh hem clene. quare hem [2]. parboile hem. take hem up. cast hem in a gode broth and seeþ hem. mynce Oynouns and cast þerto Safroun and salt and messe it forth with powdour douce. the wise [3] make of Pasturnakes [4] and skyrwates. [5]

[1] Rapes, or rapus. Turneps. [2] quare hem. Cut them in squares, or small pieces. V. Gloss. [3] in the wise, i.e. in the same manner. Self or same, seems to be casually omitted. Vide No. 11 and 122. [4] Pasturnakes, for parsnips or carrots. V. Gloss. [5] skyrwates, for skirrits or skirwicks."

Of the "powdour douce", the editor remarks: "In short, I take powder-douce to be either powder of galyngal....or a compound made of sundry aromatic spices ground or beaten small, and kept always ready at hand in some proper receptacle." 

I'm counting this recipe because it involved making a stock out of the vegetable peelings, which felt very efficient.

The Date/Year and Region: c.1390, England

 

How Did You Make It: On a rather large scale. With no set proportions, I ended up searching through multiple modern soup and stew recipes to get an idea of how many vegetables I needed per serving, and opted to try 1/2 parsnip, 1/2 turnip, 1/2 onion, 1 carrot and 1/2 cup stock per person, and then rounding up the total number of people I would be cooking for (20-25 to 30), so make sure there was plenty for everyone. I then ran out of space in my cooking vessels, and so dropped from 1 carrot to 1/2..

 

I started by peeling and slicing the onions, and putting these in a saucepan to brown with a dash of olive oil. I then set about peeling and chopping the parsnips, turnips, and carrots into 1/2" sort-of-cubes. While I worked, I parboiled the turnips, parsnips, and carrots that were already prepared, and threw the peels and odd ends of the vegetables into a stockpot with water, a head of garlic, 5 green onions, 8 marigold flowers, a generous handful of dried rosemary, and nearly a half-gallon (dry) of fresh herbs: mostly parsley, and thyme, with a bit of sage, chives, marjoram, and oregano. The flowers were used in lieu of saffron for color, based on other recipes from this period which use marigold.

 

Once the vegetables were all parboiled, I strained the stock, added the onions, turnips, parsnips, and carrots, and set the pottage to all cook together in my two largest stockpots. I then set about preparing the powder douce, using 1 Tbsp each of ginger, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, sugar, long pepper, galyngal, nutmeg, and grains of paradise.*  Since I needed to serve this at an event, I then got to cool and refrigerate the mostly-cooked pottage, transport it to the event, and bring it back up to boiling on a fire (campstove) before serving. I made the spice mixture available for each diner to add as much as they desired (generally somewhere between a half and a whole spoonful per bowl).

 

*The book names cinnamon, mace, cloves, galyngal, pepper, long-pepper, ginger, cubebs (?), grains of paradise, nutmeg, and caraway in difference receipts. Last time I made a recipe calling for powder douce, I noted that Wikipedia gives "grains of paradise, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, and galangal" and "ginger, cinnamon, cloves and sugar [+/-galangal and long pepper]" as other options for the powder douce. I liked how the equal proportions of spices worked in my previous use of this seasoning, so I repeated it here.

 

Time to Complete: A long time. At least 4 hours of peeling root vegetables, while the stock boiled and the vegetables parboiled, another half-hour of cooking the pottage all together, and then about a half-hour to re-heat to boiling before serving.

 

Total Cost: $32 for 30-odd servings (which fed some two dozen people with leftovers).

 

How Successful Was It?: No one died, and everyone who commented said they enjoyed it .So, either it was successful, or this was a very polite reenacting crew. Given the option, 100% percent of diners chose to include the spices. The most common remark was comparing it to different east Asian sweet-and-sour dishes. I noticed that the parboiling step removed some of the bite I associate with parsnips and turnips, leaving a mellow but recognizable flavor. The spices suited it quite well--a little odd to me, but perfectly palatable. I recommend serving it with bread.

