Le Menagier de Paris Translated by Janet Hinson webbed Here

GOURDS. Let the rind be peeled, for that is best: and always if you want the insides, let the seeds be removed, though it is said that the rind is worth more, then cut up the rind in pieces, then parboil, then chop lengthways, then put to cook in beef fat: almost at the end yellow it with saffron or throw saffron thread by thread, one here, another there; this is what cooks call 'fringed with saffron'.

ROSE' of YOUNG RABBITS, LARKS, SMALL BIRDS or CHICKS. The young rabbits must be skinned, cut up, parboiled, put in cold water and larded: the chicks are scalded to remove the feathers, then put back in cold water, cut up, larded, and the larks or small birds are plucked only by parboiling in meat stock; then have bacon fat cut up in cubes, and put on the fire in a pan, and remove the solid bits and leave the melted grease: and fry your meat in it, or put your meat to boil on the coals and stir in a pot with fat. And while doing this, have almonds peeled, and put in beef stock and run through a sieve, then have ginger, clove, red cedar known as alexander, put in beef stock and strain, and put the cooked meat and everything else in a pot and boil together with plenty of sugar; then pour into bowls with browned spices on top. Red cedar is a wood sold at the spicers, and is called cedar for making knife handles.

Fresh WILD BOAR is cooked in water with wine and eaten with hot pepper, and is salted as above and eaten with mustard; this is in the depth of winter, but at the beginning of winter, it is eaten with spices and garnishes.

HOG OFFAL, actually using the entrails, which should be emptied in the river, then washed twice in warm water, and put them in a pan and rub thoroughly in salt and water, then wash again in warm water. Some wash them in salt and vinegar, and when they are thoroughly washed be it with vinegar or without vinegar, cut them up, and put on spits and roast on the grill and eat with grain verjuice. And if you want to make soup, you must put them to cook whole in a clay pot and set them to drain on a dish, then cut up in small pieces, and fry in bacon fat; then grind up first bread, then mace, galingale, saffron, ginger, clove, grain, cinnamon: moisten with stock and set to one side; then grind toasted breadcrumbs, and mix with offal and put through a sieve and put in meat stock or stock from the offal itself, or half of one and half of the other, and boil all together with red wine, verjuice and vinegar. In winter it must be brown and served as above, and in summer clearer and more yellow; and have grain verjuice cooked in water in a cloth, or gooseberries, and when you prepare your bowls, put six or eight morsels of the offal, then the soup over, and then six or eight grains of verjuice, or gooseberries on each bowl. And some make the soup with spices and milk as above and call it 'cretonnee'.

George Soup, Parsley-laced Soup. Take poultry cut into quarters, veal or whatever meat you wish cut into pieces, and put to boil with bacon: and to one side have a pot, with blood, finely minced onions which you should cook and fry in it. Have also bread browned on the grill, then moisten it with stock from your meat and wine, then grind ginger, cinnamon, long pepper, saffron, clove and grain and the livers, and grind them up so well that there is no need to sift them: and moisten with verjuice, wine and vinegar. And when the spices are removed from the mortar, grind your bread, and mix with what it was moistened with, and put it through the sieve, and add spices and leafy parsley if you wish, all boiled with the blood and the onions, and then fry your meat. And this soup should be brown as blood and thick like 'soringue'. Note that always you must grind the spices first; and with soups, you do not sift the spices, and afterwards you grind and sieve the bread. (I don't think wine and vinegar are necessary.) Note that this is only called parsley-laced soup when parsley is used, for as one speaks of 'fringed with saffron', in the same way one speaks of 'laced with parsley'; and this is the manner in which cooks talk.

When translated by Eileene Powers it reads as such: Note that because of the parsley only it is called "garnished" (houssie) brewet. For just as one saith "Fringes" (frange) with saffron, so doth one say garnished with parsley; and it is the manner of speaking of cooks.

