White ravioli

It has been a while since I have written anything about a medieval food recipe. Last year, we were re-enacting at the (pre-)historic village in Eindhoven which also involves cooking a meal for the Saturday. This time I tried out some new medieval recipies. One of them was white ravioli, a sweet dish.

White ravioli does not look nor taste like the modern ravioli.

Piglia de bona probatura fresca he pistala molto bene poi azonze pistando un pocho de butiro, zenzevero he canella. Et per una probaturaazonze tre ghiari d'ova ben batuta et del zucaro honestamente. Et incorpora tuti queste cose insieme. Poi fa li ravioli longhi he grossi uno dito. Poi imbratelli in bona farina. Et nota che questi volemo esser senza pasta. [marginal annotation in the manuscript: et se cum pasta li vorrai, falli.] He falli bollire adasio che non si rompano. Como hano levato uno buglore levali fora he meteli in scutelle cum zucaro, canella, he li poi far ghialdi de zaffrano.

Manuscript MS Bühler 19, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, USA, 5rv.

Of course I cannot read medieval Italian (or Napolitan as the book is believed to be of Napolitan origin), but luckily there is an English translation in the book: The medieval kitchen - recipes from France and Italy by Odile Redon, Francoise Sabban and Silvano Serventi. There is also a youtube video (Italian with English subtitles, see below) of the recipe, though this does not mention the source, just that it is late 15th century.

Ingredients

600 g soft white cheese, such as mozarella (di buffola)

20 g of butter at room temperature

2 egg whites lightly beaten

4 tablespoons of (cane) sugar

flour for dredging

1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger

1 teaspoon of ground Ceylon cinnamon

salt

a few threads of saffron (optional, I did not use it)

 

Preparing the dish

Mash together the cheese, butter, ginger, half of the cinnamon, all sugar except 2 spoonfulls, a pinch of salt and the saffran in a mortar or food processor. When the mixture is very smooth (or a bit less smooth in my case) add the egg whites. Cool down the mixture.

Mix together the remaining sugar and cinnamon.  Put some flour in a  shallow plate for dredging.

Bring a pan of water to the boil, and lower it to a simmer.

Take a spoonfull of the mixture and form the ravioli. Coat it with flour by rolling it through the shallow plate. Set aside on a floured tray or cookie sheet.

Drop the ravioli one by one in the lightly boiling water. Do not stir the ravioli as they can break apart easily. When the ravioli are ready they float to the surface and they can be scooped out with a skimmer. Drain well. Serve with some sprinkled cinnamon and sugar mixture.

 

The white ravioli served us warm as a desert (the ravioli were served as a first course though at a banquet by Sozzo Bandinelli on 23 December 1326 for the knighting of his son) at the end of our dinner, and the leftovers cold as breakfast the next morning. They both - warm and cold - tasted delicious.

Affenmund or Monkey Mouth

Oldest image of the Tegernsee Cloister, in the Landtafeln by Philipp Apian, 1560.

This post concerns a recipe with the curious name 'Affenmund', which can be translated as 'monkey mouth'. The origin is a bit obscure. The recipe is in the collection by H. Juergen Fahrenkamp 'Wie man eyn teutches Mannsbild bey Kräfften halt' (ISBN 3-89996-264-8). Fahrenkamp only occasional mentions his source clearly. The book includes many recipes from the 'Buoch van guoter spise', but the Affenmund is not one of them. The monks from the cloister at Tegernsee are also often mentioned, and the Affenmund recipe only says that the recipe is from a cloister cookbook. Unfortunately, the Tegernsee monastry cookbook is a bit of a mystery. There are some hints that it exists, for instance one website gives a recipe of fish soup from the 'Tegernsee Speisebuch, folio 53r/54r'.