 

How Accurate Is It? The main departure I made was combining the rapus and pasturnakes (turnips, parsnips, and carrots) rather than making a pottage of only one of them. Following Quin's advice for getting stronger flavor, I added the step of browning the onion in olive oil, which is neither called for nor prohibited in the text. I also used a home-made vegetable stock instead of a "good broth" (which I'm reading as implying bones) in order to make the whole recipe both vegan and gluten-free, which was needed for the particular group. 

 

On the positive side, I think my decision to add the spices at the end fits with the instruction  to "messe it forth with powdour douce", ie, that the spices are to be added when it is served. As far as the year goes, I made this late 14th century recipe for a 16th century event, BUT, it was served to people portraying Queen Elizabeth I's court, and the antiquarian's note claims that this recipe book was once owned by the queen. Which I thought was nice. Also, all of the ingredients are in season--I have turnips, parsnips, onions, and carrots to be harvest from the garden, just not in the quantities needed, while the other herbs did come directly out of the garden.

Side note: I manged to forget to take pictures of the finished product, but here's the in-progress pictures.

Ingredients assembled.

Stock in progress, as every bowl in my kitchen slowly fills with parboiled vegetables.

Goose Quills & Italic Hand

Cutting the goose-quills ended up both more and less difficult than I expected. They're working fairly well (so far) with the thin 17th century ink I made back in May. The paper is a 98lb cotton/lignin drawing paper I found at Blick.

It's a start. It's also pirate weekend at Faire.

Next up, I need to hash out the hand. I was aiming for a combination of Elizabeth I's Italic hand, supplemented with the Italian capital letters from A Booke Containing Divers Hands (1550). The letter (1554) written by the future queen has almost an entire set of minuscules, but only six capitals. I selected these two styles, as they were the closest-to-my-desired-time-period complete models I could get ahold of, and the capital A in each bears a close resemblance (the other capitals aren't very different, but have some variations on their flourishes). Unfortunately, I keep trying to slope the letters like Victorian cursive and/or add serifs based on some half-remembered Carolingian minuscules I learned in elementary school, so there's a lot of room to improve.

Original: Hay-making, early 16th century

Bucking the norm two months in a row, but for want of surviving garments from the early modern period, it's visual depictions again this month. It's almost Faire, after all!

 

Haymaking, early 16th century manuscript illustration, The British Library.

This one's definitely worth clicking through: the viewer has a great zoom function, showing details of the gentlewomen's accessories, the laborer's clothing, and even a peasant woman with a white kercher and apron over a sheep-colored kirtle or gown.

Original: Bening Book of Hours

 Not a garment, but this month's original item for inspiration does depict clothing (mostly peasant clothing, even!), which is what I'm looking for as I prepare to replace my 16th century kit.

Book of Hours by Simon Bening, 1530-5, The Met.

More Early Modern (& Medieval) References Online

It's faire season again. Last year I compiled some of my favorite easy-to-read books for refreshing on early modern social history and interpretation. This year, it's blogs and electronic references. These include primary (or at least photographs of actual artifacts), secondary, and tertiary sources which I believe be reliable. 

Blogs & Reference Sheets

The Internet Medieval Sourcebook and Internet Modern Sourcebook are the Holy Grail of searchable digitized original texts.

In addition to handwriting references, the National Archives' palaeography page also has handy references lists of county abbreviations, non-decimal currency units, term for land measurement, how Roman numerals were used in early modern English texts, and calendar peculiarities.

A Compendium of Common Knowledge contains introductory information on a wide variety of topics related to daily life in England c.1558-1603, from where to buy different goods in London to lists of the ranking peers.

