FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES. 59 



" Golde is bitter in savour, 

 Fayr and 5elu is his flower 

 Ye golde flour is good to seene." * 



Jealousy is described by Chaucer as decked with these flowers. 

 "Jealousy that werede of yelwe guides a garland." 



Violets, as we learn from the former authorit}', were " herbs 

 well cowth."t They were grown not only for their sweet 

 fragrance, but also as salad herbs, and " Flowers of violets" were 

 eaten raw, with onions and lettuce. Among the ingredients for 

 a kind of broth they are mentioned with fennel and savory. J 

 They were also used to garnish dishes. In an old recipe for 

 a pudding called " mon amy/' the cook is directed to " plant 

 it with flowers of violets, and serve it forth." § In another 

 MS. a recipe for a dish called " vyolette " is given. "Take 

 flowr3S of vyolet boyle hem, presse hem bray hem smal." 

 This is to be mixed with milk, " floure of rys/' sugar or 

 honey, and " coloured " with violets. Not only were violets 

 cooked, but hawthorn, primroses, and even roses, shared the 

 same fate, and were treated in the same way. One recipe, 

 called "rede rose," is simply, "Take the same saue a-lye it 

 with the yolk\'S of eyroun and forther-more as vyolet." The 

 rose hips were also used, and in a dainty dish called " saue 

 saracen," " hippes " were the chief ingredient. It cannot have 

 enhanced the beauty or poetry of such flowers, to feel that they 

 were commonly cooked and eaten. 



After this shock to sentiment, we are glad to find the rose 

 still valued for its loveliness and perfume. Although a rosery 



* Medical MS., Stockholm. Arclmologia, \o\. XXX. 



J Form of Cury. 



§ The following is the recipe of this excellent dish: — "Take thick creine 

 of cowe-mj-lke, and boyle hit over the fire and then take hit up and set hit 

 on the side : — and then take swete cowe cruddes and presse out the qway 

 {ivhey), and bray horn in a mortar and cast hom into the same creme and 

 boyle altogether — and put thereto sugre and saffron, and Maj' butter — and 

 take yolkes of eyren streyned, and betten, and in the settynge doune of the 

 pot bete in the yolkes thereto, & stere it wel, & make the potage stondynge : 

 and dresse five or seaven leches (slices of bread) in a dish, and plant with 

 floures of violet and serve hit forthe." 



