Le Viandier de Taillevent - Translation - Subtleties

HERE FOLLOW THE SUBTLETIES

60. Faulx grenon.

Cook some [chicken] livers, chicken gizzards or veal meat in wine and water, chop it very small, and fry it in lard. Crush ginger, cassia, cloves and grains of paradise, and steep in wine, verjuice, beef broth and broth from the livers, gizzards and veal. Add plenty of egg yolks, sieve onto your meat, and boil well together. Some add a bit of bread and saffron. It should be very thick, a rather yellow colour, and sour with verjuice. When setting it out in bowls, put cassia powder on top.

61. Small feet, livers and gizzards [of geese].

Cook them very well in wine and water, and put them on a plate with some parsley and vinegar on top.

62. Frumenty.

Take wheat, prepare it, wash it very well, and cook it in water. When it is cooked, drain it. Take cow's milk boiled for an instant, add the wheat, and boil it for an instant. Move it to the back of the fire, stir often, and thread in plenty of egg yolks. Some add spices, saffron and venison stock. It should be yellowish and well thickened.

63. Slices.

Take figs, raisins, boiled almond milk, hot water pastries, flat cakes and white bread crusts cut into small cubes. Boil your milk, add saffron (to give it colour) and sugar, and boil everything together until it becomes thick enough to slice. Put it into bowls.

64. Millet.

Wash it in three changes of hot water and put it in simmering cow's milk. Do not put the spoon in it until it has boiled. Then remove it from on top of the fire and add a bit of saffron. Boil it until it is done, and set it out in bowls.

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65. Stuffed chicken.

Take your chickens, cut their throats, scald and pluck them, and make sure that the skin is sound and whole. Do not refresh it in water. Take a pipe of straw or other material, insert it between the skin and the flesh, inflate the skin, slit it between the shoulders without making too large a hole, and leave attached to the skin the thighs, feet, wings, and neck including the head.

To make the stuffing, take raw mutton, veal, pork and pullet dark meat, chop them all together, and crush them in a mortar with some raw eggs, good harvest cheese, good Spice Powder, just a bit of saffron, and salt to taste. Fill your chickens and restitch the hole. From the rest of your stuffing make quenelles shaped like cakes of woad. Cook them in beef broth and boiling water with plenty of saffron. Make sure that they do not boil so vigorously that they fall apart.

Spit your chickens and quenelles on a very thick [thin?] iron spit. Glaze them with green or yellow. For the yellow glaze, take plenty of egg yolks, beat them well with a bit of saffron, and put the glaze on a plate or other dish. If you wish green glaze, crush greens with the eggs. After your chicken and quenelles are cooked, put the spit on the dish where the glaze is, throw the glaze all over, and put it back on the fire until the glaze sets. Do this two or three times. Make sure that the fire is not so big that the glaze burns.

66. Decorated rice for a meat day.

Pick over the rice, wash it very well in hot water, dry it near the fire, and cook it in simmering cow's milk. Crush some saffron (for reddening it), steep it in your milk, and add stock from the pot.

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67. Subtlety of a swan reclothed in its skin including its plumage.

Take the swan, inflate it between the shoulders, slit it along the belly, and remove the skin (including the neck cut close to the shoulders). Leave the feet attached to the body. Put it on the spit, bard it, and glaze it. When it is cooked, reclothe it in its skin, with the neck very upright on the plate. Eat it with Yellow Pepper [Sauce].

68. Cold Sage [Sauce].

Take your chicken, cook it in water, and put it to cool. Crush ginger, cassia flowers, grains of paradise and cloves, without sieving. Crush bread, parsley and sage, with a bit of saffron in the greens (if you wish it to be bright green), and strain through cheesecloth. Some sieve into it hard cooked egg yolks steeped in vinegar. Cut your chicken into halves, quarters or limbs, and put them on plates with the sauce on top. If there were hard cooked eggs, cut them into bits with a knife and not with the hand.

69. Piglet [Parsley?] Souse [Sauce].

Make it like Cold Sage [Sauce] without adding saffron or any eggs, and so that it has less sage than parsley.

70. Jelly of slimy fish, and of meat.

Cook it in wine, verjuice and vinegar. Some add a bit of water. Take ginger, cassia, cloves, grains of paradise and long pepper, steep in your broth, strain through cheesecloth, and boil with your meat. Take bay leaves, spike lavender, galingale and mace, tie in your cheesecloth (without washing it) with the dregs of the other spices, and boil with your meat. Cover it while it is on the fire, but when it is off the fire, skim it until it is set out.

When it is cooked, [strain] your broth into a clean wooden dish until it is settled. Put your meat on a white cloth. If it is fish, peel and clean it, and throw your peelings in the broth until it is strained the last time. Make sure your broth is clear and clean.

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Now set your meat out in bowls. Put your broth back on the fire in a clear and clean dish, boil it, and while it is boiling throw it on your meat. Sprinkle cassia flowers and mace over the plates or bowls where you put your meat and broth, and put your plates in a cold place to set. If you wish to make jelly, you do not need to sleep. If your broth is not very clean and clear, strain it through two or three layers of white cloth. On your meat, if it is fish, put crayfish tails and feet, and cooked loach.

71. Fresh lamprey with Hot Sauce.

Bleed it through the mouth (insert a spit to make it bleed better) and remove its tongue. Keep the blood well, for it is the fat. Scald it like eel, and roast it on a very thin spit onto which it is threaded crosswise to form one or two [loops]. Grind ginger, cassia, cloves, grains of paradise, nutmeg and a bit of grilled bread soaked in the blood and vinegar, and (if you wish) a bit of wine; steep everything together and boil for an instant. Then add your lamprey whole. The sauce should not be too black if it is clear; but when it is so thick that it is called mud, it should be black.

It is not necessary to boil the lamprey with the sauce. In this case, carry the lamprey completely dry before the table. Put the clear sauce or the mud on the lamprey, or in bowls. Cut the lamprey lengthwise into pieces and send it on plates to the table. However, some epicures wish to have it quite dry, on the plate it was brought on, with the sauce of its drippings in the pan, and with fine salt.

72. Lamprey in galantine.

Bleed it as before, keep the blood, and cook it in vinegar, wine and a bit of water. When it is cooked, put it to cool on a cloth. Take grilled bread, steep in your broth, [strain] through cheesecloth, boil with the blood, and stir well so that it does not burn. When it is well boiled, pour it into a mortar or a clean basin and stir continually until it is cooled. Grind ginger, cassia flowers, cloves, grains of paradise, nutmeg and long pepper, steep in your broth, put as before into a basin with your fish, and put the basin in a wooden or tin dish. Thus you have good galantine.

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