reference: robert-may-1660

(Or ellicksander)

A salad of Alexander buds, in a lemon dressing.

A thickened almond-flavoured drink. Commonly ale and white wine boiled with sugar, stamped almonds, sweet spices and bread to thicken. (WM 1658, Robert May 1660...

Custard flavoured with almond. (Robert May 1660, Moxon 1764, etc)

(or Sparagus or sparrow-Grass, sparagi, perage, sperach, sparage, asparage, sparagus, sparagras, sparrowgrass in older texts)

Yeast-raised barley bread is known from ancient times, but, it being, presumably, a commonplace product there was no need to write down any receipts. It is ment...

A pie of gobbets of mixed soft and unusual meats in a savoury sauce. Most receipts include small chicken, young pigeon, sweetbread, lamb's testicles, coxcombs a...

A large sausage made of blood and suet, sometimes with flour or oatmeal. English black pudding sausages, or blood pudding, have two distinct forms, the 'Bury' l...

Small chunks of bread soaked in milk (or tea), mixed with a little fat (butter or suet), dried fruit and sweet spices, pressed into a mould and baked. Served co...

Beer boiled with egg, sweet spices and butter. Known at least since the 16Cent it occasionally pops up right into modern times. As recently as 1936 we learn tha...

Scrambled eggs made with a very high proportion of butter (Eaton 1822, Mrs.B etc).

A much prized dish from earliest times to the beginning of the 20th Century, almost always served whole, boiled and trimmed, as a centrepiece to be carved at ta...

Curd cheese mixed with sugar and whole eggs, in shortcrust base, baked. A form of Pudding Pie

Very tiny pies, known from late medieval times (c1390) up to the early 17th Century. Probably similar to the modern Whist Pie.

Hog guts filled with dates, herbs, rosewater, sugar and eggs (Robert May 1660, Wooley 1672, etc).

“A gastronomic paradox: the most English of dishes, made from the most un-English ingredients”

'Devonshire Dairy' milk cart at Greenwich, 1884

Rabbit or hare filled with a rich stuffing of bread, fruit, herbs and spices. Known from several early sources, the version given here from Robert May 1660 is b...

Dish of eel pieces with butter, currants and sweet spices under a pastry cover (Robert May 1660, Glasse 1747, Rundell 1807, etc).

Cooked eggs with a spiced sauce. The phrase also appears in Elizabethan and early modern texts to indicate 'an impossible fancy'.

A name used for various types of toasted bread.

Frogs have very rarely played any part in English cooking. With one or two historical exceptions...

Grains, usually hulled cracked wheat (as 'Bulgur' wheat), or occasionally barley, boiled in milk (for a sweet desert dish) or stock (for a savoury accompaniment...

Nowadays gingerbread is most usually a form of biscuit made with a proportion of oats, but many makers follow the older form of a softer, more bread-like, produ...

A number of quickly-made dished have been called 'hasty pudding', most usually simply flour, oats, wheat, breadcrumbs or barley boiled in water, but occasionall...

Lampreys (Petromyzon), sometimes known as 'nine eyes' because their seven extra eye-like gill slits, are primitive eel-like river animals. They live by attachin...

Boiled sausage of minced liver, often with egg and spices (AW 1591)

A pie of gobbets, usually of meat, in highly-seasoned savoury custard.

Thick cookies made from stiffly beaten egg white with sugar and either ground almonds or desiccated coconut, dropped into masses onto a sheet and baked until cr...

Musk flavoured sweets, to freshen the breath (Murrell 1617, etc). A form of Kissing Comfit (qv).

Beef tongues, dried and smoked to preserve them. In common usage from about 1550 to 1790. WM 1658 has them salted with ordinary salt and saltpetre (E252), dried...

A type of bread pudding, similar to bread-and-butter pudding, with dates and spices.

Blood puddings (Black Puddings) with a high proportion of oatmeal and flavouring herbs.

"To bake Oysters shels and all" .. a closed pie containing oysters in their shells with cloves and butter (Huswife 1594, Wooley 1672, etc)

Pancakes of pudding batter, lightly cooked on both sides, typically 8" diameter by 1/8" thick. Served hot rolled-up with sugar (or honey) and lemon on 'Pancake ...

Boiled and pulped peas, reheated with butter, parsley, chives and seasoning (Robert May 1660, Eaton 1822).

A hot drink of ale, or ocasionally wine, with milk and spices. The name has more recently been transferred to Caudles and Syllabubs

Potato batons, fried.

An early version of Rice Pudding, generally made with milk and almonds, highly flavoured.

Short grain rice boiled or baked in sweetened milk or cream until sticky. Flavourings, commonly nutmeg, but sometimes vanilla, almonds or a few raisins are occa...

A mix of fresh leaves with, for instance, tomato, onions, beetroot etc. Many earlier receipts (Robert May 1660, Francatelli 1852, Evelyn 1699) include mint leav...

Now usually a double crust pie, commonly of puff pastry, the fish in a white sauce.

(Not to be confused with the beef dish 'Sanders or Saunders')

Whole eggs lightly agitated until semi-set over a direct heat and served on toasted bread. (Robert May 1660, Bradley 1728, etc.)

Scurvy-grass, spoonwort, is Cochlearia a salt-tolerant herb of the cabbage family with sharp, bitter leaves used in salads and in seafood stews (Evelyn 1699). I...

Snails crushed in beer, with herbs, distilled, "for weak Children, and old People" (WM 1671, Family Guide 1747, Robert May 1660, etc).

(Although snails are clearly not a fish, they are customarily classified among shellfish, there not being anywhere else to put them)

Eel cut into small pieces, coated in herbs and breadcrumbs, fried.

Filling of beef chunks in gravy, often with onion.

Lamb joint, typically boned leg or rolled loin, filled with breadcrumb and herb stuffing, roasted.

Sweet tarts of thin pastry filled with slices of apple or (less commonly) some other fruit.

A pudding or omelette of green leaf vegetables with fillers such as breadcrumbs, flavoured with tansy. Formerly popular at Easter-time.

A general name for light, cold, whipped deserts composed of cream with various ingredients, such as Fools and Syllabub.

Umbles are the meaty parts of a beast's pluck - the heart, liver, kidneys and lungs - usually of a deer, but also of other animals.

The acid juice of green or unripe grapes, crab-apples, or other sour fruit, used in cooking or as a table condiment in much the same way as vinegar. It appears ...

Now usually a series of decorated fruit cakes formed in tiers served to the guests at a wedding breakfast. Usually covered in white icing with motifs including ...