jay wrote:

> Nice...but, the recipe page is hard to read and I couldn't find some of
> them. I went to a Renaissance fair once and the only food I found there
> was turkey drumsticks and funnel cake.
>
> Seems that some translation would be good if you really want someone to try
> any of this. I really don't quite know what to do preparation wise with
> instructions like this:
>
> *an whan [th]ey haue boyle a whyle, take pouder of gyngere an caste
> [th]er-to, an a lytil venegre, an a lytil safron; an loke [th]at it be
> poynaunt an dowcet.*
>
> ..and can you even get this stuff at the grocery store?

I've taken your post to heart and am adding my redactions to the
recipes.

Most of the ingredients can be readily purchased in today's
supermarkets, some of the spices require a little internet-shopping. A
Google search will bring you several sources for grains of paradise,
long peppers, galanga and cubebs. I like <a
href="www.thespicehouse.com/"> The Spice House</a> for most of my
spices, but they don't carry everything needed. Trader Joes has
inexpensive saffron, and sometimes rose water as well as a very nice
organic almond extract. Finding quince can be a challenge.

Authentic Period recipes are often just a list of ingredients with
little or no instructions on how to prepare them. This is true from
Roman times through the Victorian period. Many "receipts' from my copy
of Queen of the Household (1890) are just ingredient lists. It would
seem that it is assumed you already know what the finished food should
look like, and how to prepare the oven, etc.

My first goal was to simply list the recipes as found in their original
text, or a faximile thereof gleaned from ingredient lists and other
sources. For example, I do not have an original text for Twekesbury
mustard, and, as far as I know, one was never published. (If you find
an original text, please let me know). Yet Twekebury muistard was
common enough during the Elizabethan period to have been mentioned by
Shakespeare. "His wit was as thick as Twekesbury mustard." -- ah-hah it
should be thick! This is true for most breads and simple porridge, as
well; there are very few surviving recipes for these basic foods. You
were taught to make bread by example, and a written recipe would have
been useless to most folks given the literacy rate, not to mention the
paper it would have been written upon was prohibitively expensive.

I will be working on adding recipes that cannot be found elsewhere on
the net, and will include my personal redactions (as time permits).
Here is a website of resources I use often: <a
href="http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/food.html"> Medieval and Renaissance
Food Resources</a>.

Enjoy!

Aloha!

Barb