Clarissa and the King's Cookbook

Medieval England in the 1390s.

Richard II is on the throne.

He reigns as a divine monarch and the Church dictates the daily ritual of life.

But one corner of this dutiful world clamours with noise day in, day out.

The kitchens of Richard's court.

And I'm thrilled to tell you

that the recipes cooked by the king's master chefs were recorded

and compiled into England's oldest known cookbook, The Forme of Cury.

I have to confess that I've never cooked from it...until now.

There's a first time for everything.

It's a forgotten chapter in our culinary history

and I'm convinced that Richard's cookbook will reveal

that many of the dishes we eat today can be traced back to his kitchen.

I'll find out if others agree

when I feed some medieval history buffs later.

But first the tale of the king,

the cook, his kitchen and his cookbook.

Richard II, the story goes, was swaddled in the skin of goats at birth.

What an intimate introduction to the fruits of his land.

Crowned England's king in 1377 he was meant to follow

his forbears and become a bloodthirsty Plantagenet monarch.

History records however, he instead pursued the good life.

I feel I can call him a gourmet king

because of what he and his courtiers ate.

One precious document from his reign has survived.

Here in the imposing British Library, his cookbook is kept secure

and I'm now going to feast on Richard's regal cuisine

with medieval archivist Claire Breay.

You can see it's a little bit damaged.

The very first words...

"A Forme of Cury was compiled

"by the chief master cooks of king Richard II."

'Translated from the middle English, forme means 'method' and 'cury' means cooking.

'A Method of cooking.

'Such straightforward modern language in a ancient text.

'I love it.'

It's nearly six metres long altogether.

-We'll be here some time then.

-Yep.

-So this is the index.

It's a little bit faded as you can see.

-It's been around a long time.

-Yeah.

-Quite a few stains.

-Yeah. Stains of the kitchen.

So how many recipes are there here?

-There seem to be an awful lot.

-I know there are.

196 altogether.

196 is typical, isn't it.

They couldn't manage the extra four to make it 200.

I've written cookbooks myself

and I can tell you that 196 recipes is rather a lot.

It's actually more like a compendium.

-Here we've porpoise in broth.

-Porpoise!

How are we cooking the porpoise?

So, it says "Make as you made numbles of flesh with onions".

Not a lot about how to cook a porpoise.

Well, I admit most of us wouldn't consider eating porpoise today,

-but some of the dishes have very familiar names.

-Blancmange.

Blancmange. Now that's proper blancmange

-made with capons.

-Capons. Yep.

And there are dozens of recipes

that would feature happily on a modern menu.

-Salad.

-Salad.

-Yes, they did eat

-salad. They did, yes!

So..."Take parsley, sage, garlic."

Who says that the English don't eat garlic?

-What's that word?

-Rosemary.

-"Rosemary, purslane..."

Not a lettuce leaf mentioned, but still no less a salad.

-Mint, what do you think that word is?

-Wash them clean.

Wash them clean. They were keen on washing things.

Everybody thinks they were dirty in the middle ages.

The recipes sound modern on paper, but what will they taste like?

A library isn't a place for a cook.

My place is here. The chefs domain.

Look at this kitchen. Look at the space.

Look at it, with its sky light up the top.

A cathedral of food.

A most beautiful room. Wonderful with the light coming in.

The fire burning in the corner.

And there, in his chair would sit the chef.

Who could smell with his eyes, taste with his nose

and hear the exact quantities of precious ingredients being added.

He was in total command of those working under him.

Like today, the king's master chef would have worked his way up

through the kitchen, before getting to the prized top job.

With a vast court to feed he led a kitchen of up to 300 staff,

all of whom had clearly delineated roles.

These kitchens really did swing.

Sauce makers.

Who prepared sauces for the vast array of dishes.

Mincers... Who minced and ground spices all day long.

Pluckers.

All manner of birds featured on the king's menus.

Boners.

Knife skills were essential as carcases were stripped bare.

Choppers.

A constant supply of wood was required.

Spit boys.

Most of the food was cooked in fireplaces

which were large enough to roast a whole ox.

And roasters.

Teams worked in shifts in high temperatures

often with virtually no clothes on.

All this activity done day in day out,

under the aegis of the master chef.

Overseeing, ruling his kitchen.

Very much as it is today.

The only man in the kitchen who sat

and he would tell people what to do, point to where the meat was burning.

Overseeing everything in his domain.

He was truly a chef.

A chief of his brigade.

Richard's court was obsessed with documenting everything

from household lists to costs of goods to the food he ate.

Thank God, I say, for medieval Westminster scribes.

Through that door there would be the scribe in his little vestibule,

taking notes of recipes writing them down listening to what the chef dictated,

cos the chef probably couldn't write.

