Microsoft Word - Review 3_2023.docx SELIM. Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature. 28 (2023): 113–119. ISSN: 1132-631X DOI: 10.17811/selim.28.2023.113-119 © Ediuno. Ediciones de la Universidad de Oviedo. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Guzmán González, Trinidad. 2022. Espejo del Arte de Cocina. De la Corte del rey Ricardo, el Segundo de Inglaterra tras la conquista. Folia Medievalia, 8. León: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de León-Inst. Estudios Medievales. Pp. 211. ISBN 9788418490552. Reviewed by J. Camilo Conde Silvestre University of Murcia Forme of Cury (“the correct manner of cookery”) is the well-known catchphrase in two late-medieval English manuscripts: University of Manchester, John Rylands Library MS English 7 and London, British Library, Additional MS 5016. The former is a ninety-one- folio vellum codex written in anglicana formata, possibly around 1390 or earlier (53; see also Hieatt 1988; Archives Hub, Forme of Cury n.d.). The latter is a vellum roll—one of the only three that survive from medieval Europe (51); it contains eight membranes written in gothic script around 1420 (51; British Library, Digitised Manuscripts n.d.). Both manuscripts contain a brief preface, with very similar wording: [The] forme of cury was compiled of the chef Maister Cokes of kyng Richard the Se[cu]nde kyng of [En]glond aftir the Conquest ⸱ the which was accounted þe best and ryallest vyanund[ier] of alle cristen [k]ynges. And it was compiled by assent and auysement of Maisters of phisik and of philosophie þat dwellid in his court. First it techiþ man for to make commune potages and commune mettis for howshold as þey shold be made craftly and holsomely. Aftirwa[rd] it techiþ for to make curious potages & meetes and sotiltees for alle manere of states both h[y]e and lowe. And the techyng of the fourme of makyng of potages & of meetes bot[he] of flessh and of fissh ⸱ buth yssete here by noumbre and by ordre ⸱ so þis litle table [he]re sewyng wole teche a man with oute taryyng: to fynde what meete þat hym lust for to haue. (Hieatt and Butler 1985, 20). Este Espejo del Arte de Cocina es una compilación del Cocinero Mayor del rey Ricardo, el segundo de Inglaterra tras la conquista, del cual se contaba que fue el mejor anfitrión real de entre todos los reyes cristianos. Fue recopilado con la aprobación y el consejo de los doctores en medicina y en filosofía que habitaban en su Corte. En primer lugar, enseña a preparar potajes y comidas ordinarias para el hogar, tal y como deberían hacerse, con oficio y saludables. Después, enseña a hacer potajes y comidas suntuosas, y sutilezas, para toda clase de estamentos, altos y bajos. Y la enseñanza del modo de preparar potajes y comidas tanto a base de carne como de pescado se presenta aquí organizada por número y orden, de modo que esta pequeña tabla que sigue sirva de guía para, sin demora, encontrar el plato que apetezca tomar (67–8). A numbered table of recipes (up to 195 in MS Add. 5016) follows. Owners of MS English 7 include a “Dominus Iohannes Walsh” in the sixteenth century, Lord Crawford in the nineteenth and Mrs. Enriqueta Rylands in the early twentieth (Archives Hub, Forme of Cury n.d.). The holders of MS Add. 5016 were, among others, Baron Edward Stafford https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6985-0036 BOOK REVIEWS 114 (1535–1603) who presented the roll to Queen Elizabeth I in 1586; thence the first and second Earls of Oxford and Mortimer, Robert Harley (1661–1724) and Edward Harley (1689–1741), as well as the antiquaries James West (1703–1772) and Gustavus Brander (1719/20–1787). In the eighteenth century, copies of the roll were made by Thomas Hearne in 1727 (Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Rawlison D 194) and by Samuel Pegge in 1780, who added a number of contemporary recipes from Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Douce 257, ff. 86r-96v (c. 1381) (Pegge [1780] 2005). Pegge’s text was reprinted by Richard Warner with the title Antiquitates Culinariae: Tracts on Culinary Affairs of the Old English (1791). The text, together with four contemporary collections, was edited by Constance B. Hieatt and Sharon Butler for the Early English Text Society in 1985.1 The introductory words above point to some special characteristics of this collection. On the one hand, it was originally composed during the reign of King Richard II, between 1377 and 1399. Its author, albeit anonymous, was no other than “the chef Maister Cokes” of the king, although he was generally “auyse[d] of Maisters of phisik and of philosophie þat dwellid in his court.” This is a clue to