Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 72 Blanke desyre

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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72. Blanke desyre
Take yolkes of eyron sodyn hard & safron & bred growndyn with cow milke boyl do ther to white of eyron cut smal & spyndez of porke corven ther to aley hit a lytyll with raw yolkes of eyron.

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While there is a recipe for "Blanc Desire" in A Noble Boke off Cookry, that one has different ingredients (e.g. poultry instead of pork) and doesn't really seem to be the same dish.

To mak blank de fire tak ryse and wesshe it and grind it small and temper it up with almond mylk and boile it then tak the braun of capon or henne and hew it small and grind it with myed bred and sesson it with sugur and florishe it with almondes and serue it.  [A Noble Boke off Cookry (England, 1468)]

There's a recipe in Forme of Cury that is much closer, but even it has some significant differences.

XIX - FOR TO MAKE BLANK DE SUR. Tak the zolkys of Eggs sodyn and temper it wyth mylk of a kow and do ther'to Comyn and Safroun and flowr' of ris or wastel bred mycd and grynd in a morter and temper it up wyth the milk and mak it boyle and do ther'to wit of Egg' corvyn smale and tak fat chese and kerf ther'to wan the licour is boylyd and serve it forth.  [Forme of Cury (England, 1390)]