Mediaeval Cookery 
whereas the French dinner was served at a French 
nobleman’s table. 
French The Bishop of Win- 
Menu. Chester’s Menu. 
FIRST COURSE. 
Norwegian Patties. 
Camelin Broth. 
Beef-marrow Patties. 
Puree of Eels. 
Boiled Loach with cold 
sage. 
Meat and Sea-fish. 
SECOND COURSE. 
Roast Meat and Fresh 
Fish. 
A Kid larded and boiled. 
Steak or Baked Meat. 
Patties of Bream. 
Chicken Patties and 
Pancakes. 
Eels. 
FIRST COURSE. 
Brewes. 
Boiled Chickens. 
Pig in Sage. 
Shoulder of Mutton. 
Roast Capon. 
Pastelade (pastry). 
SECOND COURSE. 
Fenison in broth. 
Roast Kid. 
Herons. 
Peacocks. 
Roast Venison. 
Rabbits. 
Little Loaves. 
THIRD COURSE. 
THIRD COURSE. 
Furmenty and Venison. "Jelly. 
Lampreys with hot sauce. Quails. 
Dariols and Fritters. 
Roast Bream. 
Boiled Meat. 
Sturgeon and Jelly. 
Samaca (Fritters). 
Peasecod. 
Blanc-de-ris. 
Strawberries. 
The above menus have been put into modern 
English as far as possible, but some of the items 
require elucidation, and the recipes for some of the 
dishes are curious if not useful. As a rule English 
dinners began with the Furmenty and Venison at the 
beginning of the third course in this French menu. 
It was evidently a very popular dish in both coun¬ 
tries, though it does not figure in the bishop’s menu. 
Furmenty was also eaten with porpoise; in England 
it was made, as it still is in some countries, of wheat, 
but in France barley sometimes took the place of 
wheat. The recipe for Furmenty with Venison, 
given in “Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books,” 
modernised in spelling and slightly altered to make 
it intelligible, is as follows: 
“Take fair wheat and pound it in a mortar, fan 
away clean the dust, and wash it in fair water, and let 
it boil till it break; then strain away the water, and 
cast thereto sweet milk, and set it over the fire, and 
let it boil till it be thick enough. And cast thereto 
a good quantity of raw yolks of eggs, and cast thereto 
saffron, sugar, and salt, and let it boil no more then, 
but set it on to a few coals, lest it wax cold. And 
then take fresh venison and water it, seethe (stew) 
it, and cut it in thin slices and put it in a vessel with 
fair water, and boil it, and as it boileth blow away 
the grease, and serve it forth with the furmenty and 
a little of the broth, all hot in the dish w4th the 
meat. ” 
The first item in the French menu which we have 
translated, Norwegian Patties, was made with cod 
and other fish minced, and put into little patties of 
the size of an old copper coin worth threepence, and 
fried on a fish day in oil, on a flesh eating day in 
beef-marrow. 
Camelin Broth was a broth made of meat and 
coloured yellow with Camelin, a plant with small 
yellow flowers, which were sold in a powder for 
this purpose. 
The Beef-marrow Patties are called in the original 
bignets de moelle, bignets being an obsolete word 
meaning a sort of puff made of flour and eggs, on 
which little balls of beef-marrow were placed. Beef- 
marrow was a very popular dish both in England and 
in France; as many as three hundred marrow-bones 
being ordered for some large bancjuets. 
The Puree of Eels is called in the original a 
Soringue. It was a kind of soup. The eels were 
skinned, cut up, and fried in oil with onions and 
parsley, to which were then added pounded ginger, 
cinnamon, cloves, saffron, and bread beaten up into 
a puree with water and passed through a strainer. 
This was all boiled together and flavoured with 
claret. 
The last item in this course is very vague, and 
evidently depended on circumstances over which 
neither housekeeper nor cook had control. The 
best fish and meat that could be got was to be used, 
so that the French first course would be as substantial 
as the English one. 
The Dariols in the French third course were a 
kind of cream custard often mentioned in old 
English cookery books, where, however, they also 
meant patties filled with meat, herbs, and spices, 
mixed together, according to some writers; but the 
author of the “Forme of Cury,” the oldest English 
cookery book, says they were custards baked in a 
crust. In Erance Dariols were certainly made of 
cream or custard, and as they were a sweet and not 
a savoury dish; they were considered indispensable 
at a wedding in that country. 
Sturgeon in France was boiled in wine and water, 
and, as the fish absorbed the liquor, more wine with¬ 
out any water was to be added. It was to be eaten 
hot with the liquor and spices in which it was boiled. 
In England it was boiled in water, and eaten cold 
with parsley and vinegar. 
The first item in the English menu, called 
“Brewes,” is still known in Sussex; it consists of 
thin slices of bread soaked in broth, or sometimes in 
wine, so as to make a sort of puree. 
The Pig in Sage was a whole pig, cut up first into 
quarters, then boiled, allowed to cool, cut up into 
pieces and laid on some dishes, and a sauce made 
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