the close links between medieval cookery and medicine, to such an extent that doctors often advised cooks as to what dishes suited kings best and on how to prepare them in proper Hippocratic terms, i.e. to better improve the balance of humours.2 In the preface, a clear distinction is also made between “commune potages and commune mettis for howshold” and “curious potages & meetes and sotiltees”, which directly points to the wide range of recipes comprised: from basic foodstuff for the everyday table ― Grounden benes (“Para hacer habas partidas,” no. 1), Caboches in potage (“Sopa de repollo,” no. 4), Tredure (“Sopa de pan rallado,” no. 15), Perrey of pesoun (“Puré de guisantes,” no. 69) or Fenkel in soppes (“Sopas de hinojo,” no. 76) ― to more elaborate dishes involving all types of meats and fish available: Roo broth (“Estofado de corzo,” no. 14), Capouns in councy (“Capones en pepitoria,” no. 22), Hares in papdele (“Liebres sobre pappardelle,” no. 24), Pygges in sawse sawge (“Lechones en salsa de salvia,” no. 29), Peiouns ystewed (“Pichones estofados,” no. 47), Congur in sawse (“Congrio en salsa,” no. 103), Cawdel of saumon (“Caldereta de salmón,” no. 110) or Porpeys in broth (“Marsopa en caldo,” no. 132), to name but a few. There are also recipes for desserts ― Cawdel ferry (“Dulce de vino quemado,” no. 41), Payn ragoun (“Turrón de piñones,” no. 66), Peres in confy (“Peras al vino,” no. 131), Letelorye (“Flan de huevo,” no. 80) and the famous Ypocras (“Hipocrás,” no. 190) with medieval literary resonances. At the end of the codices a number of “sotiltées” are described: these were illusory recipes (“trampantojos”), sources of entertainment as well 1 This edition does not include the codex MS English 7 at John Rylands, but collates MS Add. 5016 with seven other witnesses, all of them produced later than English 7, in the fifteenth century: Durham, University Library Cosin MS V. iii. 11; London, British Library Cotton MS Julius D viii; London, British Library Harley MS 1605; London, British Library, Arundel MS 33414; New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, Bühler MS 36; New York, Public Library, Whitney MS 114 and Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS 394D. 2 It is not unexpected, in this sense, that medieval recipes are frequently scattered in miscellaneous manuscripts or in herbals and collections of medical recipes as attested by London, British Library, MS Sloane 374 and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS C.C.C. F 291 (Hieatt and Butler 1985, 18, fn. 1). Special treatises on the “hygiene” of eating started to be published from the late fifteenth century, like Theobaldus Anguilbertus’s Mensa Philosophica (1509), edited in 1936 by Michael Scot and Arthur S. Way with the catchy title The Science of Dining, Mensa Philosophica: A Medieval Treatise on the Hygiene of the Table and the Laws of Health. BOOK REVIEWS 115 as nourishment for very special occasions at court which “intentan engañar al ojo del comensal, presentándole un alimento como si fuera otro” (181) (“intended to cheat the diners’ eyes by giving some foodstuff the shape of another”― my translation), like Cokagrys (“Cotagres,” no. 174), with the shape of the mythological basiliscus, made by sewing the head and chest of a roasted rooster to the lower hinds of a piglet, or Chastletes (no. 188): a small castle with different towers made of gode past (“buena masa”) variously stuffed with “a fars of pork with gode poudour & ayren rawe wiþ salt & […] with safroun […] fars of fyges, of raysouns, of apples, of peeres” all cooked in the oven (Hieatt and Butler 1985, 143) (“una farsa de cerdo hecha con buena carne, huevo crudo y sal […] con azafrán […] una farsa de higos, pasas, manzanas y peras” [151]). Four brief notes on how to quarter the “[l]oyne of the pork” (no. 54) and to slice “[f]yletes” (no. 55) and on the best ways to season “[c]ranes and herouns” (no. 145) or “[p]okok and pertruch” (no. 146) (“el pavo real y la perdiz”) are interspersed among the recipes. The implicit reference in this prelude to the universal social status of its intended audience—“for alle manere of states both h[y]e and lowe”—is not to be understood to the letter, mainly because the conspicuous social gaps between members of the upper and lower ranks impinged on their respective access to some or other raw products of better or worse quality: meats and especially fowl were served on festive occasions and only at the higher tables, while fruits, particularly citrus ones, were difficult to get.3 As regards condiments, herbs—persel (“perejil”), coriandre (“cilantro”), basyle (“albahaca”), cyuys (“cebollino”), sawge (“salvia”), mynt (“menta”), saueray (“ajedrea”), rosemarye (“romero”), etc.