I imagine they penned recipes throughout the year,

as The Forme of Cury reads like an almanac of seasonal food.

What was a necessity for the medieval kitchen

is a la mode today, of course.

The land was their supermarket.

50 years before Richard's reign,

the Black Death had wiped out half the human population.

The disease, however, didn't affect the wild animals. They flourished.

So, for Richard's court,

food was plentiful and the kingdom was a hunters' paradise.

Although Richard wasn't a Plantagenet warrior king,

he loved the blood of the hunt.

He dictated that his noblemen and his servants should

"Avail themselves at every opportunity

"to practise with a bow and arrow."

He himself often hunted with his greyhounds as only a king could.

But one of the great sports of the time that Richard loved was falconry.

Richard particularly prided himself as a sportsman who went out

and caught food for the table, all sorts.

Everything from herons, to ducks, to hares,

depending on the size of the animal.

There were strict rules of etiquette as to which birds you could have

Only a king could carry an eagle or a Gyrfalcon.

Even for a king, buying one of these birds

would have meant digging deep into the royal purse.

In 1399 Richard paid 260 gold florins for a Gyrfalcon

that's £34,000 in today's money.

They were very rare,

but prized for their long distance flying and hunting acumen.

This was a bird for a king

and it knows that it's being held by a common place cook.

So it's trying to get away. No, you stay with me for a minute.

A cat may look at a king and a cook may look at a Gyrfalcon.

Yeah!

But not all meats were hunted.

Geese were farmed.

And there's one recipe in The Forme of Cury,

that for Richard and his chefs would have been the main event

of any feast.

It's a dish I've chosen to cook because I think it'll also reveal

just how contemporary the food really was.

Sauce Madame!

"Take sage, persil, hyssop and savory, quinces and pears.

"Garlic and grapes and fill the geese therewith and sew the hole

"that no grease come out and roast them well."

What's different about this dish

is the amount of herbs and quite expensive spices that goes into it.

Therefore it became a luxury dish

and something that would grace the king's table.

Here we have sage which was for the digestive system.

Sage was also supposed to clean the blood and to give you wisdom.

And hyssop -

which was supposed to cleanse you.

"My soul is whiter than the swan when washed with hyssop."

And savoury- which was a herb that prevented flatulence.

Very necessary in the medieval diet.

So a bit of that and some parsley. Parsley cleans the breath.

And cleans the blood.

And some garlic.

Garlic of course burnith away the fat the growith around the heart.

Cooking and medicine were very intertwined.

It's a bit like today, isn't it.

We have these things which you're told are good for you,

but each generation thinks it has the answer to eternal life.

And some chopped pears.

These would have been cooking pears.

Warden pears probably.

Fruit with geese has always been a good idea.

It's what we do today.

I have a recipe where we stuff the goose with wild cherries.

That's also delicious.

And then the quince.

Quinces grew in this country,

but they were mostly imported from the continent.

And that wonderful rich smell and taste

was something that the middle ages loved.

And lastly some grapes.

Richard was very keen on his exotic fruit.

The smell of that with the fruit and the herbs is quite delicious.

And now we put everything into the goose.

Just in handfuls as it goes.

Stuff it right down. There's a lot of room in a goose.

There we are.

And now we sew the goose up, so that nothing fallith from it.

And of course the fat, which is in the goose,

will lubricate the stuffing

which is why we put no oil or anything like that in.

If I were to choose, I'd cook this over the fire behind me

and some poor little scullion would have to spend

the next four hours chopping wood and feeding it into the flames.

However, given that we're now in a modern age,

and Richard would probably have approved,

I'm going to transfer it to a modern oven.

The Forme of Cury

doesn't give details like cooking times or quantities.

As today, the Chefs were expected to know what to do.

But it does document the cooking techniques and the terminology

hasn't changed in 700 years.

Parboil.

Strain.

Clarify.

Toast.

Bake.

And roast.

Next, the cooked goose is dressed with the Sauce Madame.

A sauce fit for a king, as it's full of expensive spices.

And the sauce is started by using the juicy stuffing.

So, now I'm going to open the goose.

And there, inside, you see is all our lovely stuffing.

Beautifully cooked.

All moulded together. The herbs and the fruit and the grapes

and the quinces and the pears.

And I'm just adding it to the bread and the gelatine.

And now I'm going to add my poudre douce,

sweet powders or good powders.

Which is a combination of all sorts of different spices.

And really it was a matter for each individual chef,

but there were certain things that always went in.

Salt, of course.

Sugar.

And a bit of mace. And some ground ginger.

Then I mix all this together, put it in with my gelatine

and my stuffing and everything else and mix it together.

