Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 149 Grew Rostyd

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 © 2014 by Daniel Myers, MedievalCookery.com

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149. Grew Rostyd
Sle hym in the mouth as a curlew scall hym draw hym as a henne breke his leggys at the kne & take a wey the bone from the kne to the fote as an heyron & cut of the legges by the body put hym on a spitte bynd his legges as of a heyron cutt of his hedde & his neke by the body rost hym reys his leggys & his whyngys as of a heyron & no sauce but salt.

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This recipe is a match for recipe 86 from A Noble Boke off Cookry.

A Brewe sley him in the mouthe as a curlewe skald hym and drawe hym as an henne then brek his leggs at the kne and tak away the bone from the kne to the foot as a heron cut of the nek by the bodye then rost hym and raise his winges and his legges as a heron and no sauce but salt.  [A Noble Boke off Cookry (England, 1468)]

There is another version of this recipe in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books.

Brewe rosted. Take a Brewe, sle him as the Curlewe, skalde him, drawe him as a hen, breke his legges at the kne, and take awey the bone fro the kne to the fote, as a heron; And kutte the winges by the body, and his hede by the body, and put him on a spitte, And bynde his legges as a heron; roste him, reyse his legges and his winges as a heron, And take no maner sauce butte salte.  [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430)]

It is interesting that the mistranscription "brew" for grue occurs in both Noble and Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books.