—were favoured over the more expensive spices by the common people; the cheapest spices were peper and gynger, otherwise sugur (“azúcar”), saundres (“sándalo [for colouring]”), anese (“anís blanco”), safroun (“azafrán”), clowes (“clavos”), canell (“canela”), macys (“macís”), cardamum (“cardamomo”), alkenet (“onoquiles”) or galyngale (“galanga”), among others, were used only in noble households and at the court, as splendidly named in the manuscript. Interestingly, it was this social polarisation in culinary terms at a time of intense social mobility, ambitions and aspirations after the mid-fourteenth century crisis, that contributed to make cookery books flourish all throughout Europe:4 … son la expresión escrita del ascenso social de una profesión cuya élite eran los responsables de las cocinas reales y de la alta nobleza. Los más y menos poderosos se miraban en estos espejos en lo que tocaba a arquitectura, vestido, ocio, etc. y mantener una buena mesa, tanto en lo privado como en lo público, era parte de este mismo juego (46). 3 “When Eleanor of Castile, homesick of the fruits of her native Spain, sent a ship to bring her some in 1289, the total citrus cargo consisted of 17 lemons and 7 oranges” (Hieatt and Butler 1985, 12). 4 Patently, the five guildsmen in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales—haberdasher, carpenter, weaver, dyer and tapestry maker—all of them members of the middle ranks, are the only characters travelling in the company of a professional cook, who was well able to “boille the chickres with the mary (46, fn. 23; see also Shaw Fairman 1991). Incidentally, Chaucer’s cook was able to prepare some of the recipes listed in Forme of Cury, like “poudre-marchant tart and galynngale”—“polvo merchant” (178) and “galantina” (170)—(“General Prologue”, line 381; Benson ed. 1988, 29). BOOK REVIEWS 116 “they are the written expression of the social promotion of a profession at the top of which were those in charge of royal and high nobility kitchens. The powerful and the not- so-powerful looked at themselves in these mirrors, as regards architecture, clothing, entertainment, etc. and providing for a good table, both privately and in public, was part of the same sport” (my translation) Nevertheless, this claim for universality was probably a mere mannerism and the most likely intended audience was made of “personal cualificado y con responsabilidades del servicio de unas mansiones, que sabrían leer” (46) (“highly qualified and literate personnel with responsibility in the service of stately homes and mansions”—my translation). Hints leading to this conclusion are the lack of specific instructions— measures, cooking times, ingredients in ground preparations—as well as the roll format of the manuscript itself, easier to handle at the kitchen dependencies than a thick volume, in addition to the well-arranged numbered index of recipes at the beginning “to fynde what meete þat hym lust for to haue.” Trinidad Guzmán González has translated Forme of Cury into Spanish for the series Folia Medievalia, published by the Institute of Medieval Studies at the University of León. Guzmán González is a senior lecturer at the Department of Modern Languages, with a renown scholarly career as a specialist in English philology and historical linguistics. Some references in the volume to her personal and practical interest in cooking make her a most suitable mediator to introduce medieval English cookery in our country. In this sense, qualifying the volume as a mere translation is certainly inappropriate. In fact, the Spanish version comprises only one hundred pages out of 257 (57–155), the rest of the volume is an encyclopedic exercise of contextualisation of the two manuscripts ― except for a brief preface by Julio César Santoyo (15–6), who highlights the author’s philological vocation, and a prologue by Santiago G. Fernández- Corugedo where some Spanish analogues are discussed, from the medieval Arte Cisoria by Enrique de Villena (1423) to the present-day ubiquitous 1080 Recetas de Cocina by Simone Ortega (1972). An introductory section (“Estudio preliminar”, 33–55) thoroughly deals with the historical, textual and linguistic backgrounds of the recipe books. Among other aspects, the historical context from the Norman conquest to the fourteenth century and the figure of king Richard II (1367–1400) are discussed. The social background, training and functions of “the chef Master Cokes” (“Maese cocinero”) are also explored, highlighting his connections with a team of stewards and doctors at court, but also with other skilled labourers and apprentices: “asadores, potajeros, salseros, panaderos, reposteros, pinches, despenseros, etc.” (43) (“roasters, potage and sauce makers, bakers, confectioners, scullions, cellarers, etc.”