Anne: Aye, indeed, Sir
Slender: That's meat and drink to me, now.
— Merry Wives of Windsor, i, 1.
The manufacture of wine and of fruit preserves, and many of the processes of cookery, could have scarcely been accomplished1 without a large and constant supply of sugar.
The exact date of the first introduction of the latter into England continues to be a matter of uncertainty2. It was clearly very scarce, and doubtless equally dear, when, in 1226, Henry III. asked the Mayor of Winchester to procure3 him three pounds of Alexandria sugar, if so much could be got, and also some rose and violet-coloured sugar; nor had it apparently4 grown much more plentiful5 when the same prince ordered the sheriffs of London to send him four loaves of sugar to Woodstock. But it soon made its way into the English homes, and before the end of the thirteenth century it could be procured6 even in remote provincial7 towns. It was sold either by the loaf or the pound. It was still exorbitantly8 high in price, varying from eighteen pence to three shillings a pound of coeval9 currency; and it was retailed10 by the spice-dealers.
In Russell’s “Book of Nurture,” composed about 1450, it occurs as an ingredient in hippocras; and one collects from a letter sent by Sir Edward Wotton to Lord Cobham from Calais in 1546, that at that time the quantities imported were larger, and the price reduced; for Wotton advises his correspondent of a consignment11 of five-and-twenty loaves at six shillings the loaf. One loaf was equal to ten pounds; this brought the commodity down to eight pence a pound of fifteenth century money.
The sugar of Cyprus was also highly esteemed12; that of Bezi, in the Straits of Sunda, was the most plentiful; but the West Indian produce, as well as that of Mauritius, Madeira, and other cane-growing countries, was unknown.
Of bread, the fifteenth century had several descriptions in use: pain-main or bread of very fine flour, wheat-bread, barley-meal bread, bran-bread, bean-bread, pease-bread, oat-bread or oat-cakes, hard-bread, and unleavened bread. The poor often used a mixture of rye, lentils, and oatmeal, varied13 according to the season and district.
The author of “The Serving-man’s Comfort,” 1598, however, seems to say that it was counted by the poorer sort at that time a hardship only to be tolerated in a dear year to mix beans and peas with their corn, and he adds: “So must I yield you a loaf of coarse cockle, having no acquaintance with coin to buy corn.”
In a Nominale of this period mention is made of “oblys,” or small round loaves, perhaps like the old-fashioned “turnover”; and we come across the explicit14 phrase, a loaf of bread, for the first time, a pictorial15 vocabulary of the period even furnishing us with a representation of its usual form.
Nor were the good folks of those days without their simnels, cracknels, and other sorts of cakes for the table, among which in the wastel we recognise the equivalent of the modern French gateau.
Besides march-pain or pain-main, and pain-puff, two sorts baked on special occasions, and rather entering into the class of confectionery, our better-to-do ancestors usually employed three descriptions of bread: manchete for the master’s table, made of fine boulted flour; chete, of unboulted flour, but not mixed with any coarser ingredient; and brown-bread, composed of flour and rye meal, and known as maslin (mystelon).
A bushel of wheat, in a romance of the thirteenth century, is estimated to produce twenty loaves; but the statement is obviously to be taken with allowance. The manchet was sometimes thought to be sufficient without butter, as we now eat a scone16. In the “Conceits of Old Hobson,” 1607, the worthy17 haberdasher of the Poultry18 gives some friends what is facetiously19 described as a “light” banquet — a cup of wine and a manchet of bread on a trencher for each guest, in an apartment illuminated20 with five hundred candles.
There is no pictorial record of the mode in which the early baker21 worked here, analogous22 to that which Lacroix supplies of his sixteenth century confrère. The latter is brought vividly23 enough before us in a copy of one of Jost Amman’s engravings, and we perceive the bakery and its tenants24: one (apparently a female) kneading the dough25 in a trough at the farther end, a second by a roasting fire, with a long ladle or peel in his hand, putting the loaf on the oven, and a third, who is a woman, leaving the place with two baskets of bread, one on her head and one on her arm; the baker himself is almost naked, like the operatives in a modern iron furnace. The artist has skilfully26 realised the oppressive and enervating27 atmosphere; and it was till lately quite usual to see in the side streets of Paris in the early morning the boulanger at work precisely29 in the same informal costume. So tenacious30 is usage, and so unchanging many of the conditions of life.
The Anglo-Norman used butter where his Italian contemporary used oil. But it is doubtful whether before the Conquest our ancestors were commonly acquainted with butter.
The early cook understood the art of glazing32 with yolk33 of egg, and termed it endoring, and not less well that of presenting dishes under names calculated to mislead the intended partaker, as where we find a receipt given for pome de oringe, which turns out to be a preparation of liver of pork with herbs and condiments34, served up in the form of glazed35 force-meat balls.