Soviel gibt man auf 40 personen gen kuchl […]
zu der vischsuppen
3 maß wein, 1 semel, gwürz und gibt zu einem gelben scharfen süppel an die visch, 7 maß wein, 1 löffel ymber, 1 leffel pfeffer / wilt du es peßer haben , so reib ein leczelten dazu (53r-54r)

Perhaps it could originate from the 'Aufzeichnungen des Klosterschaffners von Tegernsee - Tegernseer Koch- und Fischbüchlein' from the first half of the 16th century (BSB Cgm 8137). This book seems to contain lists of meals mixed with recipes, but I was unable to identify the Affenmund from the digital edition of this book in the Bayerischen StaatsBilbiothekin München, Germany.  If anyone knows the original source of this recipe or an online readable version of the Tegernsee Cookbook, I would be happy to know.

The finished monkey mouths (without the parsley).

Anyway, the Affenmund tastes good and is a pleasure to make. Below is the recipe:

Ingredients

For the dough:

• 500 g flour
• 50 g butter (or lard)
• 3-4 eggs
• a bit of salt

For the filling:

• 500 g pork meat
• 500 g cow meat
• some breadcrumbs
• 2 onions
• 2 eggs
• salt and pepper
• marjoram, thyme, nutmeg

 Other ingredients:

• salted water for cooking
• 50 g butter (or lard)
• parsley

 

The recipe

 

The meat filling.

Create a dough from the flour, heated butter, eggs and salt and let it rest for 2 hours under a piece of cloth. Meanwhile, mix the meat with the breadcrumbs and the finely chopped onions and put this though a meat grinder.  Mix it with the eggs and spices and create a smooth filling.

(I used minced meat (50/50 pork/cow) instead, and put all the ingredients in the kitchen robot to create the smooth filling.)

 Left: the rolled-out dough. Right: the triangles containing the filling.

Thinly roll out the dough and cut it in 6 by 6 cm squares. Add some of the filling in the middle and fold the square unto a triangle. Use some water to glue the edges and/or fold these a bit over.

The monkey mouths boiling in the salted water.

Put the triangles in the boiling salted water, and leave them boiling until they raise themselves from the water. Use a skimmer to remove them from the water and drain. Add some butter and parsley before serving.

Retrieving the cooked Affenmunden from the kettle with a skimmer.

A summer dish for a winter night: citron-pomegranate salad

Citron-pomegranate salad is a simple and refreshing dish very suitable for a medieval dinner in summer, but also suitable for winter with regards to its high vitamin C content. We make this dish regularly and even our children like it, as it is not as sour as initially anticipated! The original recipe comes from the German cookbook 'Ein new Kochbuch' from 1581 by Max Rumpolt who was head cook to the Elector of Mainz, Daniel Brendel of Homburg. This version is taken from the book 'Herrenspeis und Bauernspeis - Rezepte aus der mitteralterlichen Burgküche' by Peter Lutz. He recommends the dish to be served between other dishes, as it naturally makes room for the next, like a sorbet.

Nimm Zitronen / Hack sie klein / mache es mit schönem lauterem Zucker / der klein gestossen ist / ab / bestreue es mit Granatapfelkernen / die fein rot sind / so ist es auch zierlich und gut.

Ingredients for 4 persons

• 2 Pomegranates
• 3 Citrons
• Some finely powdered cane sugar (alternatively use powder sugar)

Take out the arils (seeds) from the pomegranate and remove the white membranes that sometimes come along. Peel the citrons completely with a sharp knife, so no white is visible. Then, fillet the segments, i.e. remove the skin from each segment with help from a knife. Cut the filleted segments into smaller parts and mix with the pomegranate seeds. Citron juice that is spilled during the filleting process can also be added to the salad.

Break some sugar from a sugar loaf and grind if very fine in a mortar. Add  a little sugar to the salad, so that sweet and sour are in balance.

Filleting the citron segments really does improve taste and mouth feeling, 

although we did not do it completely here. It still tastes good.

Plum time! Time for Erbowle

This is the time of year the plums are ripe. We used to have a full-grown plum tree in our garden, but that one was felled when we moved house. I planted a new plum tree in our new garden, but this year it still had to accommodate to its  new environment and did not flower or set fruit. Our stock of medieval plumsauce, however, was finished, so this time I had to resort to buying plums from the market in order to make 'Erbowle', the medieval plum pudding / sauce / jam.