—my translation). Some practicalities of medieval cookery are also touched upon in this introduction, from its close association with medicine, to the ingredients employed and their social connotations, through the diplomatic and political functions of big, ostentatious banquets: their preparation, arrangement of services and courses, and the entertainments (“entremeses”) performed during the long periods involved, not disregarding the rich and varied presentation of some dishes as sotiltées. A thorough analysis of the Anglo-Norman and Middle English traditions behind Forme of Cury (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries) is also undertaken, together with some parallels in Latin and French collections, such as Liber de coquina ubi diuersitates cibarum docentur (c. 1300–1309) or Le Viandier de BOOK REVIEWS 117 Taillerent (c. 1300) (see Hieatt 2002) and in later English volumes, like the fifteenth- century A Boke of Kokery (c. 1449) or John Russel’s Book of Nurture (1460–1470) (see Austin 1888). The introduction also discusses the manuscript tradition of Forme of Cury, particularly focusing on Pegge’s eighteenth-century copy and on the two witnesses translated ― British Library, Additional MS 5016 and John Rylands Library, MS English 7. Finally, Guzmán González briefly touches on the language of the originals, mainly regarding Norman and French vocabulary, since other linguistic dimensions are considered unnecessary for the purposes of the volume. While the introduction clearly addresses the historical, cultural, manuscript and textual backgrounds, a commented glossary (“Glosario comentado”) (157–83), in addition to the recipes themselves, satiate the reader’s hunger for the gastronomical background. This is an alphabetical list of over forty technical terms and expressions recurring in several recipes. The list includes simple ingredients—“almidón” (ME amidoun), “agraz” (ME verjuice), “azúcar” (ME sugur), “conejo” (ME connyng), “el mejor pan blanco” (ME payndemayn), among others—as well as complex ones, such as “buen caldo” (ME gode broth), “salsa de cebollino” (ME civet) and ground condiments based on mixed spices and herbs: “polvo dulce” (ME powdour douce), “polvo fuerte” (ME powdour fort), “polvo merchant” (ME powdour marchant), etc. All of them are fully described in terms of preparation (for complex ingredients), origins and use in medieval cookery. Other items in this glossary refer to utensils—“cedazo” (ME sarce), “estameña” (ME straynour cloth)—and even liturgical issues, thus emphasising the dependency of medieval daily customs, like fasting, on church decisions: “témporas” (ME ymbre day), “días de carne” (ME fleissh day) or “días de pescado” (ME fyssh day). The precise information given by the translator on how to cook each of these ground preparations contrasts with the lack of attention paid to basic procedures by the author(s) of the medieval collection; this is another clue that the vellum roll was intended for well-trained specialists, as an assortment of annotations for internal purposes. Highlighted across both sections is the French groundwork of medieval English cookery, together with the Mediterranean and Eastern (mainly Arabic) influences “traída[s] no sólo por los cruzados, sino también filtrada por la cocina andalusí, la italiana, la catalana, muy entremezcladas con el reino normando de Sicilia” (42) (“imported not only by the Crusaders, but also filtered through Andalusian cuisine, Italian, Catalan, mixed together with practices from the Norman kingdom of Sicily” ― my translation), mainly as regards “the aesthetics of the table, an accent on certain traditional exotic ingredients and a bias towards rich, sweet flavors” (Fernández- Armesto 2002, 181; see also Adamson 2004, 98–130). Mediterranean influence is clearly reflected in Norman-based ― Blank desorree (no. 37), Mounchelet (“Monchelet,” no. 16), Bukkenade (no. 17) ― Italian ― papdele (“pappardele,” no. 24), Raphioles (“Raffyols,” no. 152), Makerouns (“Macarrones,” no. 91) ― Sirian and Persian ― Mawmenee (no. 20), egurdouce (“escabeche,” no. 132) ― and Spanish-Arabic recipes: Nysebek (“Porras,” no. 172), Spynoches yfried (“Espinacas fritas,” no. 179), Payn puff (“Tarta de hojaldre,” no. 195) or Sawse Sarzyne (“Salsa a la sarracena,” no. 83), among many others. The brevity and lack of context, the fragmentary nature and the absence of a direct description of some basic preparations, together with the existence