A
little while ago I gave you the instructions for “The Order of meats on a fleshday” from Thomas Dawson’s A Booke of
Cookerie. And the order of Meates to bee served to the Table … (1620.)
Today I offer you the suggested bill of fare for a Fish Day:-
Service
for Fish Dayes.
Butter, a Sallet with
hard Egges, red Herring greene broiled, white Herring, Ling, Haberdine, sauce
Mustard, salt Salmon minced, sauce Mustard and Verjuyce and a little Suger,
powdered Conger, Shad, mackrell, sauce Vinegar, Whiting, sauce with the Liver
and Mustard, Playce, sauce Sorrrell, Wine and Salt, Mustard, or Verjuce,
Thornebacke, sauce Liver and Mustard, Pepper and Salt strewed upon, after it is
brused, fresh Cod, sauce Greene sauce, Dace, Mullet, Eeles upon soppes, Roche
upon soppes, Perch, Pike in pike sauce, Trowte upon soppes, Tench in Gelly, or
Gorefish [?], Custard.
The second course.
Flounders or flookes,
pike sauce, fresh Salmon, fresh Conger, Brette, Turbut, Breame upon soppes,
Carpe upon soppes, Soles or any other fish fryed, roasted Eele sauce the
dripping, rosted Lamperns, rosted Porpos, fresh Sturgion, sauce Galentine,
Crevis, Crab, Shrimps, sauce Vinegar. Baked Lamprey, Tart,
figges, Apples, Almonds blaunched, Cheese, Raysins, Peares.
And here are two recipes from the book which fit this bill of
fare nicely:
For Boyl’d Fish.
To boyle a Breame.
Take white Wine, and
put it into a pot, and let it seeth, then take your Breame and cut him in the middest,
and put him in, then take an Onyon and chop it small, then take Nutmegs beaten
Sinamon and Ginger, whole Mace, and a pound of Butter, and let it boyle
altogether, and so season it with salte, serve it upon soppes, and garnish it
with fruit.
To make a Sallet of all kinde of
Hearbes.
Take your hearbes and
pick them very fine into faire water, and picke your flowers by themselves, and
wash them cleane, then swing them in a Strayner, and when you put them into a
dish, mingle them with Cowcumbers or Lemons payred and sliced, also scrape
Suger and put in Vineger and Oyle, then spread the flowers on the top of the
Sallet, and with every sorte of the aforesaid thinges, garnish the dish about,
then take Egges boyled hard, and lay about the dish and upon the Sallet.
1 comment:
There's a "sallet" recipe in "Two Fourteenth-Century Cookbooks" that is just a mixture of herbs -- I don't remember if it even has any "lettuces" in it. Ever since I saw it, I've been adding fresh herbs to my green salads, and let me tell you, they really make things interesting. Fresh mint and tarragon are especially good. I grow salad burnet just for green salads; it's great stuff. In San Diego, nasturtiums practically grow wild, and the leaves, flowers, and green seeds are all good in salads.
Some herbs don't work very well, though. The 14th-century recipe had rue in it, and that just tastes musty to me. I put in way too much marjoram one time, and that was a huge mistake -- the whole salad tasted like perfume. If you're going to add marjoram, don't add more than a small sprig or two.
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