Venison was salted in troughs. In the tale of “The King and the Hermit,” the latter exhibits to his unknown visitor his stock of preserved venison from the deer, which he had shot in the forest.
The mushroom, of which so many varieties are at present recognised by botanists36, seems, from the testimony37 of an Italian, Giacomo Castelvetri, who was in London in 1614, and to whom I have already referred, to have been scarcely known here at that time. I cannot say, of course, how far Castelvetri may have prosecuted38 his inquiries39, though he certainly leaves the impression of having been intelligently observant; or whether he includes in this observation the edible40 toadstools; but even now much unreasonable41 prejudice exists as to the latter, and very limited use is made of any but two or three familiar sorts of the mushroom itself. It is a pity that this misconception should not be dissipated.
Caviary had been brought into England, probably from Russia, at the commencement of the seventeenth century, perhaps sooner. In 1618, “The Court and Country,” by Breton, seems to represent it as an article of diet which was little known, and not much relished42; for a great lady had sent the writer’s father a little barrel of it, and it was no sooner opened than it was fastened down again, to be returned to the donor43 with a respectful message that her servant had black soap enough already.
In the time of James I. the ancient bill of fare had been shorn of many of its coarser features, so far as fish was concerned; and the author of “The Court and Country” tells a story to shew that porpoise-pie was a dish which not even a dog would eat.
The times had indeed changed, since a King and a Cardinal-archbishop judged this warm-blooded sea-dweller a fit dish for the most select company.
It is not a despicable or very ascetic45 regimen which Stevenson lays before us under April in his reproduction of Breton’s “Fantasticks,” 1626, under the title of the “Twelve Months,” 1661:—“The wholesome46 dyet that breeds good sanguine47 juyce, such as pullets, capons, sucking veal48, beef not above three years Old, a draught49 of morning milk fasting from the cow; grapes, raysons, and figs50 be good before meat; Rice with Almond Milk, birds of the Field, Peasants and Partridges, and fishes of stony51 rivers, Hen eggs potcht, and such like.”
Under May he furnishes us with a second and not less appetising menu:—
“Butter and sage31 are now the wholesome Breakfast, but fresh cheese and cream are meat for a dainty mouth; the early Peascods and Strawberries want no price with great Bellies52; but the Chicken and the Duck are fatted for the Market; the sucking Rabbet is frequently taken in the Nest, and many a Gosling never lives to be a Goose.”
Even so late as the succeeding reign53, Breton speaks of the good cheer at Christmas, and of the cook, if he lacks not wit, sweetly licking his fingers.
The storage of liquids became a difficult problem where, as among our ancestors, glazed pottery54 was long unknown; and more especially with regard to the supply of water in dry seasons. But so far as milk was concerned, the daily yield probably seldom exceeded the consumption; and among the inhabitants further north and east, who, as Caesar says, partook also of flesh, and did not sow grain — in other words, were less vegetarian55 in their habits from the more exhausting nature of the climate — the consideration might be less urgent. It is open to doubt if, even in those primitive56 times, the supply of a national want lagged far behind the demand.
The list of wines which the King of Hungary proposed to have at the wedding of his daughter, in “The Squire57 of Low Degree,” is worth consulting. Harrison, in his “Description of England,” 1586, speaks of thirty different kinds of superior vintages and fifty-six of commoner or weaker kinds. But the same wine was perhaps known under more than one name.
Romney or Rumney, a Hungarian growth, Malmsey from the Peloponnesus, and Hippocras were favourites, and the last-named was kept as late as the last century in the buttery of St. John’s College, Cambridge, for use during the Christmas festivities. But France, Spain, Greece, almost all countries, contributed to furnish the ancient wine-cellar, and gratify the variety of taste among connoisseurs58; and for such as had not the means to purchase foreign productions, the juice of the English grape, either alone or mingled59 with honey and spice, furnished a not unpalatable and not very potent60 stimulant61. As claret and hock with us, so anciently Bastard62 and Piment were understood in a generic63 sense, the former for any mixed wine, the latter for one seasoned with spice.
In “Colin Blobol’s Testament,” a whimsical production of the fifteenth century, Tent and Valencia wines are mentioned, with wine of Languedoc and Orleans. But perhaps it will be best to cite the passage:—
“I trow there shall be an honest fellowship, save first shall they of ale have new backbones64. With strong ale brewed65 in vats66 and in tuns; Ping, Drangollie, and the Draget fine, Mead67, Mattebru, and the Metheling. Red wine, the claret and the white, with Tent and Alicant, in whom I delight. Wine of Languedoc and of Orleans thereto: Single beer, and other that is double: Spruce beer, and the beer of Hamburgh: Malmsey, Tires, and Romany.”
But some of the varieties are hidden under obscure names. We recognise Muscadel, Rhine wine, Bastard, Hippocras, however. On the 10th of December, 1497, Piers68 Barber received six shillings and eight pence, according to the “Privy Purse Expences of Henry VII.,” “for spice for ypocras.”