White Soup. Take capons, hens or chicks killed beforehand at a convenient time, either whole or in halves or quarters, and pieces of veal, and cook with bacon in water and wine: and when they are cooked, take them out, and take almonds, peel and grind them and mix with water from your fowls, that is to say the dearest, without scrapings or any bits, and strain them through a sieve; then take white ginger prepared or peeled, with grain of Paradise, prepared as above, and strain through a very fine sieve, and mix with milk of almonds. And if it is not thick enough, strain fine flour or rice, which has been boiled, and add a taste of verjuice, and add a great amount of white sugar. And when it is ready, sprinkle over it a spice known as red coriander and some seeds of the pomegranate with sugared almonds and fried almonds, placed at the bottom of each bowl. More may be seen on this subject below, under fricassee.

When translated by Eileene Powers it reads as such: Take capons, pullets or chickens killed the due time beforehand, either whole or in halves or quarters, and slices of veal and cook them with bacon in water and wine and when they be cooked take them off, and then take almonds and peel and bray them and moisten them with sewe from your birds, and let it be as clear as it may be, with no dregs nor any thickness, and then run it through the strainer then take white ginger, pared or peeled, with grain of Paradise moistened as above, and run them through a very fine sieve and mix with milk of almonds. And if it be not thick enough, then run in flour of amidon or rice boiled and add a drop of verjuice and put therin great plenty of white sugar. And when you have served it forth, powder theron a spice that is hight red coriander and set pomegranate seeds with comfits and fried almonds round the edge of each bowl. See hereafter concerning this under Blankmanger.

German Soup. Take coney flesh, fowls or veal, and cut in pieces: then half cook in water, then fry in bacon fat; then have finely minced onion in a pot, on the coals, and some fat in the pot, and shake the pot often: then grind ginger, cinnamon, grain of Paradise, nutmegs, livers roasted on a spit on the grill, and saffron mixed with verjuice, and this is the yellow coloring and the liaison. And first bread browned on the grill, ground and sieved; and at serving, put three or four pieces of your meat in the bowl and the soup over, and sugar on the soup. (Note that he is at fault; for no cooks say that German Soup should be yellow, yet this fellow says it should. And anyway, if it should be yellow, should not the saffron be put through a sieve, but it is to be ground and mixed and put thus into the soup; when it is sieved, it is to give color: when it is sprinkled on, it is called fringing.)

Verjuice and Poultry Soup. (This is for summer.) Cook in quarters your poultry or veal or chicks, in stock or other liquid with bacon, wine and verjuice, until the taste of the verjuice passes: then fry your meat in good sweet fat, and have egg yolks and powdered herbs well beaten together and put through the sieve; then pour your eggs into the pot into your stock, pouring from above in a fine thread, and stir briskly with the spoon, and let the pot be at the back of the fire: then have defoliated parsley and grain verjuice, boiled in meat stock, in the spoon, and let the pot be at the back of the fire, or otherwise boiled in a small pot in clear water to remove the first greenness; then serve your meat, and pour the soup over it, and on top add your parsley and grain verjuice, boiled.

Grated Soup. Cook your meat, then fry it in fat, then grind grain, ginger, etc., and mix with verjuice: then have bread moistened with the meat stock, ground and passed through the sieve, and add spices, bread, and all into the cauldron and boil together; then have grain verjuice or gooseberries boiled in a slotted pan, or in another water in a cloth, strainer or otherwise, that is in order to remove the first sharpness, then serve your meat in bowls with the soup over it, and, on top, your grain verjuice.

Item, with the pheasant from which you remove the tail, save back two or three feathers for when it is roasted, but serve (it with them).

FRESH SALMON should be smoked, and leave the backbone in for roasting; then cut it into slices boiled in water, with wine and salt during cooking; eat with yellow pepper or with cameline sauce and in pastry, whatever you like, sprinkled with spices; and if the salmon is salted, let it be eaten with wine and sliced scallions.

LOST EGGS. Take four egg-yolks and beat them, and rock and powdered sugar, and let it all be beaten together very well, then poured through a strainer, then fried on the iron skillet and after that cut in lozenges; then let these lozenges be put on a dish with another omelette of poached eggs and finely powdered spices sprinkled on top.

