Medieval Meal of the Month: Blawmanger and Cucummern

I was thinking, wouldn’t it be fun to have a medieval meal once a month? I didn’t really know where to begin so I just typed “Medieval Recipes” into Google and picked the first thing that popped up. It was a dish called “Blawmanger.” Thank you to www.godecookery.com/goderec/goderec.htm for the translation.

The first thing you have to do is find a cute toddler in a bear hat and cat ears to make bread with you. It doesn’t say it in the directions but it’s pretty important. Once the bread is made, the next step is to follow the recipe on the website for Blawmanger. See below! 🙂

Margaret helping me make bread.

PERIOD: England, 14th century | SOURCE: Utilis Coquinario | CLASS: Authentic

DESCRIPTION: Traditional medieval rice dish

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ORIGINAL RECEIPT:

28. Blawmanger. Tak þe two del of rys, þe thridde pert of almoundes; wash clene þe rys in leuk water & turne & seth hem til þay breke & lat it kele, & tak þe melk & do it to þe rys & boyle hem togedere. & do þerto whit gres & braun of hennes grounde smale, & stere it wel, & salte it & dresch it in disches. & frye almaundes in fresch gres til þey be browne, & set hem in þe dissches, & strawe þeron sugre & serue it forth.

– Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). London: For the Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

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GODE COOKERY TRANSLATION:

Blancmange. Take two parts of rice, the third part of almonds; wash the rice clean in lukewarm water & turn & boil them til they break and let cool, & take milk and add to the rice and boil together. Add white grease & ground dark chicken meat, & stir well, & salt it and place it in dishes. Fry almonds in fresh grease until brown, & set them in the dishes, and strew on sugar & serve it.

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MODERN RECIPE:

• 1 cup rice
• 3 cups Almond Milk
• 1 cup ground cooked chicken, dark meat only
• dash salt
• 1/4 cup fried slivered almonds
• sugar to garnish

Bring to a boil the rice, milk, & salt. Reduce heat, stir in chicken, & cover; allow to cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is absorbed and rice is fluffy. Garnish with almonds and a sprinkle of sugar.

Judging by the many versions of this recipe that appear in period cookbooks, it is certain that most (if not all) medieval cooks were at least familiar with this dish. By the strictest definition, Blawmanger (also known as blankmanger) is any bland, white pottage based on almond milk, and (except for a few fish-day versions) contains ground poultry, thickened with rice flour; the standard English flesh-day version was ground capon (or chicken) with rice and almond milk. In some recipes the poultry is in chunks, rather than ground up. Today’s modern blancmange is a type of rice-pudding dessert, much beloved by the English, and only bears a slight resemblance to its medieval forerunner.

I ended up tripling the recipe since I was cooking for 5 and wanted leftovers for lunch the next day. I bought chicken thighs, cut them up small, and cooked them over medium heat with some olive oil before adding it to the rice. I also use more almonds than the recipe called for. I fried those up in some butter. They burn easily though so keep an eye on them.

My family LOVED this dish. I was expecting it to be pretty bland but it actually had quite a bit of flavor. It was savory with a hint of sweet to it. We didn’t really need the sugar. Unfortunately, it didn’t reheat well. Adding some sugar to garnish on the second day did help make it taste a little better.

This dish didn’t have any vegetables so I went searching for a medieval side dish in the same way that I went looking for the main dish. Google to the rescue! I picked the first dish I saw, Cucummern, from http://www.medievalcuisine.com/Euriol/recipe-index/cucummern. See the recipe below.

Cucumber Salad

Source:Ein New Kochbuch by Marx Rumpolt, a 16^th century collection of German recipes

Original Recipes:

Schel die Murcken/ vnd schneidt sie breit vnnd duͤnn/ mach sie an mit Oel/ Pfeffer vnd Saltz. Seind sie aber eyngesaltzen/ so seind sie auch nit boͤß/ seind besser als roh/ deñ man kans eynsaltzen mit Fenchel vñ mit Kuͤmmel/ daß man sie vber ein Jar kan behalten. Vnnd am Rheinstrom nennet man es Cucummern.

Translation: (Translated by M. Grasse)

Peel the Cucumbers/ and cut them broad and thin/ season them with oil/ pepper and salt. But if they are salt-preserved/ they are also not bad/ are better than raw/ because one can salt it with Fennel and with caraway/ that both can be kept over one year. And near the Rhine-stream one calls it Cucummern.

My Interpretation:

1 pound cucumber	2 Tbs.p Olive Oil
¼ tsp. salt	¼ tsp. Ground black pepper

Peel and slice cucmbers. Toss with remaining ingredients.

Notes:

• This recipe also includes inference on how to pickle (salt-preserve) cucumbers.

References:

Rumpolt, Marx. “Ein new Kochbuch”, Transliteration by Thomas Gloning, http://www.uni-giessen.de/gloning/kobu.htm

Rumpolt Marx Ein New Kochbuch [Online] // Ein New Kochbuch / ed. Grasse M.. – 2002. – February 5, 2009. – http://clem.mscd.edu/~grasse/GK_Rumpolt1.htm. – This is a translation of the book first published in 1581 by Marx Rumpolt. It has nearly 1000 recipes.

“Manuscriptorium.” Manuscriptorium. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2012. <http://www.manuscriptorium.com/index.php>.The Manuscriptorium’s mission is to Build a Virtual Research Environment for the Sphere of Historical Resources. A facsimile of Ein New Kochbuch is available in the Digital Library (Document # 95.107)

This dish was pretty simple and pretty delicious. I let it sit in the fridge to get cold before serving. It makes a nice summer dish. Like the blawmanger though, it didn’t really make good leftovers. The salt drew all of the water out of the cucumbers by the next day. I’d make it again though. This might make a good dish to bring to a party.