Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine Part 11

A boulting tub for meal.

A little table.

A spice cupboard.

A chest for oatmeal.

A trough.

Hanging and other shelves.

Here follows the return of pewter, bra.s.s, and other vessels belonging to the kitchen:--

Pewter dishes of nine sizes (from Newcastle).

Long dishes for rabbits. } Saucers. } Chargers. } Silver fashioned.

Pie plates. } Voider. } A beef-p.r.i.c.k.

Fire shoves and tongs.

A brig (a sort of brandreth).

A cullender.

A pewter baking-pan.

Kettles of bra.s.s.

A skillet.

A brandeth.

A shredding knife.

A chopping knife.

An apple cradle.

A pair of irons to make wafers with.

A bra.s.s pot-lid.

Beef-axes and knives. } Slaughter ropes. } For Slaughtering.

Beef stangs. }

In the beef-house was an a.s.sortment of tubs, casks, and hogsheads.

Table knives, forks, spoons, and drinking-vessels presumably belonged to another department.

The dripping-pan is noticed in Breton's "Fantasticks," 1626: "Dishes and trenchers are necessary servants, and they that have no meat may go sc.r.a.pe; a Spit and a Dripping-pan would do well, if well furnished." Flecknoe, again, in his character of a "Miserable old Gentlewoman," inserted among his "Enigmatical Characters," 1658, speaks of her letting her prayer-book fall into the dripping-pan, and the dog and the cat quarrelling over it, and at last agreeing to pray on it!

But this is a branch of the subject I cannot afford further to penetrate. Yet I must say a word about the polished maple-wood bowl, or _maser_, with its mottoes and quaint devices, which figured on the side-board of the yeoman and the franklin, and which Chaucer must have often seen in their homes. Like everything else which becomes popular, it was copied in the precious metals, with costly and elaborate goldsmith's work; but its interest for us is local, and does not lend itself to change of material and neighbourhood. The habits of the poor and middle cla.s.ses are apt to awaken a keener curiosity in our minds from the comparatively slender information which has come to us upon them; and as in the case of the maser, the laver which was employed in humble circles for washing the hands before and after a meal was, not of gold or silver, as in the houses of the n.o.bility, but of bra.s.s or laten, nor was it in either instance a ceremonious form, but a necessary process. The modern finger-gla.s.s and rose-water dish, which are an incidence of every entertainment of pretension, and in higher society as much a parcel of the dinner-table as knives and forks, are, from a mediaeval standpoint, luxurious anachronisms.

In Archbishop Alfric's "Colloquy," originally written in the tenth century, and subsequently augmented and enriched with a Saxon gloss by one of his pupils, the cook is one of the persons introduced and interrogated. He is asked what his profession is worth to the community; and he replies that without him people would have to eat their greens and flesh raw; whereupon it is rejoined that they might readily dress them themselves; to which the cook can only answer, that in such case all men would be reduced to the position of servants.

The kitchen had its _chef_ or master-cook (archimacherus), under-cooks, a waferer or maker of sweets, a scullion or swiller (who is otherwise described as a _quistron_), and knaves, or boys for preparing the meat; and all these had their special functions and implements.

Even in the fifteenth century the appliances for cookery were evidently far more numerous than they had been. An ill.u.s.trated vocabulary portrays, among other items, the dressing-board, the dressing-knife, the roasting-iron, the frying-pan, the spit-turner (in lieu of the old turn-broach), the andiron, the ladle, the slice, the sk.u.mmer; and the _a.s.sitabulum_, or saucer, first presents itself.

