Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 6 Cabogys

Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany (Beinecke MS 163)

This manuscript is dated about 1460.

The 200 (approx.) recipes in the Wagstaff miscellany are on pages 56r through 76v.

Images of the original manuscript are freely available on the Yale University Library website.

I have done my best to provide an accurate, but readable transcription. Common abbreviations have been expanded, the letters thorn and yogh have been replaced with their modern equivalents, and some minor punctuation has been added.

Copyright © 2012 by Daniel Myers, MedievalCookery.com

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6.  Cabogys
Take white cabogys kutt heme fro the stalkes in grete pesys weche hem clene perboyle heme wesche presse out the watyre and hew heme but a lytyll and in flesche tyme do fayre brothe of bethe or of caponys or of othre good flesche in a potte whene hit boyllethe do ther to thi cabochis and mary bonys al to brokyne boile hit up do there to safroun and salt whene hit ys boyllyde y now alay hit up with gratyde bredde and boulle yt a lytyll and serve hit forth.

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As expected, this little recipe parallels number 147 in A Noble Boke off Cookry.

To mak cabages wortis tak whit cabage and fined them smale and mak them up, also tak whit cabages and cut them from the stalks and wesche them and parboile them and presse out the water and hew them smale in flesshe tym put fat brothe of beef in a pot of capon brothe or the brothe of other good flesche and when it is boiled put in thy cabages and maribones all to brokene and boile them up do ther to saffron or salt and alay it upe with grond bred and luk it be chargant of canebyns and serue it.  [A Noble Boke off Cookry (England, 1468)]

There are a couple of interesting differences.  The first part from Noble ("To mak cabages wortis tak whit cabage and fined them smale and mak them up"), seems redundant and doesn't appear in the Wagstaff version.  Perhaps it was a copyist error.  Noble also has the added instruction at the end to make sure the recipe is either as thick as canebeans, or is thick with canebeans.