Le Viandier de Taillevent - Translation - Additional Recipes

Additional Recipes

These recipes are not from the Vatican Library manuscript. I have included the nine recipes from the Bibliotheque Nationale (BN) manuscript that do not appear in the Vatican Library manuscript, plus several recipes from other sources that complement the translation. They are in alphabetical order.

207. Barbe Robert [Sauce].

Take small onions fried in lard (or butter according to the day), verjuice, vinegar, mustard, Small Spices and salt. Boil everything together. (A 1583 cookbook quoted by Pichon et al., p. 109.)

208. Black Pepper [Sauce].

Crush ginger, burnt bread and pepper, steep in vinegar and verjuice, and boil. (BN manuscript, p. 34.)

209. Cow's Milk Jance [Sauce].

Crush ginger with egg yolks, steep in cow's milk, and boil. (BN manuscript, p. 34.)

210. Fine Powder.

Grind white ginger (9 parts), selected cinnamon (2 parts), lump sugar (2 parts), cloves and grains of paradise (1 part each). (Edited from Power, p. 298.)

211. Gannets.

Cooked like the stork. (BN manuscript, p. 13.)

212. Garlic Jance [Sauce].

Crush ginger, garlic and almonds, steep in good verjuice, [and boil]. (BN manuscript, p. 34.)

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213. Ginger Jance [Sauce].

Take ginger and almonds without garlic, steep in verjuice, and boil. Some add white wine. (BN manuscript, p. 34.)

214. Grape Sauce.

Soak white bread crumbs in hot white wine, and strain through cheesecloth with pure verjuice. Add an ounce of ginger per pint. Pick verjuice grapes, mix them in boiling water (do not leave it boiling for very long), drain them, and throw them into the sauce. (A 1490 printed edition quoted by Pichon et al., p. 177.)

215. Green Sauce.

Take bread, parsley and ginger, crush well, and steep in verjuice and vinegar. (BN manuscript, p. 33.)

216. Green Verjuice [Sauce].

Take sorrel including the stem, steep in some other verjuice, strain [through cheesecloth], and add a bread crust so that it does not turn. (A 1490 printed edition quoted by Pichon et al., p. 194.)

217. Hippocras.

Take four ounces of very fine cinnamon, two ounces of fine cassia flowers, an ounce of selected Mecca ginger, an ounce of grains of paradise, and a sixth [of an ounce] of nutmeg and galingale combined. Crush them all together. Take a good half ounce of this powder and eight ounces of sugar [(which thus makes Sweet Powder)], and mix it with a quart of wine. (Edited from Power, p. 299.)

218. Must Sauce.

Take some grapes from the bunch, peel them in a pan, and boil them on the fire for half a quarter of an hour. Add just a bit of red wine if you do not have enough grapes. Let them cool, and strain through cheesecloth.

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For four platters, take two ounces of cinnamon, two ounces of sugar and a half ounce of ginger, and strain everything except the sugar through cheesecloth. If you do not have grapes, use mulberries. (A 1490 printed edition quoted by Pichon et al., p. 179.)

219. Mustard [Sauce].

Soak the mustard seed overnight in good vinegar, grind it in a mill, and then moisten it little by little with vinegar. If you have any spices left over from Hippocras or sauces, grind them with it. (Edited from Power, p. 286.)

220. Poitevin Sauce.

Crush ginger, cloves, grains of paradise, [chicken] livers, burnt bread, wine and verjuice, and boil, with some fat from the roast [capon]. (BN manuscript, p. 34.)

221. Sauce for keeping saltwater fish.

Take bread, parsley, sage, avens, vinegar, ginger, cassia flowers, long pepper, cloves, grains of paradise, saffron powder and nutmeg. When everything is strained it should be bright green. Some add the avens including the root. (BN manuscript, p. 33.)

222. Spice Powder.

Grind ginger (4 parts), cassia (3 1/2 parts), nutmeg (2 parts), pepper (1 1/2 parts), long pepper, cloves, grains of paradise and galingale (1 part each). (A recipe quoted by Pichon et al., p. 26.)

223. Yellow Pepper [Sauce].

Crush ginger, saffron and browned bread, steep in vinegar, and boil. Some cooks add grains of paradise, cloves and verjuice. (BN manuscript, p. 33.)

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