of several hapax legomena, pose serious difficulties for the Spanish translator. Despite these problems, Guzmán González is successful in this enterprise, assisted by a plethora of historical BOOK REVIEWS 118 dictionaries and present-day reference works, by her acquaintance with parallel contemporary and later recipe books (not all of them published, but available in manuscript format), as well as by a philological rigour, which occasionally result in corrections to previous editions and even emendations to the manuscript sources. Stylistically, some decisions have helped her to convey a sense of foreignness and distance in time: keeping the original recipe titles when no direct translation into Spanish exists and directly rendering the medieval designations for some generic preparations, often repeated. The author’s encyclopedic zeal is also reflected in the 301 footnotes that accompany both the introduction, the translation and the commented glossary. They range from the purely philological (etymology, interpretation of the original terminology) and paleographical ones, to the bibliographical, including contemporary treatises and analogues, through gastronomical issues like the existing parallels with continental food and with exotic Mediterranean and Eastern preparations and ingredients. Quite a few of these footnotes are personal reflections of the author, whose own practical experience of cooking is often applied to figure out ambiguous or difficult references in the original manuscripts. In the same vein, the volume closes with a complete list of references (185– 97) subdivided into six sections ― primary sources, recipe books, dictionaries, corpus and reference works, literary texts and general bibliography ― and an index (199–211) of personal and place names, historical events, ingredients, techniques and utensils. Finally, it is worth emphasising that this Espejo, like its medieval ancestors, is lavishly illustrated with eighty images, drawn from illuminations of fourteenth and fifteenth-century manuscripts mainly of English and Norman origin, but also German, Italian and Spanish. This selection of fully-coloured pictures from herbals, bestiaries, psalters and book of hours, among others, punctuate the cultural references in the preliminary section and the glossary, as well as visually depicting the animals, vegetables, ingredients, utensils and everyday activities performed in a medieval English kitchen. This is another asset for a very valuable volume, which is a must for the shelves of Spanish medievalists, philologists as well as cooks, both amateur and professional. References Adamson, Melitta Weiss. 2004. Food in Medieval Times. London: Greenwood Press. Archives Hub, n.d.: Forme of Cury. Accessed December 24, 2022. https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb133-engms7. Austin, Thomas, ed. 1888. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. London: Early English Text Society / N. Trübner and Co. Benson, Larry D., ed. 1988. The Riverside Chaucer. Oxford: Oxford University Press. British Library. Digitised Manuscripts n.d.: Add. MS 5016. Accessed December 24, 2022. https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_5016. Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. 2002. Near a Thousand Tables. A History of Food. New York: Free Press. Hieatt, Constance B. 1988. “Further notes on the Forme of Cury et al.: additions and corrections.” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 70 (1): 45–52. BOOK REVIEWS 119 Hieatt, Constance B. 2002. “Medieval England.” In Regional Cuisines of Medieval Europe, edited by Melitta Weiss Adamson, 19–46. London: Routledge. Hieatt, Constance B., and Sharon Butler. 1985. Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century (including the Forme of Cury) (Early English Text Society, Supplementary Series 8). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pegge, Samuel. (1780) 2005. The Forme of Cury. A Roll of Ancient English Cookery Compiled, about A.D. 1390. London 1780 / Project Gutenberg. Accessed November 24, 2022. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8102. Scott, Michael, and Arthur S. Way. 1936. The Science of Dining, Mensa Philosophica: A Medieval Treatise on the Hygiene of the Table and the Laws of Health. London: MacMillan and Co. Shaw Fairman, Patricia. 1991. “‘Of fish and flesh and tender breede / Of win both white and rede’: Eating and Drinking in Middle English Narrative Texts.” Selim. Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature 1 (1): 7–28. Warner, Richard. 1791. Antiquitates Culinariae: Tracts on Culinary Affairs of the Old English. London. (Received 11/01/2023)