Merryell Williams' Book of Recipes (Peniarth MS 513D) - [10] Pease Pottage

Merryell Williams' Book of Recipes

Peniarth MS 513D

This is a volume of cooking and medicinal recipes which were collected by Merryell Williams of the Ystumcolwyn Estate, Montgomeryshire, towards the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century. The manuscript is in English. Within its covers we are given a glimpse of the types of meals created in the kitchens of mid Wales' nobility during this period.

Images of the original manuscript are freely available on the National Library of Wales website.

I have done my best to provide an accurate, but readable transcription. Common abbreviations have been expanded, letters like thorn and yogh have been replaced with their modern equivalents, and some minor punctuation has been added.

Copyright © 2022 by Daniel Myers, MedievalCookery.com

[10] Pease Pottage. When your Pease are boyled, Strain them & put them to boyle againe with some Parsley, Onions beeth [seethed?], Time, Mint, & Sorrell. Season it with peper, sault, & cloves, leting all boyle a quarter of an hour. Dish it up with a little Butter. Have ready some white bread dryed by the fire to put in the Dish. [M. Des Mastyr]

The inclusion of mint, sorrel, and parsley in the recipe above suggests a connection to this recipe which I mentioned earlier.

To make green Peas Soop. Take half a bushel of the youngest Peas, divide the great from the small; boil the smallest in two quarts of Water, and the biggest in one quart: when they are well boiled, bruise the biggest, and when the thin is drained from it, boil the thick in as much cold Water as will cover at; then rub away the Skins, and take a little Spinage, Mint, Sorrel, Lettuce and Parsley, and a good quantity of Marigolds; wash, shred and boil these in half a pound of Butter, and drain the small Peas; save the Water, and mingle all together, and a spoonful of Pepper whole; then melt a quarter of a pound of Butter, and shake a little Flour into it, and let it boil; put the Liquor to the Butter, and mingle all well together, and let them boil up: so serve it with dry’d Bread. [The Compleat Housewife (England, 1729)]

However this connection seems tenuous as there is a similar recipe from much farther back with similar ingredients.

Pease of all or the most of these forts, are either used when they are greene, and be a dish of meate for the table of the rich as well as the poore, yet every one observing his time, and the kinde: the fairest, sweetest, youngest, and earliest for the better sort, the later and meaner kindes for the meaner, who doe not give the deerest price: Or Being dry, they serve to boyle into a kinde of broth or pottage, wherein many doe put Tyme, Mints, Savory, or some other such hot herbes, to give it the better rellish, and is much used in Towne and Countrey in the Lent time,  especially of the poorer sort of people.  [Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris, J. Parkinson (London, 1629)]

 

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