Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 186 Shrympys Boyled

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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186. Shrympys Boyled
Take quyke shrympys pike hem clene make thy sauce of watyr & salt cast hem yn let hem boyle but a lytyll poure a wey the watyr ley hem [f.76v] dry when thu shalt serve hem forth ley hem yn disches round all aboughte the sydes of the disches & ley the backesyde outward & eny course till ye come to the mydward of the disches with in eerve hem forth sauce hem with venygger.

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

Shrympes. Take Shrympes, and seth hem in water and a litull salt, and lete hem boile ones or a litull more. And serue hem forthe colde; And no maner sauce but vinegre.  [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430)]

Maybe it is due to boiled shrimp being such an easy dish to make, but I'm surprised there aren't more of such recipes in contemporary sources.