The plum sauce made a few years ago for dinner at the museum in Eindhoven.

I have a modernised recipe of Erbowle from two cookbooks, Pleyn Delit and The medieval kitchen - recipes from France and Italy. They both use the same 14th century English source: The Forme of Cury, but their versions are quite different in amounts of ingredients used and the types of spices added. I did not remember well which version I originally used, so I made a combination which tastes quite well.

 The 'Reine Victoria' red plums.

First, the original recipe

Take bolas and scald them with wyne, and drawe hem thorow a straynour; do hem in a pot. Clarify honey, and therto with powder fort and flour of rys. Salt it & florissh it with whyte aneys, & serve it forth.

Ingredients:
3 kg plums (I used Reine Victoria, a red plum variety)
approximately 1.2 litres red wine
4 spoons of clear honey
a pinch of salt
some rice flour (not more than a tablespoon)
a teaspoon of strong spices ( a combination of long pepper, black pepper, cloves and nutmeg)
a teaspoon ground ginger
a teaspoon of cinnamon
(the cookbooks also mention candied anise seeds)

The other ingredients, clockwise: clear honey, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, black pepper, long pepper and ginger.

Wash and pit the plums. Add the red wine and bring to the boil in a stainless steel pan and simmer for five minutes. Drain trough a sieve and reserve the wine. Return the plums to the pan and mash them with a hand blender. Place the pan over a low heat and stir in the honey, the salt and the spices. Depending on the thickness of the plum purée add some reserved wine or reserved wine with added rice flour. Cook over low heat about 10 minutes. The plum purée has to have a consistency of porridge.

The plum purée is already quite thick.

Left: The remaining wine can be used to make hypocras, but much of the alcohol has been vaporised. Right: Only a very little amount of this rice flour in wine was needed to thicken the plum sauce.

Meanwhile, as I wanted to preserve the plum sauce /jam for later use, I sterilised some empty jam jars and lids by boiling them in water for 20 minutes. They were removed from the boiling water with the help of scissor tongs and put upside down to dry on a clean tea towel. The jam jars were then filled with the hot sauce and closed. I let them settle upside down for a few minutes; while the jar and sauce cooled down, the lid was automatically sucked vacuum. 

 Left: Sterilising the glass jars in boiling water. Right: Nine jam jars with plum sauce, ready for the next season.

Hypocras

 

 Two medieval woodworkers having a meal with bread and (perhaps a spiced) wine in the Tacuinum sanitatis (ca. 1390, Codex Vindobonen­sis Series Nova 2644, folio 64r, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Austria).

During this time of year the modern spiced wine - Glühwine or bishopswine - can be ubiquitously found at Christmas markets. I personally do not like these mulled wines. That was also the case with the medieval version of it: Hypocras (the red wine version, named after the Greek Hippocrates) and Claré (for white wine). However, since our visit to Castle Loevestein in late November were we did some cooking demonstration this has changed. I decided to make some hypocras because it is an interesting process to show to the visitors and tell something on the spices in the wine. I used the recipe from the book 'Herrenspeis und Bauernspeis' by Peter Lutz. In his commentary he mentioned that everyone [visitors and re-enactors] was very enthusiastic about the taste. So perhaps his was a better recipe, and indeed it was...

Galangal (Alpinia officinarum) in the Tacuinum sanitatis (ca. 1390, Codex Vindobonen­sis Series Nova 2644, folio 32v, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Austria).

Recipe

There is a great variation in spices used for hypocras, some (e.g. the one in the Forme of Cury) use cloves, mace, nutmeg, caraway seed and/or white pepper. Most of them contain sugar, cinnamon and ginger. The recipe from Peter Lutz, which is likely the same as the one given in 'the medieval kitchen - recipes from France and Italy' which originates from Le Ménagier de Paris (1393):

To make a lot of good hypocras, take an once of cinnamonde, known as long tube cinnamon, a knob of ginger, and an equal amount of galangal, pounded well together, and then take a livre of good sugar; pound this all together and moisten it with the best Beaune wine you can get, and let it steep for an hour or two. Then strain it through a cloth bag several times so it will be very clear.

