Title: fd-Normans-msg
Subject: Food of the Normans. References.
Author: Edited by Mark S. Harris
Last saved by: Mark S. Harris
Keywords: medieval, Norman, England, France, food, references

fd-Normans-msg - 9/28/17

Food of the Normans. References.

NOTE: See also the files: fd-Anglo-Saxn-msg, fd-Norse-msg, Normans-msg, names-AN-art, fd-France-msg, Norse-msg.

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    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous
                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 08:44:32 -0400
From: Phil & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - 11th/12th North Western European Reciepes

Maynard, Steven wrote:
>                 I'm new to this list and period cooking  so please forgive
> my naievity. I'm interested in getting some reciepes for post Norman
> conquest upto the end of Henry I of Englands reign. I'd prefer receipes from
> England during this period. But anything that could have been used will be
> fine.
>
> William Castille=-)

The Deal As I See It is that there is some poetry from the 12th century, by
people like Alexander Neckham, describing dishes like frumenty and venison,
which suggests that the eating habits of Henry I and his crowd might be rather
similar in many respects to what was eaten by early 14th century English
nobility, for which recipes survive.

Hieatt and Butler's "Curye On Inglysch" includes manuscript sources roughly
dated at 1325 or so, if I'm not mistaken.

There is also, floating around somewhere, an early Anglo-Norman cookery
manuscript in French (13th century???), which someone else might be able to
cite publication info; I don't have a copy myself.

Then, of course, there is Rudolph Grewe's translation of an early 13th-century
Danish manuscript, published as "An Early XIII Century Northern-European
Cookbook", except there is reason to believe the recipes contained in it
originated in the Mediterranean Basin, so it is probably more Provencale than Danish.

Adamantius
Østgardr, East

Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 17:48:25 -0800
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Feasting: A request

Corwyn announced he is doing a feast in the spring, and asked:

>This being said, I need a clue or two of where to look. Most, if not all of my
>sources are secondary, those that aren't are from the 14th through the 18th
>centuries. I have an Apicius too... The feast itself is in 12th century
>England. Aside from fiddling with some recipies from Apicius, any suggestions?

From _De nominibus utenslium_ by Alexander Neckam (1157-1217), quoted (and
translated from the Latin) in _Daily Living in the Twelfth Century_ by
Urban Tigner Holmes, Jr., University of Wisconsin Press, 1952, p. 88:

"A roast of pork is prepared diligently on a grid, frequently basted, and
laid on the grid just as the hot coals cease to smoke.  Let condiments be
avoided other than pure salt or a simple garlic sauce.  It does not hurt to
sprinkle a cut-up capon with pepper.  A domestic fowl may be quite tender,
having been turned on a long spit, but it needs a strong garlic sauce,
diluted with wine or verjuice.  Flavor a hen which has been cleaned and cut
up into pieces, with cumin, if it is well boiled; but if it has been
roasted, let it be treated with frequent drippings of fat, nor does it
refuse garlic sauce; it will be most tasty with simple sauce.  Let fish
that have been cleaned be cooked in a mixture of wine and water; afterwards
they should be taken with green "savory" which is made from sage, parsley,
dittany, thyme, costus, garlic, and pepper; do not omit salt."

This quote is right from when and where you want, and the set of dishes
described sounds a lot like the cuisine you see in the 14th-15th c. English
and French cookbooks.  It doesn't particularly sound like Apicius, which is
several centuries earlier.  I would go with dishes from the 14th-15th c.
cuisine for this feast.

Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook (two or three weeks behind on the list)

Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 18:14:21 -0600
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: SC - 12th c cookery and kitchen (was: Coronation feast)

At 3:48 PM +0000 1/13/00, Christina Nevin wrote:
>	Adamantius wrote:
>	Appropriate dishes for the period (if we can believe Alexander Neckham)
>	might include...

>I like the sound of the hens in cumin and the rissoles. What type of rice
>dishes? Could you please post the recipes?

