DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49977#0081
FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.
59
“ Golde is bitter in savour.
Fayr and ^elu is his flower
Ye golde flour is good to seene." * * * §
Jealousy is described by Chaucer as decked with these flowers.
“Jealousy that werede ofyelwe guides a garland.”
Violets, as we learn from the former authority, were “herbs
well cowth/’t They were grown not only for their sweet
fragrance, but also as salad herbs, and “ Flowers of violets ’’ were
eaten raw, with onions and lettuce. Among the ingredients for
a kind of broth they are mentioned with fennel and savory.J
They were also used to garnish dishes. In an old recipe for
a pudding called “mon amy,” the cook is directed to “plant
it with flowers of violets, and serve it forth.” § In another
MS. a recipe for a dish called “ vyolette ” is given. “Take
flowrys of vyolet boyle hem, presse hem bray hem smal.”
This is to be mixed with milk, “ floure of rys,” sugar or
honey, and “coloured” with violets. Not only were violets
cooked, but hawthorn, primroses, and even roses, shared the
same fate, and were treated in the same way. One recipe,
called “rede rose,” is simply, “Take the same saue a-lye it
with the yolkys of eyroun and forther-more as vyolet.” The
rose hips were also used, and in a dainty dish called “ saue
saracen,” “ hippes ” were the chief ingredient. It cannot have
enhanced the beauty or poetry of such flowers, to feel that they
were commonly cooked and eaten.
After this shock to sentiment, we are glad to find the rose
still valued for its loveliness and perfume. Although a rosery
* Medical MS., Stockholm. Archceologia, Vol. XXX.
J — known.
f Form of Cury.
§ The following is the recipe of this excellent dish:—“Take thick creme
of cowe-mylke, and boyle hit over the fire and then take hit up and set hit
on the side:—and then take swete cowe cruddes and presse out the qway
(whey}, and bray hom in a mortar and cast hom into the same creme and
boyle altogether—and put thereto sugre and saffron, and May butter—and
take yolkes of eyren streyned, and betten, and in the settynge doune of the
pot bete in the yolkes thereto, & stere it wel, & make the potage stondynge:
and dresse five or seaven leches flices of bread} in a dish, and plant with
floures of violet and serve hit forthe.”
59
“ Golde is bitter in savour.
Fayr and ^elu is his flower
Ye golde flour is good to seene." * * * §
Jealousy is described by Chaucer as decked with these flowers.
“Jealousy that werede ofyelwe guides a garland.”
Violets, as we learn from the former authority, were “herbs
well cowth/’t They were grown not only for their sweet
fragrance, but also as salad herbs, and “ Flowers of violets ’’ were
eaten raw, with onions and lettuce. Among the ingredients for
a kind of broth they are mentioned with fennel and savory.J
They were also used to garnish dishes. In an old recipe for
a pudding called “mon amy,” the cook is directed to “plant
it with flowers of violets, and serve it forth.” § In another
MS. a recipe for a dish called “ vyolette ” is given. “Take
flowrys of vyolet boyle hem, presse hem bray hem smal.”
This is to be mixed with milk, “ floure of rys,” sugar or
honey, and “coloured” with violets. Not only were violets
cooked, but hawthorn, primroses, and even roses, shared the
same fate, and were treated in the same way. One recipe,
called “rede rose,” is simply, “Take the same saue a-lye it
with the yolkys of eyroun and forther-more as vyolet.” The
rose hips were also used, and in a dainty dish called “ saue
saracen,” “ hippes ” were the chief ingredient. It cannot have
enhanced the beauty or poetry of such flowers, to feel that they
were commonly cooked and eaten.
After this shock to sentiment, we are glad to find the rose
still valued for its loveliness and perfume. Although a rosery
* Medical MS., Stockholm. Archceologia, Vol. XXX.
J — known.
f Form of Cury.
§ The following is the recipe of this excellent dish:—“Take thick creme
of cowe-mylke, and boyle hit over the fire and then take hit up and set hit
on the side:—and then take swete cowe cruddes and presse out the qway
(whey}, and bray hom in a mortar and cast hom into the same creme and
boyle altogether—and put thereto sugre and saffron, and May butter—and
take yolkes of eyren streyned, and betten, and in the settynge doune of the
pot bete in the yolkes thereto, & stere it wel, & make the potage stondynge:
and dresse five or seaven leches flices of bread} in a dish, and plant with
floures of violet and serve hit forthe.”