It seems as if the butler and the pantler had their own separate quarters; and the different species of wine, and the vessels for holding it, are not forgotten. The archaic pantry was dedicated, not to its later objects, but to that which the name strictly signifies; but at the same time the writer warrants us in concluding, that the pantry accommodated certain miscellaneous utensils, as he comprises in its contents a candlestick, a table or board-cloth, a hand-cloth or napkin, a drinking bowl, a saucer, and a spoon. The kitchen, in short, comprised within its boundaries a far larger variety of domestic requisites of all kinds than its modern representative, which deals with an external machinery so totally changed. The ancient Court of England was so differently const.i.tuted from the present, and so many offices which sprang out of the feudal system have fallen into desuetude, that it requires a considerable effort to imagine a condition of things, where the master-cook of our lord the king was a personage of high rank and extended possessions. How early the functions of cook and the property attached to the position were separated, and the tenure of the land made dependent on a nominal ceremony, is not quite clear. Warner thinks that it was in the Conqueror's time; but at any rate, in that of Henry II. the husband of the heiress of Bartholomew de Cheney held his land in Addington, Surrey, by the serjeantry of finding a cook to dress the victuals at the coronation; the custom was kept up at least so late as the reign of George III., to whom at his coronation the lord of the manor of Addington presented a dish of pottage. The tenure was varied in its details from time to time. But for my purpose it is sufficient that manorial rights were acquired by the _magnus coquus_ or _magister coquorum_ in the same way as by the grand butler and other officers of state; and when so large a share of the splendour of royalty continued for centuries to emanate from the kitchen, it was scarcely inappropriate or unfair to confer on that department of state some t.i.tular distinction, and endow the holder with substantial honours. To the Grand Chamberlain and the Grand Butler the Grand Cook was a meet appendage.

The primary object of these feudal endowments was the establishment of a cordon round the throne of powerful subjects under conditions and t.i.tles which to ourselves may appear incongruous and obscure, but which were in tolerable keeping with the financial and commercial organisation of the period, with a restricted currency, a revenue chiefly payable in kind, scanty facilities for transit, and an absence of trading centres. These steward-ships, butler-ships, and cook-ships, in the hands of the most trusted va.s.sals of the Crown, const.i.tuted a rudimentary vehicle for in-gathering the dues of all kinds renderable by the king's tenants; and as an administrative scheme gradually unfolded itself, they became t.i.tular and honorary, like our own reduced menagerie of nondescripts. But while they lasted in their substance and reality, they answered the wants and notions of a primitive people; nor is it for this practical age to lift up its hands or its voice too high; for mediaeval England is still legible without much excavation in our Court, our Church, nay, in our Laws.

There lurk our cunning spoilers!

Mr. Fairholt, in the "Archaeological Alb.u.m," 1845, has depicted for our benefit the _chef_ of the Abbey of St. Albans in the fourteenth century, and his wife Helena The representations of these two notable personages occur in a MS. in the British Museum, which formerly belonged to the Abbey, and contains a list of its benefactors, with their gifts. It does not appear that Master Robert, cook to Abbot Thomas, was the donor of any land or money; but, in consideration of his long and faithful services, his soul was to be prayed for with that of his widow, who bestowed 3s. 4d. _ad opus hujus libri_, which Fairholt supposes to refer to the insertion of her portrait and that of her spouse among the graphic decorations of the volume. They are perhaps in their way unique. Behold them opposite!

Another point in reference to the early economy of the table, which should not be overlooked, is the character of the ancient b.u.t.tery, and the quick transition which its functionary, the butler, experienced from the performance of special to that of general duties.

He at a very remote period acted not merely as the curator of the wine-cellar, but as the domestic steward and storekeeper; and it was his business to provide for the requirements of the kitchen and the pantry, and to see that no opportunity was neglected of supplying, from the nearest port, or market town, or fair, if his employer resided in the country, all the necessaries for the departments under his control. We are apt to regard the modern bearer of the same t.i.tle as more catholic in his employments than the appellation suggests; but he in fact wields, on the contrary, a very circ.u.mscribed authority compared to that of his feudal prototype.

One of the menial offices in the kitchen, when the spit came into use, was the broach-turner, lately referred to. He was by no means invariably maintained on the staff, but was hired for the occasion, which may augur the general preference for boiled and fried meats.

Sometimes it appears that any lad pa.s.sing by, or in want of temporary employment, was admitted for this purpose, and had a trifling gratuity, or perhaps only his dinner and the privilege of dipping his fingers in the dripping, for his pains.

