Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 28 Purpayse or Venysone ine brothe

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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28.  Purpayse or Venysone ine brothe
Take chikenys of purpas and more of the fysche yf thu wylte chopp hit in pecys withe onyons & herbes cut grete & hole clowys & macys powdyre of pepyre & canelle & do to gedyre in a pott wythe fayre watyre or withe brothe of the fysche and withe a perty of wyne boyle hit up yf the fysche be goode hit wille a lay hit sylfe or els draw a lytylle lyoure of crustys & do ther to poudyre of gyngere & salt and make venysone in brothe in the same maner.

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That this recipe starts off calling for "chickens of porpoise" suggests that there was a copying or translation error somewhere.  There are no other recipes that use this phrase, nor are there any that include all of the words "porpoise", "venison", and "chicken".  The closest I could find to this one are the following recipes for fish in gravy.

Elys in Sorre. Take eles, and fle hem, and choppe hem in faire colpons, And wassh hem clene, and putte hem in a faire potte; and then take parcelly, oynons, and shrede togidre to the eles; And then take pouder of peper, and broth of fissh, and set hit ouer the fire, and lete hem boyle togidre; And then take a lofe of brede, and alay the brede in the the same broth, And drawe hit thorgh a streynour; And whan the eles ben almoost y-sodde ynowe, caste there-to; And lete hem boile togidre; and take hem vp fro the fire, and cast ther-to salte, vinegre, And serue hit forth. [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430)]

Sore Sengle. Take Elys or Gurnard, and parte hem half in Wyne, and half in watere, in-to a potte; take Percely and Oynonys and hewe hem smalle; take Clowes or Maces and caste ther-on; take Safroun, and caste ther-to, and sette on the fyre, and let boyle tylle it be y-now; then sette it a-doun; take poudere Gyngere, Canelle, Galyngale, and temper it vppe with Wyne, and cast on the potte and serue forth.  [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430)]