Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 35 Oysters in grave

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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35.  Oysters in grave
Schelle oystrys in to a pott and swette ther withe put ther to fayre watyre perboyle heme take hem up put hem yn fayre watyre peke heme clene blaunche almondys grynde hem tempyre heme up withe the same brothe draw up a goode mylke do hit in a pott withe onyons and hole spycez and a lytylle poudyre of sygure boyle hit to gedyre & doo the oystres ther to & serve hit forthe & caste ther yne zoure[?] dragge of hole spicys a bovyne & blaunche poudyre.

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While there are a number of other recipes with the same title in surviving cookbooks, the closest one is the following.

Oystres in grauey. Take almondes, and blanche hem, and grinde hem, and drawe hem thorgh a streynour with wyne, and with goode fressh broth into gode mylke, and sette hit on the fire and lete boyle; and cast thereto Maces, clowes, Sugur, pouder of Ginger, and faire parboyled oynons myced; And then take faire oystres, and parboile hem togidre in faire water; And then caste hem there-to, And lete hem boyle togidre til they ben ynowe; and serue hem forth for gode potage.  [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430)]

The use of almond milk instead of dairy suggests that this was intended as a recipe for fish days.