We are pleased to announce that English MS 7 (Forme of Cury) has now been transcribed by our two volunteers, Mary Begley & Jasmine Sparrow, and is available on LUNA. The Forme Of Cury is a medieval recipe book, written by the Master Chef of King Richard II of England. It contains many fascinating recipes, including some rather odd dishes containing the likes of porpoise.
Mary & Jasmine graduated from the School of Language, Linguistics & Cultures last year with first class honours and have been a great help to the MMEMS project. They will continue volunteering with us & will work on transcribing more of the English MS we have already digitised. Indeed, Mary has already begun work on English MS 1310 – ‘On Urines’.
recipe for Drepe, and Mawmene
The above recipes are as follows;
(.xix.) Drepee. Take bla(u)nched alma(u)nd(es) grynd he(m) & temp(er) vp with gode broth take oyno(u)ns a grete q(ua)ntite. p(ar)boyle he(m) & fry he(m) & do þerto.
take smale bridd(es) p(ar)boile hem & do þ(er)to. & do þ(er)to pellydore & salt & a litul grece.
(.xx.) Mawmene. Take a potel of wyne creke. & ii. pou(n)nde of sug(ur). take and clarifye þe sug(ur) w(i)t(h) a q(ua)ntite of wyne & drawe it þorow a st(ra)yno(ur) i(n) to a pot of erthe.
This is excellent work, bravo! I’m interested though, does anyone have the name of the Master Chef of the King, whose recipe book this was, or has it been lost to antiquity?
Dear Faith,
I’m afraid that I don’t know the answer to that one! I am currently doing some investigating however & hope to get back to you. In the meantime you could have a look at the following book:
Hieatt, Constance B., and Butler, S., ‘Curye on Inglysch, English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century (Including the Forme of Cury)’ (London: Published for The Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985).
As I study this manuscript, it seems that many of the words have a French influence. Is it possible the Master Chef was of French origin who was passably fluent in English?
A more complete bibliography can be found at:
http://archives.li.man.ac.uk/ead/search/?operation=full&recid=gb133engms7
[...] (Jasmine Sparrow and Mary Begley, current AHRC supported MA student)! Check out the details here. Eco World Content From Across The Internet. Featured on EcoPressed Mindblowing Eco Design: [...]
What is “LUNA” and how can I read the rest of the transcripts? This is all fascinating!
LUNA is the University of Manchester’s content management system for displaying our online image collections.
http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/searchresources/imagecollections/
To view the transcription of ‘Forme of Cury’, just type ‘English MS 7′ into the search box in the Rylands medieval colletion & all the images should display.