Warner cites an entry in some accounts of the Hospital of St.

Bartholomew at Sandwich, under 1569:--"For tournynge the spytte, iiijd." and this was when the mayor of the borough dined with the prior. A royal personage gave, of course, more. The play of "Gammer Gurton's Needle," written about 1560, opens with a speech of Diccon the Bedlam, or poor Tom, where he says:--

"Many a gossip's cup in my time have I tasted, And many a broach and spit have I both turned and basted."

The spit, again, was supplanted by the jack.

The "History of Friar Rush," 1620, opens with a scene in which the hero introduces himself to a monastery, and is sent by the unsuspecting prior to the master-cook, who finds him subordinate employment.

MEALS.

It has been noted that for a great length of time two meals were made to suffice the requirements of all cla.s.ses. Our own experience shows how immaterial the names are which people from age to age choose to bestow on their feeding intervals. Some call supper _dinner_, and others call dinner _luncheon._ First comes the prevailing mode inst.i.tuted by fashionable society, and then a foolish subscription to it by a section of the community who are too poor to follow it, and too proud not to seem to do so. Formerly it was usual for the Great to dine and sup earlier than the Little; but now the rule is reversed, and the later a man dines the more distinguished he argues himself.

We have multiplied our daily seasons of refreshment, and eat and drink far oftener than our ancestors; but the truly genteel Briton never sups; the word is scarcely in his vocabulary,--like Beau Brummel and the farthing--"Fellow, I do not know the coin!"

In a glossary of the tenth-eleventh century only two meals are quoted: undermeat = _prandium_, and even-meat = _coena_. That is to say, our Saxon precursors were satisfied as a rule with two repasts daily, but to this in more luxurious times were added the supper and even the rear-supper, the latter being, so far as we know, a second course or dessert and the bipart.i.te collation corresponding to the modern late dinner. But it is one of those strange survivals of ancient manners which people practise without any consciousness of the fact, which is at the root of the fashion, which still occasionally prevails, of dividing the chief meal of the day by an interval of repose, and taking the wine and dessert an hour or two after the other courses; and the usage in our colleges and inns of court of retiring to another apartment to "wine" may claim the same origin. It is obvious that the rear-supper was susceptible of becoming the most important and costly part of an entertainment; and that it frequently a.s.sumed extravagant proportions, many pa.s.sages from our early poets might be adduced to prove.

In the "Book of Cookery," 1500, we have the _menu_ at the installation of Archbishop Nevill in York in 1467; but the bill of fare of a feast given by him in 1452 at Oxford, where he is mentioned as Master Nevill, son of the Earl of Salisbury, is inserted from the Cotton MS.

t.i.tus, in "Reliquiae Antiquae," 1841. It consisted of three courses, which seem to have been the customary limit. Of course, however, the usage varied, as in the "Song of the Boar's Head," of which there are two or three versions, two courses only are specified in what has the air of having been a rather sumptuous entertainment.

The old low-Latin term for the noonday meal was _merenda_, which suggests the idea of food to be earned before it was enjoyed. So in "Friar Bacon's Prophesie," 1604, a poem, it is declared that, in the good old days, he that wrought not, till he sweated, was held unworthy of his meat. This reminds one of Abernethy's maxim for the preservation of health,--to live on sixpence a day, _and earn it_.

The "Song of the Boar's Head," just cited, and printed from the Porkington MS. in "Reliquiae Antiquae" (ii, 30), refers to larks for ladies to pick as part of the second course in a banquet. On special occasions, in the middle ages, after the dessert, hippocras was served, as they have liqueurs to this day on the Continent both after dinner and after the mid-day breakfast.

The writer of "Piers of Fulham" lived to see this fashion of introducing a third meal, and that again split into two for luxury's sake; for his metrical biographer tells us, that he refused rear-suppers, from a fear of surfeiting.

I collect that in the time of Henry VIII. the supper was a well-established inst.i.tution, and that the abuse of postponing it to a too advanced hour had crept in; for the writer of a poem of this period especially counsels his readers _not to sup late_.