And I'm going to put it onto the fire

and let it all cook together.

And now we cut our goose into pieces.

"Smite him into pieces", as it says in the book.

See this lovely goose. Look at that.

Only the best for the king.

Just give this a little stir.

And now for the Sauce Madame,

which I'm going to put over the goose.

And there we are.

And now as the book says "..and serve it forth"

Sauce Madame was elegant, expensive and sophisticated cuisine.

Like food, like monarch.

As Richard grew up, he became known as the "dandy king".

The king who brought us the pocket handkerchief.

He insisted on bathing at least once a week.

He was a flamboyant dresser and interestingly to me,

he took to eating in his private chambers

eager to be aloof from his court.

It was all about appearances.

Historians paint him as a petulant,

narcissistic king seeking to create a mystique around his majesty.

But he, like everyone else, had to bow to the power of the church.

He left us a cookbook,

but it was the church that dictated what he ate.

To adhere to religious doctrine,

Richard and his court needed to eat lots and lots of fish.

In the middle ages, the church rigorously insisted that there

was something like 242 days that were fasting and abstinence a year.

That is, days when you couldn't eat meat.

And so obviously, they ate a lot of fish.

This led to medieval fish farming and Richard was famous

for his well stocked fish ponds or, as they called them, stew ponds.

Nevertheless, having to eat fish so many days of the year

led to some clever re-writing of creature classification.

Of course, if you were rich and you really got bored with fish,

you got all sorts of dispensations.

Beaver, for instance, because it lived in the water

was considered fish.

But fish it was for more than half the year,

so the chefs had to be very creative.

The recipes in Richard's cookbook detail a huge array of ingredients.

Particularly mention the jewels of his courtly cuisine - exotic spices.

And they're central to the next recipe I've chosen to cook.

It's one I've tasted many times in the markets of Spain.

So I'm thrilled to find it in The Forme Of Cury.

Today it's called Escabeche or Sweet and Sour Fish.

"Egre dauce of fish. Take roaches, other tenches, other soles.

"Smite him in pieces".

First of all, I'm going to make a syrup.

I'm going to take some vinegar.

White wine vinegar,

and in it, just like making a syrup today,

I'm going to put some sugar.

Sugar was an extreme luxury in those days.

Something so expensive that liberal use of it was most unexpected.

Then, of course, we have these really expensive spices.

We have some Ethiopian pepper,

known happily by the name of "grains of paradise".

I've got some ground ginger.

Ginger, of course, came all the way from the Far East.

Imagine the amount of distance it had to travel

by horseback, muleback, camelback, everything else, to get to England.

A bit of ground cinnamon

and some cloves, all the way from the Spice Islands.

A long, long way to come.

Let's put a bit of bark cinnamon in as well,

just to prove we know what we're doing.

And now I'm going to add some chopped onions, finely minced,

as they say in the cookery book.

And some currants, just ordinary little currants.

Some sultanas, which are much fuller and plumper and juicier -

and more expensive.

They would have come from the Isle of Cyprus, as the currants.

All of that handled by the early Venetian trading company,

along with the sugar.

And now I'm going to cook the fish.

So, some some pike.

Nice, long fillet of pike.

The soles of course are saltwater fish.

There's a nice bit of roe in this one here.

Part of the reason for using different fishes is they have different textures,

they have different flavours and, in the case of the roach,

they have an oiliness about them

which is different from the other two,

which are white fish and plain.

And a different colour.

Then simply fry in a pan.

They used olive oil, by the way.

And there we are. There's our fish pieces, all nicely cooked.

I'm just going to tip the sweet and sour syrup, with its onions

and currants, all over the fish.

And there it is, ready to go out to the table.

Delicious!

Fit for a king, with those exotic spices.

Look at this!

Isn't this wonderful?

This great medieval hall, the most brilliant space.

The king's table.

The head table at the top.

And then, stretching before us, the tables.

And the servers would come from the kitchen,

bearing the great dishes.

And everything would be served.

And the chefs made sure that everything

was a pageant of a picture in the Royal Court.

Richard was not only a connoisseur of good food,

he was also a stickler for etiquette and manners.

Which included hands being thoroughly washed

before a meal could begin.

and in Richard's Court, the use of cutlery reigned.

Particularly the spoon.

They were such prized possessions,

the Royal household carried them everywhere they went.

The court observed strict rules on table manners.

You may be surprised that it was not a knees-up in a tavern,

but more like fine dining.

Whilst the courtiers ate, the kitchen worked tirelessly,

cooking and cleaning, as food was sent out all the time.

One recipe I found in The Forme of Cury reads

like a classic modern pudding.

All of us will have eaten a version of it probably,

but so did Richard II.