Here is what Neckham wrote (quoted and translated in _Daily Life in 
the 12th Century_); he doesn't give recipes, unfortunately.

"A roast of pork is prepared diligently on a grid, frequently basted, 
and laid on the grid just as the hot coals cease to smoke.  Let 
condiments be avoided other than pure salt or a simple garlic sauce. 
It does not hurt to sprinkle a cut-up capon with pepper.  A domestic 
fowl may be quite tender, having been turned on a long spit, but it 
needs a strong garlic sauce, diluted with wine or verjuice.  Flavor a 
hen which has been cleaned and cut up into pieces, with cumin, if it 
is well boiled; but if it has been roasted, let it be treated with 
frequent drippings of fat, nor does it refuse garlic sauce; it will 
be most tasty with simple sauce.  Let fish that have been cleaned be 
cooked in a mixture of wine and water; afterwards they should be 
taken with green "savory" which is made from sage, parsley, dittany, 
thyme, costus, garlic, and pepper; do not omit salt.

"In a kitchen there should be a small table on which cabbage may be 
minced, and also lentils, peas, shelled beans, beans in the pod, 
millet, onions, and other vegetables of the kind that can be cut up. 
There should be also pots, tripods, a mortar, a hatchet, a pestle, a 
stirring stick, a hook, a cauldron, a bronze vessel, a small pan, a 
baking pan, a meathook, a griddle, small pitchers, a trencher, a 
bowl, a platter, a pickling vat, and knives for cleaning fish.  In a 
vivarium let fish be kept, in which they can be caught by net, fork, 
spear, or light hook, or with a basket.  The chief cook should have a 
cupboard in the kitchen where he may store away aromatic spices, and 
bread flour sifted through a sieve-and used also for feeding small 
fish-may be hidden away there.  Let there be also a cleaning place 
where the entrails and feathers of ducks and other domestic fowl can 
be removed and the birds cleaned.  Likewise there should be a large 
spoon for removing foam and skimming.  Also there should be hot water 
for scalding fowl.

"Have a pepper mill and a hand mill.  Small fish for cooking should 
be put into a pickling mixture, that is, water mixed with salt...  To 
be sure, pickling is not for all fish, for these are of different 
kinds:  mullets, soles, sea eels, lampreys, mackerel, turbot, 
sperlings, gudgeons, sea bream, young tunnies, cod, plaice, 
stargazers[?], anglers, herring, lobsters fried in half an egg, 
bougues, sea mullets, and oysters.  There should also be a garde-robe 
pit through which the filth of the kitchen may be evacuated.  In the 
pantry let there be shaggy towels, tablecloth, and an ordinary hand 
towel which shall hang from a pole to avoid mice.  Knives should be 
kept in the pantry, an engraved saucedish, a saltceller, a cheese 
container, a candelabra, a lantern, a candlestick, and baskets.  In 
the cellar or storeroom should be casks, tuns, wineskins, cups, cup 
cases, spoons, ewers, basins, baskets, pure wine, cider, beer, 
unfermented wine, mixed wine, claret, nectar, mead... piment, pear 
wine, red wine, wine from Auvergne, clove-spiced wine for gluttons 
whose thirst is unquenchable..."

 From De nominibus utenslium by Alexander Neckam (1157-1217), quoted 
(and translated from the Latin) in Daily Living in the Twelfth 
Century by Urban Tigner Holmes, Jr., University of Wisconsin Press, 
1952, p. 88 (first paragraph quoted here) and pp.93-94 (second and 
third paragraphs).

Elizabeth/Betty Cook

Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 21:38:18 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Chemical heating?

CBlackwill at aol.com wrote: 
> Any chance you could forward me the location of these Anglo-Norman cookery
> Manuscripts?

Constance B. Hieatt and Robin F. Jones
"Two Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections Edited from British Library
Manuscripts Additional 32085 and Royal 12.C.xii ", published in Speculum
v. 61 October 1986 pp 859-882

If you have access to a decent library they may have subscribed to the
JSTOR network, which will allow you access to a lot of kewl stuff,
including anything from Speculum from the 1930's to the present, such as
various medieval cookery sources too small to go into an individually
published volume. Not bad for the cost of the printing, which is roughly
the same as photocopying.