FALSE GRAIN DISH. Cook in water and wine livers and giblets of poultry, or meat from veal, or from a leg of pork or mutton, then chop it very finely and fry in lard: then grind up ginger, cinnamon, clove, grains, wine, verjuice, beef bouillon or juices of whatever meat you are using, and lots of egg-yolks, and pour it over your meat, and put it on to boil well. Some add saffron, as it should be yellowish in colour, and others add burnt bread, ground and sieved, for it should be thickened and also eggs and bread, and it should be tart from the verjuice. And in serving, over each bowl, sprinkle powdered cinnamon. Mortereul is made like the False Grain dish, except that the meat is ground in the mortar with cinnamon spice: and there is no bread, but powdered cinnamon is sprinkled on top.

TO MAKE A SAGE-BASED SAUCE, take your poultry and quarter it, and put it on to cook in water with salt, then let it cool: then grind up ginger, cinnamon sticks, grains, cloves, and grind well without sieving; then grind up bread moistened with the chicken liquid, plenty of parsley, some sage and a little saffron among the greens to make it greener, and sieve it, (and some sieve with this hard-cooked egg yolks) and soak in good vinegar: and when it is soaked, add it to your poultry, and at the same time put on this poultry hard-cooked eggs cut in quarters and throw your sauce over all.

PARTI-COLOURED SOUP OR FALSE GRAIN. Take a mutton thigh or the livers and gizzards of chickens, and set them to cook thoroughly in water and wine, and cut them into squares: then grind up ginger, cinnamon, clove and a little saffron and grains of Paradise, and soak in wine and verjuice, meat bouillon, (the same the meat has cooked in), and then take it out of the mortar; then have toasted bread soaked in wine and verjuice, ground very fine, and after this put it through the sieve, and put it all on to boil together, then take the meat and fry it in fat and throw it in, and take sieved egg-yolks, and throw them in to thicken it. And then arrange in bowls, and throw on powdered cinnamon and sugar: that is, throw it on half the contents of the bowl and not on the other; and call it Parti-coloured Soup.

Item, TO MAKE BLUE JELLY, take the aforesaid bouillon, either meat or fish, and put in a clean pan and set it to boil again on the fire, and take from a spice-box two ounces of turnsole and put it on to boil with it until it has a good colour, then take it out: and then take a pint of loach and cook it separately, and distribute the loach in your dishes, and strain the bouillon on as above, and let it cool. Item, this makes it blue. And if you wish to make a coat of arms on the jelly, take gold or silver, whichever pleases you better, and with the white of an egg use a feather to trace it, and put gold on with tweezers.

Further, FOR TWENTY DISHES OF JELLY you need ten skinny young rabbits, ten skinny chicks, a chopine of loach which might cost three sous: a hundred crayfish which must not be from Marne, six sous: a skinny pig, three sous, eight deniers; (and even though it is skinny, you still need to remove the fat from between the skin and the flesh, and make little square pieces,) three shoulders of veal, four sous: eight quarts of wine to cook the veal all in wine, two quarts of vinegar: half an ell of linen cloth, two sous. Item, you must cook the veal all in wine and vinegar, and skin it and add salt, then take it out, and cook the rabbits and chickens, and skim it, and put the saffron and half the bay-leaves in a cloth or bag to cook with it: also put in spices milled small or ground in a stone mortar; and when all is cooked, strain it through the sieve and cloth, and repeat until it is clear; then cook the loach separately, and the crayfish separately, and take the crayfish tails, and make up your dishes with half a rabbit, half a chicken, six loach and four crayfish tails; and put them in the cellar, and set your dishes down very straight, and throw your jelly on top and fill them well. And the next day, put on each plate white violet, grenadine and red sugared almonds and four bay-leaves.

LARDY MILK. Take milk of cows or ewes and put to boil in the fire, and throw in bits of bacon and some saffron: and have eggs, that is both white and yolk, well-beaten and throw in all at once, without stirring, and make it all boil together, and then take it off the fire and leave it to turn; or without eggs, use verjuice to turn it. And when it is cool, tie it up stoutly in a piece of cloth or net and give it whatever shape you wish, flat or long, and weighted with a large rock let it cool on a side-board all night, and the next day release it and fry it alone without added grease, or with grease if you wish; and it is placed on plates or in bowls like slices of bacon and stuck with cloves and pignon nuts. And if you want to make it green, use turnsole.