Here's his pears poached in red wine.

"Pears in confit.

"Take pears and pare him clean.

"Take good red wine and mulberries,

"and seep the pears therein".

Here are some Warden pears,

all beautifully peeled, which I've put it into a nice little dish.

And here I have some mulberries.

These are dried white mulberries, but they'll do for the flavour.

And for the colouring, some blackberries.

Into this dish, I'm going to pour some red wine.

And put it onto the fire to cook.

Now, what I have to do is add various things to the wine,

then reduce it down, and that will be the sauce for the pears.

Honey was one of the great sweeteners of the Middle Ages.

They kept a lot of hives because,

not only was the honey used in cookery,

but the wax was used in candles -

church candles, candles to light the king's great hall,

all that sort of thing.

So bees were big business.

And to this I'm also going to add powdered ginger.

Now, I'll sit here and do nothing.

There are moments in the cook's life,

even a medieval cook's life, when you just have to wait.

Patience is a great virtue for cooks.

Not necessarily chefs, but for cooks.

Mm! Sweet and beautiful.

There it goes. As it says, "Mess it forth,

"Hot or cold".

Richard ate better than almost any English king.

Food like this cost a fortune.

One feast in 1383 is recorded as costing £57,000 for food

and £10,000 for napery and for spices.

A staggering amount.

In order to maintain this standard of living,

he taxed his subjects horrendously, to the hilt.

And they didn't like it.

What's more, he began to lose support in his court and Parliament.

Richard ignored them and famously declaimed,

"I will not dismiss one scullion from my kitchen

"at Parliament's request."

Disillusioned noblemen soon conspired against him.

Richard retaliated brutally, either killing or exiling the rebels,

but the clock was ticking for England's king.

Before his tale ends, however,

I'm eager to discover how Richard's cuisine tastes today.

So, I've invited Kate Cahoun, food writer.

Chris Woolgar, medieval archivist,

Michelle Berriedale-Johnson, food historian,

and keeper of The Forme of Cury at the British Library Claire Breay to dine with me.

First the king's signature dish.

Sauce Madame!

Well, we have cooked our goose for you.

This is goose with Sauce Madame.

It does smell fantastic.

It does smell good, doesn't it?

Silence is always good when people are eating.

Actually, it's not as rich as you normally expect goose to be.

This must be partly to do with the stuffing,

that it has drawn the richness out?

-Absolutely.

-And the pears actually taste, don't they?

Often when cooked they go ropey, but these are sharp.

-Warden pears.

-All of those flavours altogether.

It's flash cooking really. It all looks very beautiful.

But not flashy, but it tastes flashy.

So much for bland English food!

Absolutely.

Now for Richard's luxurious sweet and sour fish recipe.

Egre dauce of fish.

One of the things which interests me, with this,

is how much fish they ate.

At least half the days in the year are fish days.

There's a wonderful little piece in a 14th-century school book

by a very young boy where,

at the end of Lent, at the end of eating nothing but fish,

he writes in his margin, "Thou will not believe how weary I am of fish.

"How much I desire that flesh were come in again."

This is very special fish.

This is freshwater fish, which carries a premium.

So to have pike is very special indeed.

It was the equivalent of two days' wages.

Finally, a 700-year-old friend, poached pears.

Pears in confit.

Isn't that beautiful?

You've got that wonderful,

lovely red outside with the pure pear inside. Fantastic.

Pears were a very common end to the meal

in upper-class establishments in England.

They eat them because they're believed to help digestion.

Looking at these books and having it cooked

and talking about it actually makes you realise how similar we are in so many ways.

It's those points of connection in history that are so sparky

and make you think, "I understand that period a little bit more."

It brings you so much closer to the people themselves.

You can imagine yourself in the kitchen.

Many medieval cooks were exactly like us.

It makes it all come alive.

What I take from this meal is

the tastes, the flavours, the things I cannot get from the manuscript.

It's the imagination that brings it together and turns into something really special.

-This brings it to life in a whole new dimension.

-You enjoyed it!

I think enjoyment just redoubles everything.

To eat something that I'd imagined in an esoteric way

and find it is not only good, but absolutely fantastic.

-It has been splendid, thank you.

-Hooray!

Richard's end was less glorious than his food.

Henry Bolingbroke, the cousin he exiled,

returned in 1399 to claim the throne.

And Richard was soon captured and incarcerated.

Stripped of his Majesty, Richard died at the age of 33.

A premature death perhaps, but his legacy is richer.

England's oldest known cookbook.

Richard II is dead. Ironically for such a hedonist, starved to death.

A terrible thought.

But his cookbook remains,

for those of us that are left to savour and taste the abundance.

The king is dead, long live the cook!

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