Some Elizabethan Food

I like to read cookbooks, and sometimes I take a particular delight in reading cookbooks that reveal some of the history of cooking. Recently I enjoyed Francine Segan's Shakespeare's Kitchen : Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook (New York : Random House, 2003). She takes a nice tour of choice recipes from Elizabethan sources and updates them nicely for the modern cook, often including the original receipt and bits of folklore and such here and there. For instance, this note about appetizers, also known as "kickshaws: the Elizabethan misspelling of the French quelque chose".

Here are a few sample recipes, some updated, some original.

Dried Plums with Wine and Ginger-Zest Crostini [p.18]

  1. Place the wine, sugar, dried plums, and cinnamon stick in a nonreactive saucepan. Simmer over medium heat for 30 minutes, or until the mixture is thickened. Remove the cinnamon stick and mash th dried plums with a fork.
  2. Preheat the broiler. Cut the baguette into 1/4-inch-thick slices and place on a baking sheet. Brush the slices with the olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt. Toast under the broiler for 3 to 5 minutes, or until light golden brown.
  3. Spread 1 tablespoon of the warm plum mixture on each toasted bread slice and sprinkle with the ginger and lemon zest.

How to make Farts of Portingale [p.53]

Take a peece of a leg of Mutton, mince it smal and season it with cloves. Mace, pepper and salt, and Dates minced with currans then roll it into round rolles, and so into little balles, and so boyle them in a little beefe broth and so serve them foorth.

[from The Good Huswives Handmaide for Cookerie in Her Kitchin, 1588]

To make a sallet of all kinde of hearbes [p. 70]

Take your hearbes and picke them very fine into faire water, and pick your flowers by themselves, and wash them all cleane, and swing them in a Strainer, and when you put them into a dish, mingle them with cuwcumbers or lemmons, payred and sliced, and scrape sugar, and put in Vineger and oyle, and throw the flowers on the toppe of the sallet, of every sorte of the aforesaid thinges, garnish the dish about with the aforesaid thing, and hard Egges, boyled, and laid about the dish and upon the sallet.

[from The Good Huswifes Jewell, 1587]

Sweet Pea Puree with Capers [p. 109]

  1. Place the peas in boiling water and cook for 5 minutes, or until done. Drain the peas and place in a food processor with the mint, parsley, and butter. Puree until smooth. Add the capers and pulse twice. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
  2. Spoon the pea mixture into a serving bowl and top with the mint sprigs.


Chicken with Wine, Apples, and Dried Fruit [p. 118]

  1. Cut apart the chicken legs and thighs. Sprinkle the chicken pieces with salt, pepper, and flour. Heat the olive oil in large saute pan over high heat and brown the chicken on all sides. Remove the chicken from the pan. Add 1/4 cup of the wine to the pan and stir to loosen the pan drippings. Add the remaining 1&3/4 cups of the wine, the currants, dried plums, dates, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, an dapples. Return the chicken to the pan, cover with a tight lid, and reduce heat to low. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes, or until the chicken is very tender. Remove the chicken from the pan and cook the pan sauce for 5 to 10 minutes, or until reduced by half.
  2. Place the chicken on a serving platter and pour the sauce over the chicken.
Posted on July 5, 2007 at 15.50 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Books, Food Stuff

One Response

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  1. Written by steve johnson
    on Tuesday, 10 February 2009 at 13.00
    Permalink

    Arkansas (Ar-Kansas)

    Is KITCHIN SHEFFIELD SNAKE BRAND cutlery where the word "kitchen" comes from or is it just a "co-wink-e-dink" that kitchin brand knives are used in kitchens?

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