Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 140 For to sle aner of foules


Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany (Beinecke MS 163)

This manuscript is dated about 1460.

The 200 (approx.) recipes in the Wagstaff miscellany are on pages 56r through 76v.

Images of the original manuscript are freely available on the Yale University Library website.

I have done my best to provide an accurate, but readable transcription. Common abbreviations have been expanded, the letters thorn and yogh have been replaced with their modern equivalents, and some minor punctuation has been added.

Copyright © 2014 by Daniel Myers, MedievalCookery.com

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140. For to sle aner of foules & roste hem & serve hem forth
Cut a swan in the rofe of the mouth touward the brayn of the hede & let hym blede to deth & kepe the blod to colour the chaudon with or cut the necke & let hym dye then skald hym draw hym rost hym & serve hym forth.

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This recipe is a match for recipe 77 from A Noble Boke off Cookry.
To sley a swan and allmaner of fowle and to dight them, tak a swan and cutt him in the roof of the mouthe toward the brayne of the hed and lett hym bled to dethe then kep the blod to colour the chaudron and knyt the nek and let him dye then skald hym drawe hym rost him and serue hym with chaudron.  [A Noble Boke off Cookry (England, 1468)]

While the title of the Wagstaff version was clearly copied in error, I find it interesting that the Wagstaff recipe correctly separates the methods of killing the swan with an "or" where the Noble version has "and".

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