Christmas is coming!
Early Chistmas pud. Medieval style
Warrior’s Surrender Exclusive Excerpt!
Return from the third Christmas celebration, Mass of the Day, marked the end of Christmas formalities and the beginning of the feasting.
An enormous roast boar was the centerpiece of the Christmas table, along with several roasted geese. A Christmas pudding called a frumenty, a thick wheat- based dish filled with currants and dried fruit, and spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, finished the final course for the evening.
Despite the lateness of the hour after such a busy day, the younger members of the Keep determined to work off their excessive feasting with dancing. One of the knights obtained a mandolin and started singing a folk carol.
Okay, okay, you didn’t need me to remind you, but if you’re looking for some Medieval fare to share at the table, give frumenty a try!
One of the first documented recipes for frumenty can be found in the 1390 manuscript The Forme of Cury. Written by a master cook from the court of Richard II (1377-1399), this is one of the oldest known cookery manuscripts in the English language. A British Library conservator helped me view it, carefully unrolling it and holding it steady with purpose-made lead “snakes”. As a physical object it’s impressive – made of calfskin vellum stitched together at 30cm intervals, it’s more than 12ft long and contains 196 recipes. It’s in amazingly good nick considering it’s more than 600 years old.
It’s a bit like porridge except it’s base is wheat instead of oat. According to various recipes, it could be served plain as an accompaniment to meat dishes or it could be sweetened with honey, nuts and dried fruits as a sweet dish.
Here’s the original recipe:
‘To make frumente. Tak clene whete & braye yt wel in a morter tyl the holes gon of; seethe it til it breste in water. Nym it up & lat it cole. Tak good broth & swete mylk of kyn or of almand & tempere it therwith. Nym yelkes of eyren rawe & saffroun & cast therto; salt it: lat it naught boyle after the etren ben cast therinne. Messe it forth.’
Hmm, not as easy as it looks, but fortunately there is a translation from Middle English into Modern English in the link above.
Incidentally, ‘Furmity’ served with fruit and a slug of rum, plays a major role in Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge‘, which also has the added benefit of being Hardy’s least ‘slit your wrists depressing’ titles.