(Left) A cinnamon merchant from the Tractatus de Herbis by Dioscorides (Ms Lat 993 L.9.28, Folio 36v  15th century,  Biblioteca Estense, Modena, Italy). (Right) Red wine merchant in the Tacuinum sanitatis. Note the alternative manner of wearing the hood of the man on the right (14th century, Codex 4182, Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome, Italy).

The German recipe uses a lot of wine, so you should adjust the amounts accordingly to what you want to make (and drink).

• 6 litre good red wine (cheap wine makes cheap tasting hypocras)
• 900 gram sugar
• 2 tablespoons powdered cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons powdered ginger
• 1 tablespoon powdered galangal

Grind the spices with a mortar and pestle (when using unpowdered spices). Chop bits of sugar from the sugar cone (see below) and hammer and grind it to powder (or use commercial crystallised sugar). Mix the sugar and the spices well in a bowl (large enough for the wine as well). Add the red wine and stir well. The spices will first float on top of the wine but after more careful stirring, they will mix with fully the wine. Peter Lutz recommends leaving the wine stay for a day, but we left it for a few hours as in the recipe of Le Ménagier de Paris. Filter the wine several times though a filtering (cheese) cloth until it is clear. Also here Peter Lutz deviates from the recipe by storing the hypocras in bottles for another 2 weeks before drinking; he also mentions that the hypocras can be stored for half a year in wine bottles. We did consume the hypocras directly after filtering, but also (like the glühwine) after heating (not boiling) the wine. The difference was remarkable: while the filtered hypocras tasted good, however, the warm hypocras was very much better as it intensified the harmonious taste of the spice mixture with that of the wine.

Careful mixing of the spices with the wine in the bowl. At the start the spices float on top of the wine.

Medieval sugar cones

Sugar, made from sugar-cane, was an available sweetener in the middle ages. In the 14th century sugar-cane plantations and factories existed in Sicily and later they also appeared elsewhere in the Mediterranean. Sugar syrup from the sugar cane was refined and crystallized into sugar loafs, which could easily be transported across Europe. Although the method to make sugar has changed since then, similar looking sugar cones can still be bought today. In Germany, small ones are known as Zuckerhut and used for a traditional (mulled wine!) drink; in Moroccan shops larger ones can be found which are used as a present during a visit and the sugar chunks are used to sweeten the mint tea. 

 

(Left)  A 14th century sugar funnel found in Kouklia, Cyprus. (Right) Cana melle (sugarcane) in the Tacuinum sanitatis (ca. 1390, Codex Vindobonen­sis Series Nova 2644, folio 92v, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Austria).

It is also possible to make these sugar cones yourself. A very instructive film by Richard Signell can be found on YouTube. This prompted me to try it as well. I found that just water was not enough to stick the sugar crystals together and a some fine powdered sugar was needed as an extra 'glue'. 

The large white Moroccan sugar cone (the top already used for the hypocras) 

and two smaller homemade sugar cane cones.

(Left) Sugar cones from the Tractatus de Herbis by Dioscorides (Ms Lat 993 L.9.28, 15th century,  Biblioteca Estense, Modena, Italy). and (right) A merchant selling a sugar cone (Gilles de Rome, Livre du gouvernement des princes, early 16th century. Bibliotheque National de France, Paris, France, Arsenal, Ms. 5062, detail from fol. 149v.)

 

 

Having a medieval dinner (with hypocras) together with the archaeological team of castle Loevestein.

Pomesmoille: apple pudding

As the apples harvest season has started, this is an excellent opportunity to try the apple pudding recipe 'Pomesmoille'. It is found in the Laud Misc. 553 Manuscript (Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK), and a translated modern cooking version appears in the book 'Pleyn Delit - medieval cookery for modern cooks' by C.B. Hieatt, B. Hosington and S. Butler. This recipe tastes especially good when it is combined with whipped cream with a little rosewater added (the cream with rosewater was mentioned on a medieval food website, but no original source was given).

