The Forme of Cury, a Roll
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, i v^" * ‘. ,«**<• /t— , r v , ; £ - .* ^ - VV'V' •.:• p f y w./V r*^ - - v , ' " '* •* / v -'}. • ’ ^ <r -V \ r < . f ' ? yy::. / *s 4j: «•* ' •T'*’’ i J :£>' - .\ jf?- rf .-fy*** 1 .. <J‘ ff / TAe University Library Leeds The Blanche Leigh Collection of Cookery Books The Gift of Mrs. Leigh J939 COOKEftfc t i V Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/b21529401 * 4.a>. junccJLXXXV, * 4Ta Si. (JlmsMu 6r<uti>n* , / S1BI ET AMICIS rpw: THE FORME OF CURY, A ROLL ’ O F ANCIENT ENGLISH COOKERY, Compiled, about A. D. 1390, by the Mafter-Cooks of King Richard II, Prefented afterwards to Queen Elizabeth, by Edward Lord Stafford, And now in thePoffeffion of Gustavus Brander, Efq. Illuftrated with NOTES, And a copious INDEX, or G L O S S A R Y. A MANUSCRIPT of the EDITOR, of the fame Age and Subjed:, with other congruous Matters, are fubjoiued. “ ingeniofa gula eft.” Martial. LONDON, PRINTED BY *^N ICHOL S, PRINTER TO THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES. M DCC LXXX. / \ s C iii ] T O GUSTAVUS GRANDER, Efq. F. R. S. F. S. A. and Cur. Brit. Muf. SIR, R E T U R N your very curious Roll of I Cookery, and I truft with fome In- tereft, not full I confefs nor legal, but the utmoft which your Debtor, from the fcantinefs of his ability, can at prefent afford. Indeed, confidering your refpec- table fituation in life, and that diffufive fphere of knowledge and fcience in which you are aching, it muff be exceedingly difficult for any one, how well furn hired foever, completely to anfwer your juft, or a 2 even [ iv ] even moft moderate demands. I intreat the favour of you, however, to accept for once this fhort payment in lieu of better, or at leaft as a public teftimony of that profound regard -wherewith I am, S I R, Your affectionate friend, and moft obliged fervant, St. George’s day, 1780. 5 . P E G G E. P R E- t i ] TO THE CURIOUS ANTIQUARIAN READER. ITH O UT beginning ab ovo on a fubjeft fo W light (a matter of importance, however, to many a modern Catius or Amafinius), by invedigating the origin of the Art of Cookery, and the nature of it a as pra&ifed by the Antediluvians ; without dilating on the feveral particulars concerning it afterwards * If, according to Petavius and Le Clerc, the world was created in autumn, when the fruits of the earth were both plentiful and in the higheft perfection, the firft man had little occafion for much cu- linary knowledge: roafting or boiling the cruder productions, with modes of preferving thole which were l etter ripened, feem to be all that was necelTary for him in the way of Cary. And even after he was difplaced from Paradil'e, I conceive, as many others do, he not i. was permitted the ufe of animal food [Gen. 29 ] ; but that this was indulged to us, by an enlargement of our charter, after the Flood, Gen. ix. 3. But, without wading any further in the argument here, the reader is referred to Gen. ii. 8. feq. iii. 17. feq. 23. b amonglt [ n 1 b amongft the Patriarchs, as found in the I Bible , flhall turn myfelf immediately, and without further preamble, to a few curfory obfervations refpecling the Greeks, P».omans, Britons, and thofe other na- tions, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, with whom the people of this nation are more clofely connected. The Greeks probably derived fomething of their fkill from the Eaft, (from the Lydians principally, whofe cooks are c much celebrated, ) and fomething from Egypt. A few hints concerning Cookery may be collefted from Homer, Ariflophanes, Ariftotle, &c. but afterwards they poflefled many authors on d the fubjedt, as may be feen in Athenmus . And as Dicetetics were efteemed a branch of the ftudy of me- dicine, as alfo they were afterwards', fo many of thofe authors were Phyficians; and the Cook was undoubtedly a character of high reputation at f Athens . b GeneCs xviii. xxvii. Though their bell rep a ft s, from the po- litenefs of the times, were called by the fimple names of Bread, or a Morfel of Iread, yet they were not unacquainted with modes ot drefling flefh, boiling, roa fling, baking; nor with fauce, or fea- foning, as fait and oil, and perhaps fome aromatic herbs. Cal- mer v. Meats and Eating, and qu. of honey and cream, ibid. c Athenseus, lib. xii. cap. 3. d Athenasus, lib. xii. cap. 3. et Cafaubon. See alfo Lifter ad Apicium, praf. p. ix. Jungerm. ad Jul. Pollucem, lib. vi. c. 10. e bee below. ‘ Tamen uterquc [Torinus et Humelbergius] hate feripta [i. e. Apicii] ad rjiedicinam vendicarunt.’ Lifter, prsef. p. iv. viii. ix. f Athenasus, p. £19. 