Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 18 Jussalle

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 © 2013 by Daniel Myers, MedievalCookery.com

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18.  To make Jussalle.
Take swete brothe of capons or elys or brothe as thu may have set hit one the fyre in a brode vesselle coloure hit withe saneryne put sage there to out grote and saffrone breke eyrone styre heme welle to the eyrone and to thy herbes be mellyde to gedyre whene hit be gynnys to sethe take out thy potstyke and turne ty crude aboute withe the scome loke thy fyre be not to hasty wh whene hit ys thorow knyt take hit of the fyre and covere hit & serve hit forthe.

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This recipe is a reasonably clear match to recipe 151 in A Noble Boke off Cookry.

To mak jusselle tak the swet brothe of a capon or of other good flesshe and set it on the fyere in a large vesselle colour it with saffron put ther to saige cut gret and salt it then tak eggs and drawe them through a strener and temper grated bread and eggs and stirre it to gedure till they be ronn and let the erbes be well mellid to gedur and when yt begynnythe to boille tak out the pot stik and turn the curd about with a scorner and let not the fyere be to hasty when it is throughe knyt tak it from the fyere and couyr it and serue it.  [A Noble Boke off Cookry (England, 1468)]

Recipes for "jussel" show up in just about every medieval English cookbook, with some variants having instructions for meatless days or specifying the use of other broths.  The closest of these is probably the following one from Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books.

Guissell. Take faire capon broth, or of beef, And sette hit ouer the fire, and caste therto myced sauge, parcelly and saffron, And lete boile; And streyn the white and the yolke of egges thorgh a streynour, and caste there-to faire grated brede, and medle hit togidre with thi honde, And caste the stuff to the broth into the pan; And stirre it faire and softe til hit come togidre, and crudded; And then serue it forth hote.  [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, (England, 1430)]