Read All the King's Cooks for Free Online Page B
Authors: Peter Brears
batches of around two hundred messes – enough to serve eight hundred people at a time. On the other hand, given that the household regulations state that its primary purpose was to boil all the beef, it would have been barely large enough to meet the demands placed upon it unless the better-quality beef for the nobles etc. was boiled in the Lord’s side kitchen – as may have been the case. 12
21. The Boiling House This large built-in copper boiler was supplied with spring water from a tank in the rooms above, and was heated by a typical flue system which conducted the flames first underneath and then around its upper parts.
From its position, it looks as though the boiling house was used as a preparation facility for the pastry and main kitchens too. There would certainly have been time to receive the raw meats from the larder each night or early morning, parboil some of them between, say, 5 and 7.30 a.m. for transfer to the pastry for pie- and pasty-making, or to the kitchens for roasting, and still boil a batch of 200 two-pound (900g) beef joints ready for dinner at 10 a.m. Needless to say, the boiling house would have been constantly bustling, the staff busy non-stop with trimming and trussing the joints, putting them into the copper, stoking thefire, baling out the boiled meats into kettles and pans for transfer to the pastry, the other kitchens or the serving hatches. Then, once dinner had been served, they would start all over again so as to be ready for the four o’clock supper. For all this, in addition to their wages, the boiling house staff received the strippings from the brisket joints, the grease produced from the transfer of the meat from the boiler into the kettles and pans, and the dripping from the roasts in the kitchen. 13
The major by-product of the boiling house was pottage. As the ever-informative Andrew Boorde recorded, ‘Pottage is not so much used in al Crystendom as it is used in Englande. Potage is made of the lyquor in which flesshe is sodden [boiled] in, with puttyng-to chopped herbes and oatmeal and salt.’ 14 It formed an excellent broth, with which to start any meal.
All manner of herbs good for pottage 15
Take the crop of red brier,
Red nettle crop and avens [herb bennet, Geum urbanum ] also
Primrose and violet together mostly go,
Lettuce, beets and borrage good,
22. Boiling utensils The flesh hook was used to lift the hot meat out of the boiling water – this example was found in the cellar of a house in Norwich which burned down on 25 March 1507. The large broth ladle is based on one in Bartolommeo Scappi’s famous cookery book of 1570, while the skimmer, for removing the scum, was used by William Coke, cook to William Cannynge of Bristol. When Coke was buried in his master’s great church, St Mary Redcliffe, in 1467, the mason simply placed it on his gravestone and carved its outline, which remains there today.
Town cress, cress that speweth in flood,
Clary, savory, thyme good won,
Parsley worth other herbs many a one.
All other herbs thou not forsake,
But best of primrose thou shalt take,
Red cole [cabbage] half part pottage is,
From June to St James tide [25 July] I wis,
Then winter his course shall hold.
In lent season porray [leeks] be bold.
On the opposite side of the Paved Passage, to the north between the dry larder and the main kitchens, were two rooms, each having a wide fireplace with a small oven set to one side of it (nos 30–31). In 1674 these were listed as the comptroller’s and master of horse’s kitchens, but this must be a later usage. From their position and their facilities, it is obvious that in the 1530s–40s they were the workhouses for the adjacent hall-place kitchen. These smaller kitchen workhouses were ideal for carrying out the more delicate cookery procedures, particularly the making of hot sauces which formed an integral part of many major dishes, and the better-quality small-scale roasting and baking. Unfortunately,
21. The Boiling House This large built-in copper boiler was supplied with spring water from a tank in the rooms above, and was heated by a typical flue system which conducted the flames first underneath and then around its upper parts.
From its position, it looks as though the boiling house was used as a preparation facility for the pastry and main kitchens too. There would certainly have been time to receive the raw meats from the larder each night or early morning, parboil some of them between, say, 5 and 7.30 a.m. for transfer to the pastry for pie- and pasty-making, or to the kitchens for roasting, and still boil a batch of 200 two-pound (900g) beef joints ready for dinner at 10 a.m. Needless to say, the boiling house would have been constantly bustling, the staff busy non-stop with trimming and trussing the joints, putting them into the copper, stoking thefire, baling out the boiled meats into kettles and pans for transfer to the pastry, the other kitchens or the serving hatches. Then, once dinner had been served, they would start all over again so as to be ready for the four o’clock supper. For all this, in addition to their wages, the boiling house staff received the strippings from the brisket joints, the grease produced from the transfer of the meat from the boiler into the kettles and pans, and the dripping from the roasts in the kitchen. 13
The major by-product of the boiling house was pottage. As the ever-informative Andrew Boorde recorded, ‘Pottage is not so much used in al Crystendom as it is used in Englande. Potage is made of the lyquor in which flesshe is sodden [boiled] in, with puttyng-to chopped herbes and oatmeal and salt.’ 14 It formed an excellent broth, with which to start any meal.
All manner of herbs good for pottage 15
Take the crop of red brier,
Red nettle crop and avens [herb bennet, Geum urbanum ] also
Primrose and violet together mostly go,
Lettuce, beets and borrage good,
22. Boiling utensils The flesh hook was used to lift the hot meat out of the boiling water – this example was found in the cellar of a house in Norwich which burned down on 25 March 1507. The large broth ladle is based on one in Bartolommeo Scappi’s famous cookery book of 1570, while the skimmer, for removing the scum, was used by William Coke, cook to William Cannynge of Bristol. When Coke was buried in his master’s great church, St Mary Redcliffe, in 1467, the mason simply placed it on his gravestone and carved its outline, which remains there today.
Town cress, cress that speweth in flood,
Clary, savory, thyme good won,
Parsley worth other herbs many a one.
All other herbs thou not forsake,
But best of primrose thou shalt take,
Red cole [cabbage] half part pottage is,
From June to St James tide [25 July] I wis,
Then winter his course shall hold.
In lent season porray [leeks] be bold.
On the opposite side of the Paved Passage, to the north between the dry larder and the main kitchens, were two rooms, each having a wide fireplace with a small oven set to one side of it (nos 30–31). In 1674 these were listed as the comptroller’s and master of horse’s kitchens, but this must be a later usage. From their position and their facilities, it is obvious that in the 1530s–40s they were the workhouses for the adjacent hall-place kitchen. These smaller kitchen workhouses were ideal for carrying out the more delicate cookery procedures, particularly the making of hot sauces which formed an integral part of many major dishes, and the better-quality small-scale roasting and baking. Unfortunately,