Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks

201 Pages·1996·6.18 MB·English

by  Sharon Butler

PleynDelit
Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks Second Edition
This is a completely revised edition of the classic cookbook that
makes genuine medievhal meals available to modern* cooks. Using
the best recipes from the first edition as a base, Constance B.
Hieatt and Brenda M. Hosington have added many new recipes
from more countries to add depth and flavour to our under-
standing of medieval cookery. All recipes have been carefully
adapted for use in modern kitchens, thoroughly tested, and
represent a wide range of foods, from appetizers and soups, to
desserts and spiced wine.
The approach to cooking is entirely practical. The emphasis of
the book is on making medieval cookery accessible by enabling
today's cooks to produce authentic medieval dishes with as much
fidelity as possible. All the ingredients are readily available; where
some might prove difficult to find, suitable substitutes are sug-
gested. While modern ingredients which did not exist in the
Middle Ages have been excluded, modern time- and energy-saving
appliances have not. Authenticity of composition, taste, and ap-
pearance are the book's main concern.
Unlike any other published book of medieval recipes, Pleyn Delit
is based on manuscript readings verified by the authors. The
introduction provides a clear explanation of the medieval menu
and related matters to bring the latest medieval scholarship to the
kitchen of any home.
CONSTANCE B. HIEATT is Professor Emeritus of English, Univer-
sity of Western Ontario, and has made medieval studies her
profession for forty years. She initiated an annual medieval feast
potluck among her colleagues from which this book developed.
BRENDA M. HOSINGTON is Professeur titulaire, Linguistique,
Universite de Montreal. She contributed to Constance Hieatt's first
medieval feast and has maintained the Hieatt tradition of both
teaching and cooking for her graduate students.
The late SHARON BUTLER co-authored the first edition of Pleyn
Delit with Constance Hieatt. She was an editor of the Dictionary of
Old English, and a talented artist whose illustrations grace the
volume.
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Pleyn Delit
Medieval Cookery for
Modern Cooks
Second Edition
Constance B. Hieatt, Brenda Hosington,
and Sharon Butler
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
First edition
© University of Toronto Press 1976
First paperback edition 1979
Second edition
© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1996
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed in Canada
Reprinted 1997,2OOO> 2O°4
ISBN 08020-0678-7 (cloth)
ISBN 0-8020-7632-7 (paper)
Printed on acid-free paper
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Hieatt, Constance B., 1928-
Pleyn delit: medieval cookery for modern cooks
2nd ed.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8020-0678-7 (bound) ISBN 0-8020-7632-7 (pbk.)
i. Cookery. I. Butler, Sharon, 1942-
II. Hosington, Brenda. III. Title.
TX652.H54 1996 641.5 9€ 5-932306-6
University of Toronto Press acknowledges
the financial assistance to its publishing program
of the Canada Council and the
Ontario Arts Council.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the
financial support for its publishing activities of
the Government of Canada through the Book
Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).
In memoriam:
Sharon Butler, Allan Fleming, Prudence Tracy
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Contents
Preface ix
Introduction xiii
Weights and Measures xxvii
RECIPES
Hors d'oeuvres, Eggs, and Cold Dishes numbers i to 21
Soups and Pottages numbers 22 to 47
Sauces numbers 48 to 60
Bruets, Stews, and Other Boiled Fish, Poultry,
and Meat Dishes numbers 61 to 88
Broiled, Baked, and Roasted Dishes numbers 89 to 111
Desserts numbers 112 to 136
Subtleties numbers 137 to 142
Bibliography 163
Index 167
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Preface to the Revised
Second Edition
When the late Sharon Butler and I published the first edition
of Pleyn Delit in 1976, neither of us had had any opportunity to
consult the manuscripts containing the recipes and we had to
depend on what printed editions were then available. The ex-
pertise we brought to bear was more culinary than scholarly,
as we had been adapting medieval recipes for our own tables,
and for our friends and colleagues, for quite a few years. Among
those friends and colleagues, one who was especially helpful in
developing recipes was Brenda Hosington, then Thaon. It was,
thus, eminently suitable that Professor Hosington be the scholar
who published a French translation and adaptation of the book,
Pain, Vin et Veneison, in 1977.
In the intervening year, Dr Butler and I had discovered several
errors in the first edition; Professor Hosington was able to in-
corporate our corrections in her adaptation, which thus agrees
with the 1979 reprinting of Pleyn Delit, not the original edition.
But, by 1979, Dr Butler and I had started work on manuscripts
for our edition Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts of the
Fourteenth Century (Including the 'Forme of Cury'); this was published
in 1985, not long before Dr Butler's untimely death. As we
worked on it, we learned a great deal, and, predictably, found
that the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century editions on which
we had based our original work were gravely flawed. We knew
we should eventually do a complete revision of our first book;
but Dr Butler was by then too seriously ill to work on this, let
alone do further work on the edition of a fifteenth-century recipe
collection we had originally planned to collaborate on. I was fully
occupied in completing that edition by myself until it appeared
as An Ordinance of Pottage in 1988.
It was, thus, a great relief to me when Professor Hosington
agreed to collaborate in making a proper revision of Pleyn Delit.
After twenty years, it was about time: not only has her knowledge
IX