Mistress Margery | Page 7

"To-day?"
"Yea, to-day. Dear, dear, dear, dear! What folk must they be that live in
London town! Marry, Sir Ralph sent word by Richard Pynson, praying
us not to dine until one of the clock, for that the Lord Marnell is not
used to it at an earlier hour. I marvel when they sup! I trow it is not
until all Christian folk be a-bed!"
"Dwells the Lord Marnell in London?" inquired Margery, with surprise;
for Margery was more astonished and interested to hear of a nobleman
from London dining with her parents than a modern young lady would
be if told that a Chinese mandarin was expected.
"Yea, truly, in London dwells he, and is of the bedchamber to our Lord
the King, and a great man, Madge! Hie thee down when thou art
dressed, child, and make up thy choicest dishes. But, good Saint
Christopher! how shall I do from seven to one of the clock without
eating? I will bid Cicely serve a void at ten."
And so saying, Dame Lovell bustled downstairs as quickly as her
corpulence would allow her, and Margery followed, a few minutes later.
While the former was busy in the hall, ordering fresh rushes to be
spread, and the tables set, Margery repaired to the ample kitchen, where,
summoning the maids to assist her, and tying a large coarse apron
round her, she proceeded to concoct various dishes, reckoned at that
time particularly choice. There are few books more curious than a
cookery-book five hundred years old.
Our forefathers appear to have used joints of meat much less frequently
than the smaller creatures, whether flesh or fowl, hares, rabbits,
chickens, capons, etcetera. Of fish, eels excepted, they ate little or none
out of Lent. Potatoes, of course, they had none; and rice was so rare
that it figured as a "spice;" but to make up for this, they ate, apparently,
almost every green thing that grew in their gardens, rose-leaves not

excepted. Of salt they had an unutterable abhorrence. Sugar existed, but
it was very expensive, and honey was often used instead. Pepper and
cloves were employed in immense quantities. The article which appears
to have held with them the corresponding place to that of salt with us,
and which was never omitted in any dish, no matter what its other
component parts, was saffron. In corroboration of these remarks, I
append one very curious receipt,--a dish which formed one of the
principal covers on Sir Geoffrey Lovell's table:--
"Farsure of Hare.
"Take hares and flee [flay] hom, and washe hom in broth of fleshe with
the blode; then boyle the brothe and scome [skim] hit wel and do hit in
a pot, and more brothe thereto. And take onyons and mynce horn and
put hom in the pot, and set hit on the fyre and let hit sethe [boil], and
take bred and stepe hit in wyn and vynegur, and drawe hit up and do hit
in the potte, and pouder of pepur and clowes, and maces hole [whole],
and pynes, and raysynges of corance [currants], then take and parboyle
wel the hare, and choppe hym on gobettes [small pieces] and put him
into a faire [clean] urthen pot; and do thereto clene grese, and set hit on
the fyre, and stere hit wele tyl hit be wel fryed; then caste hit in the pot
to the broth, an do therto pouder of canell [cinnamon] and sugur; and
let hit boyle togedur, and colour hit wyth saffron, and serve hit forthe."
It will be noticed from this that our ancestors had none of our vulgar
prejudices with respect to onions, neither had they any regard to the
Scriptural prohibition of blood. The utter absence of all prescription of
quantities in these receipts is delightfully indefinite.
There were many other dishes to this important dinner beside the
"farsure of hare;" and on this occasion most of the rabbits and chickens
were entire, and not "chopped on gobbettes;" for the feast was "for a
lord," and lords were permitted to eat whole birds and beasts, while the
less privileged commonalty had to content themselves with
"gobbettes."
When Margery had concluded her preparations for dinner, she went
into the garden to gather rosemary and flowers, which she disposed in

various parts of the hall, laying large bunches of rosemary in all
available places. All was now ready, and Margery washed her hands,
took off her apron, and ran up into her own room, to pin on her
shoulder a "quintise," in other words, a long streamer of
cherry-coloured ribbon.
The guests arrived on horseback about half-past twelve, and Richard
Pynson ushered them into the hall, and ran into the kitchen to inform
Dame Lovell and Margery, adding that "he pitied Lord Marnell's
horse," a remark the