Adamantius

Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 21:26:43 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: Kuskenole, a question

RuddR at aol.com wrote:
> What is the cressee recipe?  What medieval recipe collection is it in?   Is
> there really an illustration that goes with it?  Where can I find this
> source?  I'd be interested in seeing this material.

Constance Hieatt and Robin Jones, "Two Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections
Edited from British Library Manuscripts Additional 32085 and Royal
12.C.xii", Speculum v. 61, October 1986, pp 859-882.

The original recipes are in 13th-century French, with an English
translation by Hieatt and Jones. Here's what it sez for cressee,
translated from Add. 32085 :

"5. Cressee [crisscross of noodles]. Here is another dish, which is
called cresee.Take best white flour and eggs, and make pasta dough, and
in the pasta dough put fine, choice ginger and sugar. Take half of the
pastry, (which is or should be) colored with saffron, and half (which is
or should be) white, and roll it out on a table to the thickness of your
finger; then cut it into strips, then cut it into strips the size of a
piece of lath; stretch it out on a table as illustrated [see diagram,
one color is presumably to be crossed over the other]; then boil in
water; then take a slotted spoon and remove the cressees from the water;
then arrange them on, and cover them with, grated cheese, add butter or
oil, and serve."

The diagram is a rectangular grid 4 squares high by eight wide.  

> Rudd Rayfield

Adamantius

Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 21:11:31 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: SC - Fascinating etymological study / too much free time???

I found myself sitting in a library yesterday with a reprint of Kelham's
18th-century "Dictionary of the Norman or Old French Language", as well
as various other old French dictionaries _and_ dictionaries of Old
French, some reading into modern French, one in English, and one in German.

So there I am, musing on the fact that I've seen the dish named,
variously, faulx grenon, faux grenon, faus guernon, etc., and while I've
seen several such recipes translated into English, I've never seen
anybody try to translate the dish's _name_. The dish is a thick pottage
of minced, fried chicken gizzards and livers and milk, thickened with
egg yolks, sometimes with toasted bread, and sometimes with chestnuts
either instead of, or in addition to, the toast.

So I begin messing with the dictionaries (not that I wasn't already
doing so), fairly certain on some intuitive level that the faus part is
a reference to faux, or false. False what? I tried looking up the
various permutations, and what I came up with (and I could kick myself
for not being conveniently prepared to copy down the entire reference,
but I was about to pack up and leave) was that, as odd as it sounds, a
word very similar to grenon or guernon, possibly gueron, translates as
"moustache", possibly in the same extended-logic way Taillemaslee
becomes La Barbe Robert, or Robert's Beard Sauce... .

"Preposterous," says I to myself, "Why would anybody name the dish
'false moustache'?"

And then I began thinking of the mechanics of drinking a bowl of thick
pottage made from finely minced chicken livers and gizzards; a thick,
somewhat grainy brown pottage.

Now, I may have been influenced by all the "Got Milk?" ads I saw on the
way to the library, but it began to assume a peculiar sense of logic...

Talk me out of it, somebody!

Adamantius   

Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 06:45:57 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Norman foodhistory/cookbook

Christina Nevin wrote: 
> Has anyone seen this book? Is it any good?
> 
> Claude Guermont The Norman Table
> U. S. A.: Charles Scribner, 1985 History and recipes of Normandy before and
> after the Norman conquest .

Um, yes, actually. I love mine. It's a _wonderful_ book, written by the
guy who at one time (and perhaps still does) ran a functioning
student-run restaurant on the campus of the Culinary Institute of
America in Hyde Park, New York. However, it should be noted that this is
the Norman cuisine of people who eat lobster and pike sausage with
cream, pork with prunes and brandy, and Tripes a la mode du Caen, washed
down with cider and followed by Calvados drunk out of the empty but
still-warm coffee cup, and not those mean guys who shot good King Harold
in the eye and overtaxed the Saxons and got their bottoms kicked by
Robin Hood and Wildfrid of Ivanhoe.
    