66o. i As r iu ] of courfe borrow As to the Romans ; they would much of their culinary arts from the Greeks, though the Cook with them, we are told, was one of the s lowed of their flaves . In the latter times, however, they had many authors on the fubjeft as well as the Greeks, and the pra&itioners were men of feme h their fcience , but, unhappily for us, compofitions are all loft except that which goes under the name of Apicius ; concerning which work and its author, the prevailing opinion now feems to be, that it was written about the time of Heliogabalus ', by one Callus, (whether Aurelianus is not fo certain) and that Apicius k is only the title of it . However, the compilation, though not in any great repute, has been feveral times publiftied by learned men. The Aborigines of Britain, to come nearer home, could have no great expertnefs in Cookery, as they had no oil, and we hear nothing of their butter. They ufed only fheep and oxen, eating neither hares, though fo greatly efteemed at Rome, nor hens, nor geefe, from a notion of fuperftition. Nor did they eat fiPn. There was little corn in the interior part of the / £ Priv. Life of the Romans, p. 171. Lifter’s Prcef. p. iii. but fee Ter. An. i. 1. Cafaub. ad Jul. Capitolin. cap. 5. h Cafaub. ad Capitolin. 1 . c. 1 Lifter’s Prxf. p. ii. vi. xii. k Fabric. P*ibl. Lat. tom. II. p. 794. Hence Dr. Bentley ad Hor. ii. ferm. 8, 29. files it Pfcudapidus . Vide Lifterum, p. iv. b 2 illand, [ Sv 3 iflandj but they lived on milk and flefh'; though it is exprefsly aflerted by Strabo that they had no m cheefe . The later Britons, however, well knew how to make the bell ufe of the cow, fince, as ap- pears from the laws of this Hoel Dda , A. D. 943, animal was a creature fo effential, fo common and ufeful in Wales, as to be the ftandard in rating fines, n &c. Hengifl, leader of the Saxons, made grand enter- tainments for king Vortigern °, but no particulars us little have come down to ; and certainly exquifite can be expected from a people then fo extremely bar- barous as not to be able either to read or write. ‘ Barbari homines a feptentrione, (they are the words ‘ of Dr. Lifter) cafeo et ferina fubcruda viftitantes, 9 p omnia condimenta adjectiva refpuerunt’ . Some have fancied, that as the Danes imported the cuftom of hard and deep drinking, fo they likewife introduced the practice of gormandizing, and that this word itfelf is derived from Gormund, the name of that Danifh king whom JElfred the Great per- 1 Caefar dc B. (?. v, § 10. »n Strabo, lib. iv. p. 200. Pegge’s EfTay on Coips of Cunofc;. P- 95- n Archteologia, iv. p. 61. Godwin, de Prasful. p.596. feq. 0 Malmlb. p. 9. Galtr. Mon. vi. 12. P Lifter, ad Apic. p, xi. where fee more tq the fame purpofe. fuaded C [ V ] fuaded to be chriftened, and called iEthelftane % Now Vis certain that Hardicnut (lands on record as r an egregious glutton , but he is not particularly fa- mous for being a curious Viander ; ’tis true again, that the Danes in general indulged exceffively in feafts 5 and entertainments , but we have no reafon to ima- gine any elegance of Cookery to have flourifhed amongft them. And though Guthrum, the Danifti Gormundus 1 prince, is in fome authors named ; yet this is not the right etymology of our Englifh word it is the French Gourmand Gormandize , fince rather , n or the Britifh Gormod . So that we have little to fay as to the Danes. I (hall take the later Engl ifh and the Normans to- gether, on account of the intermixture of the two nations after the Conquefl, fince, as lord Lyttelton obferves, the Englifh accommodated themselves to the Norman manners, except in point of temperance in eating and drinking, and communicated to them their pwn habits of drunkennefs and irpmoderate feafting *. Erafmus alfo remarks, that the Englifh in his time ** Spelm. Life of jElfred, p. 66, Drake, Eboracum. Append, p. civ. 1 Speed’s Hi (tory. 5 Monf. Mallet, cap. 12. { Wilkins, Goncil. I. p. 204. Drake, Ebor. p. 316. Append, p. civ. cv. u Menage, Orig. v. Gourmand. * Lord Lyttelton, Hilt, of II. II. vol. iii. p. 49. were [ Vi ] were attached to plentiful fplendid tables and ; and the fame is obferved by Harrifon As to the Normans, both William I. and Rufus made grand entertain- z ments ; the former was remarkable for an immenfe paunch, and withal was fo exaff, fo nice and curious in his repaRs% that when his prime favourite Wil- liam Fitz-Olberne, who as Reward of the houfehold had the charge of the Cury, ferved him with the fiefh of a crane fcarcely half-roaRed, he was fo highly exafperated, that he lifted up his RR, and would have Rrucken him, had not Eudo, appointed b Dapifer immediately after, warded off the blow .