Dr. Brett Devereaux's blog has (fully cited) essays on the logistics of military campaigns in the ancient through early modern period, as well as other topics relevant to pre-modern economics and warfare (like an overview of bread production). Note that this blog covers a wider time period that just the early modern, and that a number of its essays are focused on how fantasy media does or does not portray the historic systems it is nominally based on (which is great if you like overthinking LotR or GoT in addition to pre-modern history).

 Dr. Eleanor Janega's Going Medieval blog also has fully-cited, highly conversational essays on a variety of subjects, particularly those related to sex and death in medieval Europe.

Medievalists.net functions as a news site for medieval research: it announces new books, has essays on various topics, writes up current news related to medieval topics, and even has funny listicles (medieval swear words, anyone?).

 

Salt, c.1515-1530, Amgueddfa Cymru/National Museum Wales

Museum Collections

Portable Antiquities Scheme. Index of archeological finds in the UK. Lots of little metal items such as brooches. The UI is a little old-fashioned, but the search filtering is a delight.

Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales). The collection search doesn't include a filter by date range, but a search for "post medieval" turns up all sorts of metal and ceramic pieces, including the lovely Tudor lady salt dish above. Also lots of arrow heads...

Scottish National Museum. Also no date-filter on the collection search, but there are many cool items, such as medieval leather shoes and 17th century candle lanterns.

Museum of London has a lot of interesting artifacts found in the city. I especially like the medieval purse frames recovered from the Thames.

UK National Trust. Online collection database for historic sites across the UK. Mostly modern period, but there are some earlier pieces.

Victoria and Albert Museum. Focused on art and design, the museum's pre-1600 collection includes decorated ceramics, ecclesiastical items, and more textile fragments than one might expect.

National Gallery Tudor and Jacobean Portraits Database. Includes most of the early modern English portraits you've heard of. There's also some interesting essays on art history and conservation.

British Library Manuscript Viewer. Original manuscripts: useful for content, writing voice, letter shapes, and all kinds of illustrations. See also the British Library Digital Catalog of Illuminated Manuscripts for an illustration-search.

British Museum. Does have some items from Britain. Browsing the "medieval" and "post-medieval" period tags reveals pottery, glass, and metal artifacts.

Royal Armouries Collection. Not my usual, but if you're looking for early modern English arms and armor, this is the place.

Rotterdam Archeology has some very complete medieval metal and ceramic items (badges, sheers, pots) and even textiles. Amsterdam: Below The Surface likewise has a wide variety of items from pre-history to the 21st century. 

Geese from the Luttrell Psalter, British Library

Transcriptions of Tudor Charters, Accounts, Letters, etc.

Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII vol 1 & Materials for a History of Henry VII vol 2

Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York.

Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland: A.D. 1506-1507 

Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court, in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I

The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth

The Girlhood of Queen Elizabeth: A Narrative in Contemporary Letters 

Queen Elizabeth and Her Times: A Series of Original Letters (vol 2)

Different, but related to period literature: JSTOR Understanding Shakespeare database.

Medieval Drawstring Pouch

Continuing the catch-up posts, last spring I made some fingerloop braids at the Two Rivers Faire, with the intention of making a round purse based on some of the archeological examples from Amsterdam:

• Leather purse (c.1300-1700), 11" diameter, 64 punched holes (~1/2" for a hole plus its adjoining space, punch size probably ~1/8 inch with 3/8 gap judging by how large the punched holes appear relative to the space between)
• Another, 5.6" diameter, ~48 holes (~3/8" for hole plus space, holes probably ~1/8")
• And a third, 12.5" diameter, ~72-74 holes (~just over 1/2" per hole, hole size nearing 1/4")

Of course, since embarking on this endeavor, the database has been updated to indicate that the ties were likely leather. Despite the simple design, my leather-punching skills proved inadequate, and I ended up letting this simple item linger in the To Do pile all winter. It's just a 9.5" leather circle, with 40 holes punched around the perimeter, and the striped fingerloop braid threaded through.

The pouch, open almost flat.

Closed pouch. Holds my replica coins and dice very well.