Folio 7v of Laus Misc 553, a treatise with herbal and medicinal texts, including some recipes.
 

 

Pomesmoille

Nym rys &bray hem in a mortar; tempre hem up with almande milke; boile hem. 
Nym appelis & kerve hem as small as douste; cast hem in after be boiling, & sugur; 
colour it with saffron, cast therto goud poudre, & zif hit forth.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound cooking apples, peeled cored and finely diced
• 60-120 gram ground almonds
• 2 cups of water
• half a cup of sugar
• quarter of a cup rice flour
• half teaspoon cinnamon
• an eighth teaspoon ginger 
• a pinch each of salt, ground cloves, and nutmeg 
• pinch of saffron

 The peeled and diced apples.

Draw up the almond milk with the water (a basic method which has can be found in many medieval cookbooks and websites). Mix the sugar, rice flour, and almond milk in a sauce pan; stir in the apples and bring to a boil over medium heat. Stir and boil for about 5 minutes, or until quite thick. If necessary a little more rice flour can be added to thicken. Mix in a small cup all the seasoning's except the nutmeg with a spoonful of the pudding. Put this mixture back into the pudding pot and stir until thoroughly blended. A stew pestle can be used to decrease the size of the apple parts. Pour the pudding into a serving dish and sprinkle some nutmeg on top. Serve it cool (preferably with some whipped cream with a sprinkle of rosewater added).

 

The cooked and thickened pudding in the form.  

The whipped cream with rose water.

Saffron bread

This weekend we were again in Castle Hernen and I took the opportunity to test several new recipes. The dishes were only made for our lunch and the following afternoon. The castle closes at 17:00 and there is not a good place to prepare dinner. Therefore, the new recipes had to be prepared beforehand at home. One of the new recipes which tasted (and looked) very well was Saffron Bread. The recipe came from 'Das Mittelalter Kochbuch' of Hannele Klementtilä. This book is a German translation of an English translation of a Finnish book. To make it more complicated, the recipe was taken by the author from a French medieval cookbook 'Gastronomie du Moyen Age' by Josy Marty-Dufaut. She (hopefully) took the recipe from a medieval source. Anyway, this sweet bread tastes good. You can describe it as something between cake and brioche.

 The just baked Saffron Bread.

Saffron was a luxury spice during medieval times and held in high esteem by the aristocracy. During the plague, the price for saffron was 45 times as high as today’s premium price. Nowadays, it still is a luxury spice; the highest quality yields 25,000 Euro/kg (the gold price is 45,000 Euro/kg). Saffron has a subtle aroma and taste, and colours your food with a golden colour (no wonder why it was appreciated by the nobility). Luckily, you only need a very little amount for your dish (and we were even more lucky with friends giving us some small boxes of it).

 

Two boxes of saffron. Some pepper kernels are given for size comparison. 

Saffron Bread

Ingredients (for two loafs)

• 500 g fine flour
• 250 ml warm water
• 17 gram yeast ( instead I used 2 sachets dry yeast dissolved for some time in handwarm applejuice with a bit of salt)
• 90 gram cane sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 50 ml olive oil
• 1.5 eggs (or 1 medium and 1 small egg)
• some saffron threads

Left: the loafs resting under a sheet of household plastic in a sunny spot of the house. Right: the marble tile in the oven with the saffron bread loafs.

Add the yeast to the warm water and add the saffron, salt, olive oil, eggs and flour to it. Knead it to a dough and let it rest for around one hour. Preheat the oven at 200 degrees. We placed a marble tile on the lowest rack in our oven and preheated it for at least half an hour - the bread will then have a crust similarity comparable to the medieval stone oven (the marble tile is also ideal for pizza). Divide the dough into two loafs and let them rest for a while. Place the loafs in the oven and bake it for 15 minutes, until the crust is lightly browned. When cut, the bread has a marvellously golden colour.

The baked saffron bread.

