Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 171 Breme yn Sauce

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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171. Breme yn Sauce
Shale a breme draw hym at the bely & pekke hym at the chyne bone ij or iij rost hym on a rost yron take wyne boyle hit cast ther to poudyr of gynger & vergeys & do the breme on a dysch & poure the syrip a bovyn.

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This recipe is a match for recipe 106 from A Noble Boke off Cookry.

To dight a breme in sauce tak and stale hym and drawe hym at the belly and prik hym at the chyne and broylle him on a gredyrne till he be enoughe then tak wyne boiled and cast it to pouder of guinger and vergius then lay the breme in a dysshe and poure on the ceripe and serue it.  [A Noble Boke off Cookry (England, 1468)]

There is another version in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books.

Breme rost ensauce. Take a breme, and scald him, (but no3t to moche,) and drawe him in the bely, and pryk him thorgh the chyne bon ij. or iij. (Note: twies or thries) with a knyfe, and roste him on a gredire. And take wyne, and boile hit, and cast there-to pouder ginger, vergeous, and salt, and cast on the breme in a dissh, and serue him forth hote.  [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430)]

The Wagstaff version is made confusing by the omission of the word "claw". Oddly, the Noble version is the only one that doesn't say to serve the crab cold.