Kenelm was not only a good eater; he was a devilish good writer. The fine lusty root of English prose was in him. If this is not true literature, we know it not:
ANOTHER CLOUTED CREAM
Milk your Cows in the evening about the ordinary hour, and fill with it a little Kettle about three quarters full, so that there may be happily two or three Gallons of Milk. Let this stand thus five or six hours. About twelve a Clock at night kindle a good fire of Charcoal, and set a large Trivet over it. When the fire is very clear and quick, and free from all smoak, set your Kettle of Milk over it upon the Trivet, and have in a pot by a quart of good Cream ready to put in at the due time; which must be, when you see the Milk begin to boil simpringly. Then pour in the Cream in a little stream and low, upon a place, where you see the milk simper....
To simper—a word of sheer genius! There are many such in his recipes.
We find the raisin again at work in his directions:
TO MAKE EXCELLENT MEATHE
To every quart of Honey, take four quarts of water. Put your water in a clean Kettle over the fire, and with a stick take the just measure, how high the water cometh, making a notch, where the superficies toucheth the stick. As soon as the water is warm, put in your Honey, and let it boil, skiming it always, till it be very clean; Then put to every Gallon of water, one pound of the best Blew-raisins of the Sun, first clean picked from the stalks, and clean washed. Let them remain in the boiling Liquor, till they be throughly swollen and soft; Then take them out, and put them into a Hair-bag, and strain all the juice and pulp and substance from them in an Apothecaries Press; which put back into your liquor, and let it boil, till it be consumed just to the notch you took at first, for the measure of your water alone. Then let your Liquor run through a Hair-strainer into an empty Woodden-fat, which must stand endwise, with the head of the upper-end out; and there let it remain till the next day, that the liquor be quite cold. Then Tun it up into a good Barrel, not filled quite full, and let the bung remain open for six weeks. Then stop it up close, and drink not of it till after nine months.
This Meathe is singularly good for a Consumption, Stone, Gravel, Weak-sight, and many more things. A Chief Burgomaster of Antwerpe, used for many years to drink no other drink but this; at Meals and all times, even for pledging of healths. And though He were an old man he was of an extraordinary vigor every way, and had every year a Child, had always a great appetite and good digestion; and yet was not fat.
One of good Sir Kenelm’s most famous instructions, which has become fairly well-known, does honour not only to his delicate taste but also to his religious devotion. It is his advice on the brewing of tea—“The water is to remain upon it no longer than whiles you can say the Miserere Psalm very leisurely.” This advice occurs in the recipe