Some slices of the saffron bread. You can see the nice golden colour of the inside of the loaf.

New cookbooks and an old with a new recipe

During Saint Nicholas and Christmas time I have received and bought some new (at least for me) medieval cookbooks. These were:

'The Book of Sent Sovi', containing the recipes of a 14th century cookbook from Catalonia (Spain) (ISBN 978-185566164-6). Luckily for us, the Catalan language is translated into English, but the actual transition to modern cooking has to be done by ourselves.

'Das Mittelalter Kochbuch' by Hannele Klemettilä (a German translation of an English translation of a Finnish book; ISBN 978-3-7306-0028-3) is filled with general information on medieval cooking, and contains a collection of recipes from medieval cookbooks and by Finnish re-enactors. There is some uncertainty whether the dishes by the latter are indeed medieval as no manuscript source is provided. Also some interesting information on Finnish medieval food can be found in the book.

'Herrenspeis and Bauernspeis - Krumme Krappfen, Ollapotrida und Mamonia' (ISBN 978-3-936622-14-0), 'Mein new Kochbuch - Wurst von Salm, Salbeimauschen und weitere Rezepte aus der mittelalterliche  Burgküche' (ISBN 3-936622-64-7) and 'Orientalisch-mittelalterliche Küche' (ISBN 978-3-940168-44-3) are all three by Peter Lutz, the former medieval cook of the Ronnenburg in Germany. These last three book are written in a very entertaining and informative way, and his view of how to prepare medieval dishes is very like our style of cooking. His last book deals with the medieval Islamic food and the influence it had on European (Mediterranean) medieval cooking. One of the dishes in this book, Rummaniyya, can also be found in the the Italian 'Liber de coquina' from the beginning of the 14th century as 'Romania'. This a a meat dish with a pomegranate sauce. A related recipe, 'Limonia' (with a lemon sauce instead of a pomegranate sauce) is Katinka's favourite medieval dish. 'Mein new Kochbuch' mostly takes the recipes from the late medieval/early renaissance cookbook 'Ein new Kochbuch' by Max Rumpolt from 1581. However, Peter uses the extensive information on cooking found in Max Rumpolts book to find out how certain medieval cooking styles were performed. The recipes in this book are not those commonly encountered in modern medieval cookbooks.

Recipe of Rosijsen from the manuscript of Maister Hannsen des from Wirtenberg koch from 1460.

His first book, Herrenspeis und bauernspeis, starts with a recipe of 'Krumme krapfen'. We knew this recipe already from another book under the name 'Rosijsen' (Horse shoes) and have made it several times. The other book, however, did not provide the source, while peter Lutz provides at least two: The manuscript of "Maister Hannsen, des von Wirtenberg koch" from 1460 and the 'Alemannische Büchlein von guter Speise'  (1470). The latter one also adds that the horse shoes are good and healthy. Indeed they taste very well, but today we would have some doubts on the healthiness of this dish.

Rosijsen

When eaten it looks like a horse shoe. You shall take good cheese and grate it. And take a same amount of flour and add eggs. So it can be kneaded easily. Add spices to it and roll it on a dish like a sausage. Bent it like a horse shoe and bake it in lard. [my translation of the German recipe] 

Ingredients (serves 4):
3 eggs
150 g grated cheese
150 g flour
salt, black pepper, nutmeg
lard or vegetable oil for frying

 

Make a smooth dough from the eggs cheese, flour, salt and a good amount of spices and let it rest for 20 minutes. Flour your hands and roll the dough into a sausage with the thickness of a thumb. Cut it into pieces of a finger length and form into a horse shoe. Fry the horse shoes in the hot lard or vegetable oil until they are gold-brown and crispy. Eat warm (with a sauce, but it tastes also good without one).

Salse von Weichseln (sour cherry sauce)

Peter Lutz recommends this sauce with the Rosijsen - which I have not tried yet. The recipe is from  'Das Kochbuch des Meisters Eberhard' (mid 15th century) who was the cook of Duke Henry of Landshut in Germany.