Rear-suppers were not only held in private establishments, but in taverns; and in the early interlude of the "Four Elements," given in my edition of Dodsley, and originally published about 1519, a very graphic and edifying scene occurs of a party of roisterers ordering and enjoying an entertainment of this kind. About seventy years later, Robert Greene, the playwright, fell a victim to a surfeit of pickled herrings and Rhenish wine, at some merry gathering of his intimates falling under this denomination. Who will venture to deny that the first person who kept unreasonable hours was an author and a poet?

Even Shakespeare is not exempt from the suspicion of having hastened his end by indulgence with one or two friends in a gay carouse of this kind.

The author of the "Description of England" enlightens us somewhat on the sort of kitchen which the middle cla.s.s and yeomanry of his time deemed fit and sufficient. The merchant or private gentleman had usually from one to three dishes on the table when there were no visitors, and from four to six when there was company. What the yeoman's every-day diet was Harrison does not express; but at Christmas he had brawn, pudding and souse, with mustard; beef, mutton, and pork; shred pies, goose, pig, capon, turkey, veal, cheese, apples, etc., with good drink, and a blazing fire in the hall. The farmer's bill of fare varied according to the season: in Lent, red herrings and salt fish; at Easter, veal and bacon; at Martinmas, salted beef; at Midsummer, fresh beef, peas, and salad; at Michaelmas, fresh herrings and fat mutton; at All Saints', pork and peas and fish; and at Christmas, the same dainties as our yeoman, with good cheer and pastime.

The modern luncheon or nuncheon was the archaic _prandium_, or under-meat, displaced by the breakfast, and modified in its character by the different distribution of the daily repasts, so that, instead of being the earliest regular meal, like the _grand dejeuner_ of the French, or coming, like our luncheon, between breakfast and dinner, it interposed itself between the noontide dinner and the evening supper.

Now, with an increasing proportion of the community, the universal luncheon, postponed to a later hour, is the actual dinner; and our under-meal is the afternoon tea.

In those not-wholly-to-be-discommended days, the residue of the meal was consumed in the servants' hall, and the sc.r.a.ps bestowed on the poor at the gate; and the last part of the business was carried out, not as a matter of chance or caprice, but on as methodical a principle as the payment of a poor-rate. At the servants' table, besides the waiters and other attendants on the princ.i.p.al board, mentioned by Harrison, sat the master-cook, the pantler, the steward or major-domo, the butler, the cellarman, the waferer, and others. It was not till comparatively recent times that the _wafery_, a special department of the royal kitchen, where the confectionery and pastry were prepared, was discontinued.

There was necessarily a very large section of the community in all the large towns, especially in London, which was dest.i.tute of culinary appliances, and at the same time of any charitable or eleemosynary privileges. A mult.i.tude of persons, of both s.e.xes and all ages, gradually developed itself, having no feudal ties, but attached to an endless variety of more or less humble employments.

How did all these men, women, boys, girls, get their daily food? The answer is, in the public eating-houses. Fitzstephen tells us that in the reign of Henry II. (1154-89), besides the wine-vaults and the shops which sold liquors, there was on the banks of the river a public eating-house or cook's-shop, where, according to the time of year, you could get every kind of victuals, roasted, boiled, baked, or fried; and even, says he, if a friend should arrive at a citizen's house, and not care to wait, they go to the shop, where there were viands always kept ready to suit every purse and palate, even including venison, sturgeon, and Guinea-fowls. For all cla.s.ses frequented the City; and before Bardolph's day n.o.blemen and gentlemen came to Smithfield to buy their horses, as they did to the waterside near the Tower to embark for a voyage.

One of the characters in the "Canterbury Tales"--the Cook of London--was, in fact the keeper of a cook's-shop; and in the Prologue to the Tale, with which his name is a.s.sociated, the charming story of "Gamelin," the poet makes the Reeve charge his companion with not very creditable behaviour towards his customers. So our host trusts that his relation will be entertaining and good:--