Any history discussed in the book is more likely to be stuff like who
Mere Poulard actually was, and how her mysterious, much-disputed
late-nineteenth-century omelette was actually made, rather than having
anything much to do with, say, the food in the Two Anglo-Norman Cookery
Manuscripts. I'm not aware, thinking back, of any references at all (or
hard data) to the cuisine of medieval Normandy (unless it is an account
of the questionable legend about Tripes a la Mode du Caen, and how the
different ingredients were thrown together after Vikings took everything
else, or the old saw about Charlemagne and the cheese rind). Besides,
I'm a little suspicious of where the tag line "before and after the
Norman conquest" is supposed to be taking us, since the conquest was of
England, not Normandy. It's kind of like saying, "history and recipes of
the USA both before _and after_ the Korean War".    "Yeah... So???"

However, for those whose interest in food and food history doesn't get
switched off in January of 1601, it is a wonderful book.

Adamantius 

Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 12:05:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Norman foodhistory/cookbook

- --- Christina Nevin <cnevin at caci.co.uk> wrote:
> Has anyone seen this book? Is it any good?
> 
> Claude Guermont The Norman Table
> U. S. A.: Charles Scribner, 1985 History and recipes
> of Normandy before and
> after the Norman conquest . 
> 
> Ciao
> Lucrezia

This is what I pulled off of RLIN.  This appears to me
to be a modern cook book, but I haven't seen the book.
I am going by how it was catalogued.

Guermont, Claude.
  The Norman table : the traditional cooking of
Normandy / Claude Guermont with Paul Frumkin.  New
York : Scribner, c1985.
  297 p.

ISBN 0684183196 : $19.95

Subjects:
Cookery, French--Normandy style.                      
Normandy (France--)Social life and customs.

This is in quite a few public libraries and only a
handful of university libraries, which leads me to
suspect that it means it is a popular modern cookbook.

Huette

Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 08:26:54 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Sydney Walker Freedman" <freedmas at stolaf.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] help for 1250 French/Greek
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

> Sydney commented:
>   <<< It might also be helpful to look at the two early Anglo-Norman sources
> that we have.  They were published in an article in Speculum in 1986.  I
> can look up the specifics if you like.  It's on JSTOR, by the way. >>>
>
> Having an Anglo-Norman persona I'd like to hear more details about
> these two Anglo-Norman sources you mention. However, I'm not too sure
> how much commonality there would be between Anglo-Norman cuisine in
> Cyprus and in York Shire, England.

The author discusses the similarities and differences between the
Anglo-Norman recipes and French recipes, so the sources may still be
helpsul.  The article is "Two Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections" by
Constance B. Heiatt and Robin F. Jones, published in the October 1986
issue of Speculum, the Medieval Institutes scholarly journal.

> JSTOR? Huh?

It's a scholarly journal archive.  If you go to a public or university
library, you will most likely be able to access it.  Go to
http://www.jstor.com.  Let me know if you have any more questions.

>    Stefan

Pax Christi,
Lady Cecilia de Cambrige (also an Anglo-Norman)

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:57:37 -0500
From: Gretchen Beck <grm at andrew.cmu.edu>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] 12th Century

--On Tuesday, February 16, 2010 10:44 AM -0800 Marguerite fitzWilliam
<m_fitzwilliam at msn.com> wrote:
<<< I don't suppose any one knows of a source for 12th century
Norman/French/Saxon or Welsh cooking information in English?  SCA
translations and redctions are fine. >>>

