Recipes from all Ages
Here’s some of the spices they had in the 1300’s in England. Most came back with the English knights who went to the Crusades.
black pepper, cinnamon, ginger, saffron, nutmeg, cloves, mace,
Spiced wine taken from cathedral archives and called “Piment.”
Take one ounce of cinnamon, one ounce of ginger, a dram each of cloves, nutmeg, lavender, cubebs, long pepper, galangal. Add two drams of grains of paradise and a half ounce of black pepper. Once these have been pounded in a mortar and well pulverized, put them in two pounds of brandy that has been distilled twice. Stir well and keep for 15 days. After this time, has elapsed, pour off gently the liquid from the bottle that is above the spices. And then, when you wish to make piment, put three or four drops of this liquid in a bottle filled with good wine and it will become fine quality piment.
*cubebs are a spice in the pepper family
*galangal is an aromatic in the ginger family
In my story, In Time For You, Electra made a haddock dish with gravy for the prince. I used a recipe found in a book called “Out of the East” by Paul Freeman
Here is the recipe:
Bear with me as this is Middle English! This was my best interpretation from that Middle English version.
Cut the haddock and roast the body til it be “ynowghe” (which I took to me just a little done as it was to be stuffed). Steep bread in broth of salmon or other fish, add parsley, a great deal of red wine, cloves, mace, pepper powder, canell, and the liver of the haddock and the stomach. Make a pouch and boil it together with currants, saffron, saunders and salt. Later add the ginger powder and juice of unripe grapes, cut the skin from the haddock pour this gravy over the fish.
