Caboches In Potage

The Medieval era is not exactly the most glamorous place to start my forage through old recipes and forgotten dishes. Nevertheless, it serves its purpose in our history as it has some of the first recipes to be written down. When I think of this era I think of famine, plague and Black Death not elegant cuisine. But clearly not everyone would have died of these ailments, so what did the dwindling population survive on? The majority of the people were peasants and therefore would not have much available to them. However ingredients such as peas, leeks, onions, cabbage and beans were easy to come by or to grow themselves. Raw vegetables were deemed unhealthy and sometimes poisonous and so (unfortunately for mu tasters) everything was cooked until it was pretty much mush. Which brings me onto the staple (and just about the only dish the majority of the population could make) dish- Pottage.

      Yes it’s unglamorous but its basic ingredients sum up the early era perfectly. The staple ingredients would have been easy to obtain and the dish also has the potential to be modified depending on ingredients. Ham, a more luxurious food, could easily have been added to the dish but was not a necessity. Also, it had the potential to have been served with bread if they could manage to get some grain (which was hard to come by). Their meals were usually served with alcohol, which was believed to have a higher nutritional value than the dirty water that was available. With this in mind, here is the recipe I used to create my first voyage through time.

The Forme Of Cury, A Roll Of Ancient English Cookery. Compiled, About A.D. 1390, by the Master-Cooks fo King Richard II.

Caboches[1] In Potage. IIII.
Take Caboches and quarter hem and seeth hem in gode broth with Oynouns y mynced and the whyte of Lekes y slyt and corue smale [2] and do þer to safroun an salt and force it with powdour douce [3].

[1] Caboches. Probably cabbages. [2] corue smale. Cut small. V. i corue in Gloss. [3] powdour douce. Sweet aromatic powder. V. Pref.

This is an actual recipe from the era, hence the confusing spelling! Here is how I interptreted the recipe;
Ingredients
500ml vegetable stock (I cheated a bit and used a stock cube)
Cabbage Caboches
Ham hem
Onion Oynouns
Leek Lekes
Saffron Safroun
Salt
Cinnamon powdour douce
Sugar

1. Bring stock to boil and let simmer.
2. Chop up the vegetables.
3. Add the vegetables, ham and remaining ingredients to the pot.
4. Leave to simmer for ½ and hour to 1 ½ hours.
N.B 1 ½ hours was suggested by another pottage recipe but it would have turned everything to mush (which I suppose would have been to do with their fear of raw vegetables). I only cooked mine for ½ hour.

       As I have mentioned before cabbage is my least favourite food, scarred by past encounters of being forced to eat it by my parents when I was a little girl, I now still can’t touch the stuff. Needless to say I was not looking forward to eating this dish (neither were my family, least of all my brother who is convinced my cooking will poison him.) So I had no expectations for this dish, other than to get it over with as quickly as possible and move on to something nicer. It was relatively easy to cook; I can see why it was a staple dish, throw everything in and leave it to cook. Simple.

      When I served it I was even less impressed. The one thing worse than cabbage itself, is wet and slimy cabbage. The flourishes of pink ham coming out of the green mass gave it a little potential. But still it looked pretty unappealing. Hence my surprise when my mum gave it her seal of approval calling it “surprisingly edible” if a little salty. My dad, the harshest food critic of them all, also said it was quite nice. I was stunned. Could it really be that this dish is actually a lost treasure? Or was it just my parents not wanting to hurt my feelings? I ended up trying it myself. It was okay for cabbage and a lot like a cabbage soup. I had been a little over zealous with the salt but with some tweaks it would be edible today. However I think it needed the ham to be edible, without it would be tasteless. I feel sorry for all the medieval peasants who often did not have the ham.

Cabbage Pottage my first taste of history. Completely edible, very healthy and dare I say tasty. This dish has the potential to be part of 21st century cuisine though not particularly stylish. One thing I know for sure is my mum would love that I’m finally eating my cabbage.