Welcome to How To Cook That, I’m Ann Reardon
and today we are making recipes from a scroll that is 600 years old! These are the first ever recipes to be written
down in English. They were recorded by the master chefs for
King Richard II. Let’s start with the creme of almonds … now
you might notice that this is really hard to read not just because it’s in calligraphy
but the spelling of the words is quite different to how we do it now, so I’m going to get some
help reading it. Creme of almond take almond blanched grind
hem and draw hem up thykke, what’s hem? Them. Ah but it’s just hem. Fet hem oy they’re fair and boil hem. I like this. Fet hem adou and spryng hem with vyneg. Craft them, cast
them abrode a cloth. And cast upon hem fug! fug! Whan is colde … gather it together, gather
it together and left it in dyfsh i love lefting my things in die fish. In case that didn’t make sense take almonds
that are blanched grind them, i assume with a mortar and pestle. Grinding things by hand is so so time-consuming
and i’m not very skilled at it this is about as fine as i can get, next it says to mix
them up thick but it doesn’t say what to mix them with so i’m guessing we need to add some
water here because after that it says we need to set them over the fire and boil them and
we can’t boil them unless there’s some sort of liquid. These recipes of course have no pictures so
i’m not 100 per cent sure what we’re going for i don’t know how long we’re supposed to
heat it for but next it says set them ado which i think means set them goodbye or perhaps
we would say take them off the heat and sprinkle them with vinegar. Cast them abroad upon a cloth that’s fairly
straightforward and cast upon them sugar, I’m not sure how much but i guess that’ll
do it and when it is cold gather it together. Look at that this just gathers together really
well actually it clumps when you press it on itself. Who knows if this is what it’s supposed to
look like there’s a fair bit of guesswork when you’re making a medieval recipe because
they don’t have many details and then it says left in the dyfsh and if we look at the word
dyfsh … often the f’s in this scroll are actually s’s and the y’s are where we would
put an i, so that’s likely to be leave it in the dish. I’m actually going to serve mine in the cloth
so let’s see how it tastes… Alrighty let’s have a look … it looks almost
like cheese. I don’t know how to describe it it’s like
it has like coffee underlying flavor but then it’s like a crunchy almond as well it’s pretty
good. The first impression is really sweet like
you can tell it’s a dessert but then the aftertaste is very savory mmm it’s not quite a biscuit. Not quite cake, not a slice it is almondy. I wouldn’t choose to eat it today if we had
it in the cupboard. On to recipe number two. For to make Hony Doufe. Tac god mike of armandees and rice and wash
hem well in fire vessel and in a fair hoth water hoth water … one for all the star
wars fans. Wait I’m confused how can I can wash that
but how can I wash milk of almond maybe they don’t want milk of almonds maybe they just
want normal almonds I don’t know I’ll try that I’ll wash the rice and almonds in a vessel
with hot water and then I’ll strain the water off now after washing in hot water the skins
of the almonds come off really easily and I’m wondering if washing them was just to
remove dirt or if we’re supposed to peel the almonds too but they don’t mention that I’m
gonna peel them anyway what’s next and after do hem in a fair towel for to dry and wan
they be dry bray hem well in a mortar. Al to flowr. oh smash it in a mortar to flour. So was this almond milk or were they just
crushing the almonds? It was very confusing. And afterward which is actually about the
only word spelled the same afterward … let’s take two parties so I’m assuming you split
it and do half in a pot and the other half in another pot and color color color color
that on why wyth the fafron wife the fafron he was out of the Game of Thrones Wife the
Fafron … and latch that other be what and lax what what how are you meant to read this? And lat that other be white and let their
boil till it be thicker! And do there to a god party of fuga … what’s
a God party?🎄🎅🏻 All right i think it’s a good part of sugar
… a good part but that’s not even like an amount how are you meant to know what a good
part is? Yeah there’s no amounts in the whole recipe. Wow! And after drefel dressled dre for it … and loki that thou have almandys … boylid
in water and I have no idea what’s going on here this is this is fun this is like a first
copy of writing my book and in fafron and in wynn and I have to fray him … hold up
did it just say look that thou have almonds boiled in water and in saffron and in wine? Because i didn’t know I was supposed to use
any wine it didn’t mention that until now and after that it said to fry them hmm, I
guess I don’t know what am I gonna do I don’t want to fry a big lump of stuff maybe I’ll
be able to break a bit off and roll it into balls. And fat him upon the fire death met and flew
thereon vulgar that it be well you color and ferve yt forth … nice. Now it’s time to see what they taste like
look like donut balls. Medieval donuts. I think I smelt these cooking before were
these the ones that I said it smelled really good? okay I’m i’m excited for these ones. It’s like a mouthful of almonds not bad. A lot more dense than I was expecting like
i thought they were going to be light and fluffy but they taste good and that’s pretty
much exactly what it is it’s a donut bowl covered in sugar would you eat those yeah
they’re delicious. I think we have time for one more quick recipe
… tartys in Apples … take gode apples and gode spycres and figgies figgies and reysons
and perys and wan they are well ebrade colored with saffron well and do it in a cofyn, that’s
a bit morbid and do it forth to bake well. In the scroll they refer to both coffins and
chastels or castles and both seem to be some sort of pastry dough around a filling I think
the shape of the coffin should probably be long and rectangular but I’m making mine round
because it’s easier. It’s very good I think that has fig in it
and I don’t really like fig and I eat it with my hands? yeah Medieval times … medieval times of
course that’s good I like it apple pie, cinnamon … raisins I didn’t get any fig … ughh not
so much the fig! There are 196 recipes on this scroll and we’ve
just done three today but I’m going to give you a challenge here is another one of the
recipes … try and interpret what you’re supposed to do in the comments below and if
you dare bake it at home and post your photo onto this post on the howtocookthat.net website. You can watch more olden days baking videos
here and other of my episodes here, with so much thanks to my patrons for your support
which means I can continue to make episodes like this one I really appreciate that. Make it a great week by being kind to others
and I’ll see you all on Friday. Video source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpbjXcgrDxo
