Recipes from John Crophill's Commonplace Book - 47 (untitled)

Recipes from John Crophill's Commonplace Book (Harley MS 1735)

This manuscript is dated before 1485.

The 68 recipes in John Crophill's Commonplace Book are on pages 16v through 28v.

Images of the original manuscript are freely available on the British 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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[47.] (untitled)
Tak freysch pork hew it & grynd it smal tak yelkys of eyren grind hem & do ther to good ginger galingale do ther to tak maces & qwybibes & clowes do ther to al hole & sugre & poudre gret plente than ley in the cofyn a smal couche of farsure tak perterkes & chikenys & hew hem on qwarter & frye hem & smale bryddys al hole fryed and conyes & do ther to a good bundel of fleysch than ley on farsure a nother good couche & do therin & do ther in greyn de parys & qwybibes & clowes & est ley a nother couche [f.26r] of farsure cvre it with past colour it wyt yelkys of eyren.

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This recipe is another example of a dish where the ingredients are common and there is a wide amount of variation. There is no recipe in either Nobel or Liber that corresponds directly to the one in Crophill, and while there are similar recipes in other medieval English cookbooks (for example, the two below), it is almost impossible to be sure if they're meant to be the same recipe or if the similarities are just a coincidence.

TARTEE. XX.VIII. IIII. Take pork ysode. hewe it & bray it. do þerto ayrenn. Raisouns sugur and powdour of gyngur. powdour douce. and smale briddes þeramong & white grece. take prunes, safroun. & salt, and make a crust in a trape & do þer Fars þerin. & bake it wel & serue it forth.  [Forme of Cury (England, 1390)]

Tartes de chare. Take Freyssche Porke, and hew it; and grynd it in a mortere, and take it vppe in-to a fayre vesselle; and take the whyte of Eyroun and the ȝolke, y-tryid thorw a straynoure; and temper thin porke ther-with; and than take Pyneȝ, and Raysonys of Coraunce, and frye hem in Freyssche grece, and caste ther-to pouder Pepir and Gyngere, Canel, Sugre, Safroun, Salt, and caste ther-to; and do it on a cofynne, and plante the cofynne a-boue with Pruneȝ, and with Datys, and gret Roysonys of Coraunce, and smal Byrdys, or ellys harde ȝolkys of Eyroun; and yf thow tage Byrdys, frye hem in grece or thou putte hem in the cofyn; and than keuere thin cofynne; and than endore it with ȝolkys of Eyroun, and with Safroune, and late yt bake tyll it be y-now; and than serue forth.  [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430)]