Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 143 Pertrich Rostyd

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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143. Pertrich Rostyd
Sle a pertrych with a feythir in the crown of the hed pul hym drye rost hym and lard hym in the maner of a fesaunte reyse the legges & the whynges as of a hen mynse hym sauce hym with poudyr of gyngour & salt set hym on the fyre hete hym & set hym forth all hote.

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This recipe is a match for recipe 79 from A Noble Boke off Cookry.

A pertuehe tak a fedir and put it in to his hed and let hym dye and pulle hym dry and drawe hym and rost hym as ye wold raise the legges and wingys of an henne and mynee hym sauce hym with wyne pouder of guinger and salt and warme it on the fyere and serue it.  [A Noble Boke off Cookry (England, 1468)]

The Noble version makes it clear that the feather is used in killing the partridge.

As with the recipe for roast pheasant, there is a related recipe in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, again with significant differences in the spicing.

Partrich rosted. Take a partrich, and sle him in the nape of the hede with a fethur; dight him, larde him, and roste him as thou doest a ffesaunte in the same wise, And serue him forth; then sauce him with wyne, pouder of ginger and salt, And sette hit in a dissh on the fuyre til hit boyle; then cast powder ginger, Canell, thereon, And kutte him so; or elles ete him with sugur and Mustard.  [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430)]