Zum ein salsenn von weichselnn zu machen.
Item wiltu machen ein gutte salsenn von weichselnn,
so thue die weichsell in einen hafen vnd
secz die auff ein glut vnd laß sie siedenn vnd
laß dann wider erkaltenn vnd streich sie durch ein
tuch vnd thue sie dann wider in den hafenn vnd
secz sie auff ein glut vnd laß sie wol sieden
vnd rurr sie, piß sie dick wirt, vnd thue dann
honig dar an vnd geribens prot vnd negellein vnd
gut gestu:ep vnd thue sie in ein feßlein. Sie
pleibt dir gut drew oder vier iar.

To make a sauce of sour cherries [translation into English by Volker Bach].
If you wish to make a good sauce of sour cherries, put the cherries into a pot and place it on the embers and let them boil. Then cool down again and pass them through a cloth, put it back into the pot, place it on the embers and let it boil well until it thickens. Then add honey and grated bread and cloves and good spice powder and put it into a small cask. It will stay good three or four years.

 

The sour cherry sauce with the rosijsen. Image scanned from the book Herrenspeis und Bauernspeis.

Ingredients (serves 4):

• 1 glass of sour cherries
• 100 g honey
• breadcrumbs to thicken the sauce
• cinnamon
• cloves, freshly ground in a mortar
• black pepper, also freshly ground 

Take the stone out of the sour cherries and mash the stoneless cherries to pulp (e.g. with help of a blender). Heat the cherrypulp on a small flame untill it is reduced by a third in volume. Add the honey and the breadcrumbs while constantly stirring until the sauce has thickened. Finally add the cinnamon, cloves and a little pepper.  If the sauce is added hot into clean jam bottles, it can be stored for several years.

Medieval mussels

It all began when we found a book on excavations in Arnemuiden, the town Anne was born. Among the finds at the harbours edge was a curious red earthenware pot, dating from the late middle ages. A similar pot had been found in the nearby city of Middelburg. As this type of pot was only found in  Zeeland, a delta province with (during medieval times) lots of small islands and fisher-folk, and plenty of opportunity to gather (free) mussels around the shore, it was thought to be a pan used to cook mussels. As we happen to like cooked mussels, and this was a medieval pot from Anne's home town, we wanted to add a replica of this mussel pot to our cooking inventory. We looked if there was a potter that was willing to make the replica and ended up at Atelier Jera, run by Elly van Leeuwen from Leiden, the Netherlands.

 A red earthenware 'mussels bowl' with lead-glazing inside standing on three rims. Dated around 1375-1450. 

Middelburg, Berghuijskazerne, now in the Zeeuws Museum, Middelburg, the Netherlands.

The red earthenware 'mussels bowl' with lead glazing found in Arnemuiden, the Netherlands. 

Dated around 1350-1450. The sizes are recalculated based on maximum diameter provided.

She made a very beautifully crafted replica of the mussels bowl, as well as a replacement for our jack-dawed milk bowl. Her bowl is slightly smaller, 28 cm diameter and 11 cm high. We tested our new mussels pot on our next event in Eindhoven. Of course using a medieval recipe for mussels. Below we provide the recipes for three different medieval dishes containing mussels.

Our mussels bowl replica made by Elly van Leeuwen.

You might wonder how mussels gathered around the shore would end up fresh in the mainland (e.g. around the Historic Open Air Museum in Eindhoven). There is some evidence that mussels were transported during medieval times in barrels filled with salt water. This prevented them from being spoiled.

Last weekend in the Historic Open Air Museum in Eindhoven we tried two of the three medieval mussels recipes that are provided below.

Cawdel of Muskels

This is an interesting recipe for mussels and leeks in almond milk, from 'the Forme of Cury' an English cookbook from the 14th century (recipe 127). The modern adaptation is from 'Pleyn delit' by Constance B. Hieatt, Brenda Hosington and Sharon Butler (ISBN 0-8020-7632-7).

Cawdel of muskels, a tasty soup-like recipe.

