Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 155 Woodcok 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 © 2015 by Daniel Myers, MedievalCookery.com

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155. Woodcok Rostyd
Sle hym as a snyte pull hym drye or els breke his backe & kepe his scull hole draw hym as a snyte put his byll thorowgh his thyes rost hym reyse his leggys & his whyngys as of a henne & no sauce but salt.

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This recipe is a match for recipe 92 from A Noble Boke off Cookry.

To rost a wodcok tak and sley him as a snyet and pulle hym dry or brek his bak but kep his skull hole and drawe hym as a snyt and put his bille through bothe hys sides then rost hym and raise his leggs and his wings as a hen and no sauce but salt.  [A Noble Boke off Cookry (England, 1468)]

There is also a related recipe in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books.

Wodekok. Take a wodecok, and sle him as the plouer; pul him dry, or elles breke his bakke, And lete the sculle be hole; drawe him, And kutte of his winges by the body, and turne vp the legges as thou doest of a crane; put his bill thorgh bothe his thighes; roste him, And reise his legges And his winges, as thou doest of all maner of other clouen fote fowle.  [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430)]