Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/369

 a?id Sentiments. 349 fubjeft. Thefe cookery-books fometimes contain plans for dinners of different defcriptions^ or, as we iliould now fay, bills of tare, which enable us, by comparing the names of the dilhes with the receipts for making them, to form a tolerably diftinft notion of the manner in which our forefathers fared at table from four to five hundred years ago. The firft example we lliall give is furniflied by a manufcript of the beginning of the fifteenth century, and belongs to the latter part of the century pre- ceding ; that is, to the reign of Richard II., a period remarkable for the falhion for luxurious living : it gives us the following bill of fare for the ordinary table of a gentleman, which I will arrange in the form of a bill of fare of the prefent day, modernizing the language, except in the cafe of obfolete words. F'lrji Courfe. Boar's head enanned {larded), and " bnice," for pottage. Beef. Mutton. Pestles (%0 of Po'^. Swan. Roasted Rabbit. Tart. Second Courfe. Drope and Rose, for pottage. Maiiard. Pheasant. Chickens, " farsed" and roasted. " Malachi?," baked. Third Courfe. Conings {rabbits), in giavy, and liare, in " brase," for pottage. Teals, roasted. Woodcocks. Snipes. " RafFyolys,'" baked. " Flampoyntes." It may be M^ell to make the general remark, that the ordinary number of courfes at dinner was three. To begin, then, with the firft dilli, boar's- head was a favourite article at table, and needs no explanation. The pottage which follows, under the name of huce, was made as follows, according to a receipt in the fame cookery-book which has furnifhed the bill of fare : — Take the nmbles of a swine, and parboil them {boil them pivly), and cut them small, and put them in a pot, with some good brotli ; then take the whites of leeks, and slit them, and cut tliem small, and put them in, with minced onions, and let it all boil ; next take bread steeped in broth, and " draw it up" with blood and vinegar, and put it into a pot, with pepper and cloves, and let it boil ; and serve all this together. In