Take and seep muskels; pyke hem clene, and waisshe hem clene in wyne. Take almaundes & bray hem. Take somma of the muskels and grynde hem, & some hewe smale; drawe the muskels yground with the self broth. Wryng the almaundes with faire water. Do alle thise togider; do therto verjous and vyneger. Take whyte of lekes & perboile hem wel; wryng oute the water and hewe hem smale. Cast oile therto, with oynouns perboiled & mynced smale; do therto powder fort, saffroun & salt a lytel. Seep it, not to stondyng, & messe it forth.  

Add salt and saffron and boil the mussels. They are ready when they are open.

• 1/2 cup of ground almonds
• 1/2 cup of water
• 1-1.5 kg mussels in shell
• 2 medium onions, peeled and quartered
• 3-4 leeks, washed and thinly sliced
• 1 bottle of dry white wine
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon saffron
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon each ground ginger, all spice, and pepper.

Take the mussels out of their shell and chop them to pieces.

Draw thick almond milk from the ground almonds and water. Soak mussels in cold water and discard those that open prematurely. Put them in a large pot with leeks, onions, wine, vinegar, salt and saffron. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down and simmer until the shells open (about 5 minutes). Stain broth through a cheesecloth and reserve. shell mussels and discard the shells. Chop onions and leeks and sauté them them gently in oil for a few minutes. Meanwhile grind (blend) half the cooked mussels with a small amount of the broth. Chop the remaining mussels more coarsely with a knife. Combine all of these ingredients with the almond milk, adding broth if more liquid seems needed. Simmer gently to reheat, stirring constantly; do not overcook. Season to taste.

Saute the onions and leeks.

Mussels in the shell

The following is a recipe for cooked mussels from Manuscript M.S. B.L. Harleian H4016, recipe 106 of around 1450. Taken from the book 'The culinary recipes of medieval England' by Constance B. Hieatt (ISBN 978-1-909248-30-4).

Take and pick over good mussels and put them in a pot; 
add them to minced onions and a good quantity of pepper and wine, and a little vinegar. 
As soon as they begin to gape, take them from the fire, and serve hot in a dish with the same broth.

The mussels in the shell were made using the new mussels bowl.

This recipe is, in fact, much alike the modern cooked mussels. Mussels are boiled in white wine, together with a drop of vinegar, some vegetables (for example onions) and spices (pepper). When the shell is open they are ready to eat. You can use an empty open shell as pincers to pry another mussel out of its shell. The use of vinegar and pepper gives it a interesting twist from the modern cooked mussels.

'Ein hofelich spise von Ostren' (jugged mussels)

This mussels recipe stems from medieval France and was taken from the German book 'Wie man eyn teutsches Mannsbild bey Kräfften hält' by H.J. Fahrenkamp (ISBN 3-89996-264-8). The recipes in this book seem genuine, but the author is lax in providing the exact sources.

• 1.5 kg mussels
• 3-4 tablespoons oil
• 1 medium sized onion 
• 100 g breadcrumbs
• 1/2 l dry white wine
• 1-2 tablespoons wine vinegar
• some bay leaf, parsley and tarragon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• a bit of saffron
• white pepper, salt

 Wash the mussels and throw away the ones with an open shell. Put the rest in a large pan with some oil and heat strongly for around 5 minutes, while shaking the pan, until the shell have opened. Throw away the unopened ones. Take the pan from the fire and put through a sieve, catching the mussel-oil liquid in a bowl. Take the muscles from the shell and set aside. Cut the onion in fine pieces and stir fry them in a little oil. Add the breadcrumbs and stir. Add the wine and vinegar and the herbs and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Remove the herbs and use a mixer to make a smooth purée. If necessary add the mussel-oil liquid. Add the spices, keeping in mind that none should give a dominant flavour. Add the mussels to the sauce and reheat the mixture slowly.








Medieval mussels with St. Ambrose in the Book of Hours of Catherina of Cleves, by the Utrecht Master of Catherina of Cleves, Ms. M. 917, page 244. Note that the crab has too many legs.