A Fish Dinner in 1522.

The Corporation of the City of York, England,  invited Lord Boos, the warden of the East Marches, to a fish dinner at the ‘Pyke Garths’ in the year of 1522. A garth was a small piece of enclosed ground, and a fish-garth was a garth or enclosure on a river or the seashore for keeping fish. The dinner guests certainly reaped the benefit of the fish-farming in York at the time, if we are to judge from the record of the bill of fare.

	₤	s	d
Six pikes	1	11	0
2 Trenches		8	4
2 Turbot		1	10
Congereels		1	6
1 Bret			10
2 Keelyngs		1	4
5 Lings			8
Eels		1	10
Salteels		8	0
Salmon		4	0
3 lbs of Almonds, 2 lbs of Rice		1	2
Spices		3	6
Bread		4	8
Cooks services			8
Servants for fetching and carrying		5	4

Some of the fish are a bit of a puzzle. Trenches are presumably tenches. Bret is said to be either brill or turbot. Keelyngs – I have no idea, so if you do, please let us know.

Here are some general cooking instructions for fish, from A Proper newe Booke of Cokerye, published in the mid-sixteenth century.

A Pyke sauce for a Pyke, Breme, Perche, Roche, Carpe, Eles, Floykes and al maner of brouke fyshe.

Take a posye of Rosemary and time and bynde them together, and put in also a quantitye of perselye not bounde, and put into the caudron of water, salte and yeste, and the herbes, and lette them boyle a pretye whyle, then putte in the fysshe and a good quantitye of butter, and let them boyle a good season, and you shall have good Pyke sauce.

For all those fysshes above written yf they muste bee broyled, take sauce for them, butter, peepper and veneger and boyle it upon a chafyngdyshe and then laye the broyled fyshe uppon the dysche; but for Eeles and freshe Salmon nothing but Pepper and vyneger over boyled. And also yf you wyll frye them, you muste take a good quantitie of persely, after the fyshe is fryed, put in the persely into the fryinge panne, and let it frye in the butter and take it up and put it on the fryed fyshe, and frye place, whyttinge and suche other fyshe, excepte Eles, freshe Salmon, Conger, which be never fryed but baken, boyled, roosted or sodden.