FWIW, the earliest full recipes I know of in English are from Constance
Hieatt's article in Oct 1986 Speculum (vol 61, no 4), p 859-883 "Two
Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections Edited from British Library Manuscripts
Additional 32085 and Royal 12.C.xii, y Constance B Hieatt and Robin F
Jones.  This articles states: "B.L. Add. 32085 (hereafter MS A) is a small
quarto vellum volume of the late-thirteenth century...it includes nothing
later than early documents of the reign of Edware I (1272-1307)...The
recipes given here are among the earliest full recipes from medieval
Western Europe, since the earliest continental French, Danish, an Latin
collections are roughly contemporary (1)"

and has a footnote to "1 A northern European collection is of slightly
earlier origin, going back to the first half of the thirteenth century: see
Rudolf Grewe, "An Early Xiiith Century Northern European Cookbook" 

toodles, margaret

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:41:29 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] 12th Century

<<< I don't suppose any one knows of a source for 12th century Norman/ 
French/Saxon or Welsh cooking information in English?  SCA  
translations and redctions are fine.

Marguerite fitz William >>>

The earliest for Anglo-Norman is
Hieatt, Constance B., and Robin F. Jones. "Two Anglo-Norman
     culinary collections edited from British Library Manuscripts
     additional 32085 and Royal 12.C.xii." Speculum 61:4 (1986)
     p.859-882.

It's up on JSTOR, so maybe you can get it through your local library.

Then perhaps you should also see about a copy of the LIBELLUS DE ARTE  
COQUINARIA AN EARLY NORTHERN COOKBOOK, as edited by Grewe and Hieatt.  
The LIBELLUS is among the oldest of culinary recipe collections &  
dates from the early thirteenth century. It survives in 4 versions in  
three languages... Danish, Icelandic, & Low German. It is thought to  
date back to possibly even the 12th century. It's a small collection  
of only 35 recipes and was published as part of the Collection  
included in AN OLD ICELANDIC MEDICAL MISCELLANY [Ms. Royal Irish  
Academy 23D 43.]in 1931 by Henning Larsen.

This 158 page book brings together the four versions, translates them,  
adds textual notes, commentary indices, glossaries, and  
bibliographies. 2001. Full title: Libellus De Arte Coquinaria: An  
Early Northern Cookery Book (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies)

Johnnae

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:04:23 -0800 (PST)
From: wheezul at canby.com
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] 12th Century

--- Marguerite fitzWilliam <m_fitzwilliam at msn.com> schrieb am Di,
16.2.2010:
<<< I don't suppose any one knows of a source for 12th century
Norman/French/Saxon or Welsh cooking information in
English?  SCA translations and redctions are fine. >>>

There is a fair bit of information on cooking-related matters in Alexander
NMeckam's de nominibus utensilium (a Latin primer), but I've had no luck
tracking down the original text. With luck, you'll be able to get a
paraphrasing by Urban Tigner Holmes: Daily Living in the Twelfth Century,
University of Wisconsin Press, Madison et al. 1952, SBN 299-00854-1.
-------

I believe I found a latin copy here (and made a photocopy):

Scheler, Auguste, John, Alexander Neckam, and Adamus. 1867. Lexicographie
latine du XIIe et du XIIIe sie?cle: trois traite?s de Jean de Garlande,
Alexandre Neckam et Adam du Petit-Pont : publie?s avec les gloses
franc&#807;aises. Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus.

Since it is out of copyright, I could make a pdf and share?

Katrine de Saint Brieuc
An Tir

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:46:38 -0800 (PST)
From: emilio szabo <emilio_szabo at yahoo.it>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Alexander Neckam, John de Garlande, Adam
	Parvipontanus,	was 12th century

Alexander Neckam, De utensilibus
http://www.archive.org/details/avolumevocabula00wriggoog     (page 96 ss.)

John of Garlande
http://www.uni-giessen.de/gloning/at/john-de-garlande_1981-rubin_dictionarius.pdf

Adam Parvipontanus
http://www.uni-giessen.de/gloning/at/adam-parvipontanus_de-utensilibus_ed-haureau.pdf

http://www.uni-giessen.de/gloning/at/de-utensilibus-ad-domum-regendam-pertinentibus.pdf

E.

<the end>

Edited by Mark S. Harris	fd-Normans-msg	Page  of