Appraylere

Carrying on from Roberts breakdown of crustade and as promised, this is what I ended up doing on Sunday...in text and pictures.

¶Appraylere.

¶Take þe fleysshe of þe lene Porke, & seþe it wel: & whan it is soþe, hew it smal; nym þan Safroun, Gyngere, Canel, Salt, Galyngale, old chese, myid Brede, & bray it smal on a morter; caste þin fleysshe in to þe spicery, & loke þat it be wil y-ground, temper it vppe with raw Eyroun; þan take a longe Pecher, al a-bowte ouer alle þat it be ransched; þan held out þin grece, & fulle þi Pechir of þin farsure, & take a pese of fayre Canneuas, & doble it as moche as þou may ceuyr þe mouþe with-al, & bynd it fast a-bowte þe berde, & caste hym to seþe with þin grete Fleysshe, in lede oþer in Cauderoun, for it be wyl soþin; take þen vppe þin Pecher, & breke it, an saf þin farsure; & haue a fayre broche, broche it þorw, & lay it to þe fyre; & þan haue a gode Bature of Spicerye, Safroun, Galyngale, Canel, þer-of y-now, & flowre, & grynd smal in a morter, & temper it vp with raw Eyroun, & do þer-to Sugre of Alisaunder y-now; & euer as it dryit, baste it with bature, & sette forth in seruyce.

To be honest, we weren't intending on doing this recipe yet mainly as I didn’t think we had the meat in store, however a bit of searching turned up enough pork to do a small scale test....next time we can try to scale it up a little.

¶Take þe fleysshe of þe lene Porke, & seþe it wel: & whan it is soþe, hew it small
Take lean pork meat, boil it well and when it’s cooked, cut it small



nym þan Safroun, Gyngere, Canel, Salt, Galyngale, old chese, myid Brede, & bray it smal on a morter
then take saffron, ginger, cassia, salt, galingale, old cheese and minced bread then grind it all together in a mortar.



caste þin fleysshe in to þe spicery, & loke þat it be wil y-ground, & temper it vppe with raw Eyroun
Add the meat to the spice mix and make sure that it’s well ground then mix it with raw egg.



þan take a longe Pecher, al a-bowte ouer alle þat it be ransched; þan held out þin grece, & fulle þi Pechir of þin farsure
this bit was one that Robert and I debated long and hard over....what does it mean? Well, your guess is as good as ours! We take the text to say roughly then take a long pitcher, rinsed all over, then tip out the grease and fill the pitcher with the meat mix. What we weren’t sure about was the rinsing and grease part, but in the end settled on rinsing the inside with grease to stop the mix from sticking to it.



As it turns out, the last image above shows how full I'd filled the pot.....which turned out to be too full and was the root cause of our 'trouble' later on

take a pese of fayre Canneuas, & doble it as moche as þou may ceuyr þe mouþe with-al, & bynd it fast a-bowte þe berde, & caste hym to seþe with þin grete Fleysshe, in lede oþer in Cauderoun
take a piece of canvas and cover the mouth of the pitcher tying it firmly in place, then put it in to boil with your meat in a lead or cauldron...... here again the lede gives us some confusion, but scope for further work.



for it be wyl soþin; take þen vppe þin Pecher, & breke it, an saf þin farsure
When it is well boiled, take it out and break the pitcher to get to the contents
Who’d have believed that something so simple could have ended up promoting so much smut and depravity.........in ladies of an age that should know better too bless them! There was no getting away from the fact that if you had a smutty mind.....and we did, the shape of the cooked meat was rather like........well, you decide, our crowd certainly did!?!



The ominous bulge should have given us a clue as to the trouble ahead......that and those two ladies...



haue a fayre broche, broche it þorw, & lay it to þe fyre; & þan haue a gode Bature of Spicerye, Safroun, Galyngale, Canel, þer-of y-now, & flowre, & grynd smal in a morter, & temper it vp with raw Eyroun, & do þer-to Sugre of Alisaunder y-now; & euer as it dryit, baste it with bature, & sette forth in seruyce.
Put the meat onto a clean spit and put it in front of the fire......As it was a little late in the day when we got round to this part, we had to make do with pumping up one of the charcoal stoves for our roasting fire as there wasn’t enough heat left in the main fire to do the job (we can’t run the fire at full pelt all day as it then takes several hours to cool down to a level that it won’t need supervision – something we learnt to our cost a few years ago!)..then baste it with a batter made from egg, flour, sugar, saffron, galingale and cassia; when done, serve it.




And the taste...........remarkably like the raw mix tasted before the egg went in!?! A sort of spiced meat loaf I suppose.....unfortunately nowhere near as spectacular as all the work that goes into it would lead you to think it should have.

Oh well, maybe it'll be different next time?

Off to the Oxford Symposium tomorrow, not sure what that'll bring but I'm sure that there'll be something to tell over the weekend.