12th Century Notes on Cooking

Alexander Neckam

Alexander Neckam gives a recipe of sorts for pork in his 12th century travelogue of London and Paris. He says, "A roast of pork is prepared diligently on a grid, frequently basted, and laid on the grid just as the hot coals cease to smoke. Let condiment be avoided other than pure salt or a simple garlic sauce." (Daily Living in the Twelfth Century: Based on the Observations of Alexander Neckam in London and Paris, Urban Tigner Holmes, Jr., 1952).

Recipes recorded by the scholar and observer Alexander Neckham in his text "De nominibus utensilium" ("Regarding the names of utensils") and recipes recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis on the occasion of his visit to Canterbury cathedral priory in 1179.

Alexander Neckham goes into great detail with various sauces used on meats and fish in about 1180, using much the same ingredients as in the Durham manuscript (see below) - his work has been widely available in translation for at least 50 years. His fish recipe is worth repeating: "Let fish that have been cleaned be cooked in a mixture of wine and water; afterwards they should be eaten with green savoury which is made from sage, parsley, dittany, thyme, cost(mary), garlic and pepper - do not omit salt."

Neckham's manuscript De nominibus utensilium ("Regarding the names of utensils") survives today in more than seventeen different copies - it was normal practice for an original to be passed around and copied with varying degrees of accuracy over a very long period.

Neckam - Thomas Wright's 1857 transcription of the 13th-century MS BL Cotton Titus D xx (with some variants from the 15th-century MS Paris BN Lat. 7679 and the later MS Paris BN Lat. 217).

In his book "Daily Living in the Twelfth Century based on the observations of Alexander Neckham in London and Paris", Urban Tigner Holmes, Jnr relies heavily on the manuscript Worcester Q.50, ff 1 to 18, translated by Marion Greene, with some reference to the manuscript Bruges MS 536 transcribed by A. Scheler. As far as I can find neither of these, nor any other copies of Neckham's text, are currently available online.

This is not uncommon with medieval manuscripts and there are many thousands housed in university and museum library collections in England and the rest of Europe that are impossible to access without the necessary academic credentials.

I would recommend Urban Tigner Holmes' book, however, as it includes most of the translated text and the recipes (sadly only a very short section) can be found in chapter iv of the University of Wisconsin edition published in 2000.

12th century Durham Priory manuscript

Newly-discovered food recipes from a 12th century Durham Priory manuscript have been found to predate the earliest known ones by 150 years. The recipes are to be recreated at a Durham University event later in the month.

The Latin manuscript mainly consists of recipes for medical ointments and cures and was compiled and written at Durham Cathedral’s priory around the 1160s-1180s . The work was recently re-examined and found to contain the food recipes, which experts believe are amongst the oldest in the western medieval culinary tradition, preceding the previously known examples from circa 1290. The manuscript is now held at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University.

“The recipes were noticed recently by Professor Faith Wallis, an expert in medical history and science and an international member of IMEMS. She immediately realised the significance of these recipes, since they so markedly predated the previously earliest-known ones by a century and a half.

“The recipes are for sauces to accompany mutton, chicken, duck, pork and beef. There’s even a seasonal version of the chicken recipe, charmingly called “hen in winter”. We believe this recipe is simply a seasonal variation, using ingredients available in the colder months and specifying “hen” rather than “chicken”, meaning it was an older bird as it would be by that time of year. The sauces typically feature parsley, sage, pepper, garlic, mustard and coriander which I suspect may give them a middle eastern, Lebanese feel when we recreate them. According to the text, one of the recipes comes from the Poitou region of what is now modern central western France. This proves international travellers to Durham brought recipes with them.”

“For “hen in winter’: heat garlic, pepper and sage with water.”

“For ‘tiny little fish’: juice of coriander and garlic, mixed with pepper and garlic.”

For preserved ginger, it should kept in “pure water” and then “sliced lengthwise into very thin slices, and mixed thoroughly with prepared honey that has been cooked down to a sticky thickness and skimmed. It should be rubbed well in the honey with the hands, and left a whole day and night.”

Gasper added, “The sauces typically feature parsley, sage, pepper, garlic, mustard and coriander, which I suspect may give them a Mediterranean feel when we recreate them. According to the text, one of the recipes comes from the Poitou region of what is now modern central western France. This shows the extent to which international travel and exchange of ideas took place within the medieval period. And what more evocative example of cultural exchange could there be than food?”

Blog poster: "The text for the food recipes starts with "Here begin several kinds of Poitevin sauces", meaning that the recipes originated in the Duchy of Poitou, at that time an independent state in what is now France. Poitou is not Mediterranean or Middle Eastern; the recipes simply reflect the kinds of high-status meals which spread into Anglo-Norman England from continental Europe, almost certainly as a direct result of the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry II in 1152. These sauces and meat dishes would have been served to important guests (meaning aristocrats and visiting clergy) at Durham cathedral priory's guesthouse; the monks themselves ate much more simple and plain food with no meat other than fish and fowl."

The latest news is that the book, entitled "Zinziber - Sauces from Poitou: Twelfth Century Recipes from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, MS 51" is currently available for pre-order on Amazon both in the USA and UK. Its publication date is 1 September 2014 and the UK price is a reasonable £12.

The recently-announced discovery of recipes in Sidney Sussex MS 51 include one for a sauce to accompany sausages, made with "parsley and sage tempered with vinegar, along with pepper and finely-crushed garlic"