Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 69 Blaw maungere

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

-=-=-

69. Blaw maungere
Take a thike mylke of almonde blaunchede & drawyne up withe fayre watyre grynde ryce draw heme withe the milke take brawne of capons fesauntes or of pertrysche sodyne tendyr & tesyde smalle put ther to sygure & salt loke hit be stondyne & dresse hit forthe as ryse cut almondes in lenye frye heme a lytylle & medylle heme withe sygure & plant clovys a bovyne and one fysche dayes take pyke or haddoke welle sodyne & pyke the fysche for the bones & rubbe hit in a streyner withe youre honde that hit be [f.64r] smalle and do hit in the stede of fyshe.

-=-=-

"Blancmanger" is by far the most common recipe appearing in medieval cookbooks.  There are two versions in A Noble Boke off Cookry, but only one is a meat-day recipe and both of them merged don't quite match the Wagstaff version.

To mak blanche mange of flesshe tak ryse and wesshe it and draw it throughe a stren and temper it with almond mylk then teese the braun of capon or henn small and put the rise to the mylke and boile it and charge it with the tosed flesshe sesson it with sugur and florisshe it with almonds and serue it.  [A Noble Boke off Cookry (England, 1468)]

To mak blank mang of fisshe tak a pound of rise and sethe it and bray it till it brests and cast it to almond mylk then tak a tenche or a lampry and cast ther to and sethe them to gedure and serwe it.  [A Noble Boke off Cookry (England, 1468)] 

Even if the fish-day instructions are left out of both the Noble and Wagstaff recipes, they still don't quite match up.  Nor does the Wagstaff version quite match any of the other blancmanger recipes I've found.