Froyse

Last week I was looking for a new recipe to try out for dinner. I wanted something that would serve as a main dish, would use eggs (because that's what I had), would use beef (because a lot of the folks in this area really seem to like beef), and would be reasonably quick and easy (because the last thing I want to do after work is spend hours in the kitchen making dinner).

Oh, and I wanted it to be medieval English (just because).

I fired up the Medieval Cookbook Search and what jumped out at me were several recipes for "Froyse". There are several recipes with this name, all English, from the 14th and 15th centuries. Here's one:

lvij - Froyse out of Lentyn. Take Eyroun and draw the 3olkes and the whyte thorw a straynoure; than take fayre Bef or vele, and sethe it tyl it be y-now; than hew cold other hote, and melle to-gederys the eggys, the Bef, or vele, and caste ther-to Safroun, and Salt, and pouder of Pepir, and melle it to-gederys; than take a fayre Frying-panne, and sette it ouer the fyre, and caste ther-on fayre freysshe grece, and make it hot, and caste the stuf ther-on, and stere it wel in the panne tyl it come to-gederys wel; cast on the panne a dysshe and presse it to-gederys, and turne it onys, and thanne serue it forth. [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books]

Generally the recipes all involved eggs and meat - usually beef, but one suggests pork. The meat is boiled and then chopped up, mixed with eggs and spices (saffron, salt, pepper), poured into a hot pan, and flipped over once. Basically it's a frittata. I looked up a couple of frittata recipes to confirm this, and to get a general idea of proportions. Then I went ahead and tried it out on family and friends for dinner.

This is the culinary equivalent to walking a tightrope without a safety net. Our standing rule is that if it doesn't work out we can order a pizza.

In this case we didn't need to call Domino's, but it wasn't a real success either.

The first problem was that I think I was off on the ratio of eggs to meat. I used six eggs for 1 1/2 pounds of beef, and the result was a little to dry and crumbly. The pan I used didn't help things either - I had to cut the froyse up to get it turned over.

The other problem was that it was ... well ... boring. The saffron flavor was good (mmMMmmm ... saffron) but even with that it sort of sat on the tongue and said "Yeah, I'm food. So what?" I kept thinking maybe some kind of sauce or gravy, kind of like egg foo yong, but none of the source recipes have even the slightest suggestion of a sauce involved.

I intend to try again, adding more eggs next time and maybe a bit more saffron. I'll also have to see what I can learn about Froyse from other sources. Maybe it was meant to be boring, but maybe I'm missing something.

On the Size and Color of Eggs

One of the things I was told back when I had just started to dabble in medieval cooking was that the eggs they had in medieval Europe were smaller than modern eggs. Not being overly skeptical back then, I accepted this as an established fact and filed it away for future reference. As I progressed in my research though, I became more doubtful of this factoid. Now I'm at the point where I'm comfortable in saying it's utter bunk.

The recipe for May Eggs involves pouring the liquid yolks out of partly boiled eggs, 

mixing them with spices, pouring them back in, and allowing them to boil until hard. 

This is difficult and messy enough using large eggs. I doubt it's even possible with small ones.

It's easy enough to understand how such a belief could come about. We're told repeatedly that the great size of farm animals compared to their wild counterparts is directly the result of modern farming practices. What we forget is that some of those practices have been practiced for the past thousand years.

Evidence for modern-sized eggs in the medieval period is surprisingly easy to find.

Chicken Vendors, Vincenzo Campi, 1580s
Web Gallery of Art

The painting above is a beautiful example (click on it to go to a bigger version). See there in the lower right corner? Four Grade-A, Extra-Large eggs.

The Egg Dance, Pieter Aertsen, 1552

Web Gallery of Art

In this one the egg is on the floor, next to the overturned bowl and near the wooden shoe - about to be stepped on.

"Ah! How do you know those are chicken eggs and not goose eggs? How do you know they weren't smaller in, say, the 14th century?" I hear you ask. How about this for an answer?

Taccuino Sanitatis, 14th century

Large, modern-looking eggs ... being gathered from chickens ... in the fourteenth century. That pretty much sums it up.

Oh, and about the color of medieval eggs: common wisdom is that they were probably brown or speckled. P'feh! Take another look at those paintings. See any brown eggs? Me neither. If you find a painting of medieval eggs that show them to be any color other than white, I'd love to see it.