Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 88 Perys in Syrup

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 © 2014 by Daniel Myers, MedievalCookery.com

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88.  Perys in Syrup
Boyle wardons that they be somdell tendyr pare hem cut hem yn pecys take canell a grete dele draw hit thorow a streynour iij or iiij tymys with good wyn in a pott do ther to sygure a grete dele poudyr of gynger anneys clovis & macys and yf thu wilte datys mynsyd & reysons of coraunce set hit on the fyre when hit boyleth cast yn the perys lete hem boyle to gedyr when hit ys boyled y nowghe loke hit be broun of canell & put ther to poudyr of gynger a grete dele loke hit be somdele doucet & serve hit forth.

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This recipe is most like the following one for wardens in syrup from Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books.  The basic ingredients, steps, and spicing are all there.  The Wagstaff recipe's optional addition of dates and currants makes it more like the "pears in compost" recipes.

x - Wardonys in syryp. Take wardonys, an caste on a potte, and boyle hem till they ben tender; than take hem vp and pare hem, an kytte hem in to pecys; take y-now of powder of canel, a good quantyte, an caste it on red wyne, an draw it thorw a straynour; caste sugre ther-to, an put it in an erthen pot, an let it boyle: an thanne caste the perys ther-to, an let boyle to-gederys, an whan they haue boyle a whyle, take pouder of gyngere an caste therto, an a lytil venegre, an a lytil safron; an loke that it be poynaunt an dowcet.  [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430)]