Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 36 Oystres in Cyve

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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36.  Oystres in Cyve
Shele oystrys perboyle heme in fayre watyre and the selfe owet & wasche heme yne fayre watyre pyke and trye the broth thorow a streynoure do to gedyr make heme up as thy dyde the conyngys al save the blode & coloure heme withe saunders.

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There are a handful of other recipes for "Oysters in Civey", but none of them are quite the same as this one.  Some could be due to steps being omitted and replaced with the phrase "make heme up as thy dyde the conyngys al save the blode", but it's not completely clear which recipe is being referred to.  Most likely they mean recipe 33 (Conynggez in Cyve).  With that for context, the following recipe from Forme of Cury seems to be the closest.

OYSTERS IN CYNEE. XX.VI. III. Take Oysters parboile hem in her owne broth, make a lyour of crustes of brede & drawe it up wiþ the broth and vynegur mynce oynouns & do þerto with erbes. & cast the oysters þerinne. boile it. & do þerto powdour fort & salt. & messe it forth.  [Forme of Cury (England, 1390)]