Metheglin and beer of some kind appear to be the most ancient liquors of which there are any vestiges69 among the Britons. Ferguson, in his Essay “On the Formation of the Palate,” states that they are described by a Greek traveller, who visited the south of Britain in the fourth century B.C. This informant describes metheglin as composed of wheat and honey (of course mixed with water), and the beer as being of sufficient strength to injure the nerves and cause head-ache.
Worlidge, in his “Vinetum Britannicum,” 1676, gives us receipts for metheglin and birch wine. Breton, in his “Fantasticks,” 1626, under January, recommends a draught of ale and wormwood wine mixed in a morning to comfort the heart, scour70 the maw, and fulfil other beneficial offices.
The English beer of by-gone times underwent many vicissitudes71, and it was long before our ancestors conquered their dislike to the bitter hop44, after having been accustomed to a thick, sweet liquor of which the modern Kentish ale is in some measure a survival. Beer was made from a variety of grain; oats were most commonly employed. In France, they resorted even to vetches, lentils, rye, and darnel. But as a rule it was a poor, thin drink which resulted from the operation, and the monks72 of Glastonbury deemed themselves fortunate in being allowed by their abbot to put a load of oats into the vat28 to improve the quality of the beverage73; which may account for Peter of Blois characterising the ale in use at Court in his day (he died about the end of the twelfth century) as potent — it was by contrast so. The first assize of ale seems not to have been enacted74 till the reign of Henry III.
From a glossary75 of the fourteenth century, inserted in “Reliquse Antique,” 1841, it appears that whey was then used as a drink; it occurs there as “cerum, i, quidam liquor, whey.”
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1
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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3
procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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7
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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exorbitantly
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coeval
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| adj.同时代的；n.同时代的人或事物 | |
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10
retailed
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| vt.零售（retail的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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consignment
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| n.寄售；发货；委托；交运货物 | |
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12
esteemed
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| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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13
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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15
pictorial
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| adj.绘画的；图片的；n．画报 | |
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16
scone
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| n.圆饼，甜饼，司康饼 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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poultry
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| n.家禽，禽肉 | |
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facetiously
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| adv.爱开玩笑地；滑稽地，爱开玩笑地 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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25
dough
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| n.生面团；钱，现款 | |
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26
skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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enervating
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| v.使衰弱，使失去活力( enervate的现在分词 ) | |
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28
vat
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| n.(=value added tax)增值税，大桶 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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tenacious
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| adj.顽强的，固执的，记忆力强的，粘的 | |
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sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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32
glazing
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| n.玻璃装配业；玻璃窗；上釉；上光v.装玻璃( glaze的现在分词 )；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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33
yolk
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| n.蛋黄，卵黄 | |
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34
condiments
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| n.调味品 | |
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35
glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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36
botanists
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| n.植物学家，研究植物的人( botanist的名词复数 ) | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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prosecuted
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| a.被起诉的 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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edible
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| n.食品，食物；adj.可食用的 | |
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41
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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42
relished
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| v.欣赏( relish的过去式和过去分词 )；从…获得乐趣；渴望 | |
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donor
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| n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体 | |
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44
hop
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| n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过 | |
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45
ascetic
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| adj.禁欲的；严肃的 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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veal
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| n.小牛肉 | |
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49
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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50
figs
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| figures 数字，图形，外形 | |
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51
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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52
bellies
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| n.肚子( belly的名词复数 )；腹部；（物体的）圆形或凸起部份；腹部…形的 | |
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53
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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54
pottery
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| n.陶器，陶器场 | |
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55
vegetarian
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| n.素食者；adj.素食的 | |
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56
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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57
squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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58
connoisseurs
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| n.鉴赏家，鉴定家，行家( connoisseur的名词复数 ) | |
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59
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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60
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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61
stimulant
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| n.刺激物，兴奋剂 | |
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62
bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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generic
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| adj.一般的，普通的，共有的 | |
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64
backbones
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| n.骨干( backbone的名词复数 )；脊骨；骨气；脊骨状物 | |
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65
brewed
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| 调制( brew的过去式和过去分词 )； 酝酿； 沏（茶）； 煮（咖啡） | |
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66
vats
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| varieties 变化，多样性，种类 | |
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67
mead
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| n.蜂蜜酒 | |
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68
piers
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| n.水上平台( pier的名词复数 )；（常设有娱乐场所的）突堤；柱子；墙墩 | |
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69
vestiges
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| 残余部分( vestige的名词复数 )； 遗迹； 痕迹； 毫不 | |
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70
scour
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| v.搜索；擦，洗，腹泻，冲刷 | |
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71
vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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72
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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73
beverage
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| n.(水，酒等之外的)饮料 | |
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74
enacted
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| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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glossary
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| n.注释词表；术语汇编 | |
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