[1649] Tyre was a favourite sweet wine in the middle ages; “if not of Syrian growth [it] was probably a Calabrian or Sicilian wine, manufactured from the species of grape called tirio.” Early Eng. Meals and Manners, ed. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. 1868), p. 90.
[1650] Sowce (Lat. salsagium, verjuice) was a sort of pickle for hog’s flesh. Promptorium Parvulorum, ed. A. L. Mayhew (E.E.T.S. 1908), notes, p. 701. See the rather ominous verse in Tusser:
Thy measeled bacon, hog, sow, or thy bore,
Shut up for to heale, for infecting thy store:
Or kill it for bacon, or sowce it to sell,
For Flemming, that loues it so deintily well.
Tusser, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie (Eng. Dialect Soc. 1878), p. 52. The word is still in use in the north of England for a concoction of mincemeat, vegetables, cloves and vinegar and in ‘soused herrings’ i.e. herrings cooked in vinegar.
[1651] I.e. St Ethelburga, for whom the Abbey was founded by her brother Erconwald, Bishop of London, in 666.
[1652] Probably gris, i.e. a little pig. Compare Piers Plowman, Prol. l. 226:
Cokes and here knaues crieden, ‘hote pies, hote!
Gode gris and gees gowe dyne, gowe!’
[1653] “White worts,” was a kind of potage (“potage is not so moche used in all Chrystendome as it is used in Englande. Potage is made of the licour in the whiche flesshe is sod in, with puttynge to, chopped herbes and Otmell and salte,” Early Eng. Meals and Manners, p. 97). This is a recipe for White Worts, written down, c. 1420: “Take of the erbys as thou dede for jouutes and sethe hem in water tyl they ben neyshe; thanne take hem up, an bryse hem fayre on a potte an ley hem with flowre of Rys; take mylke of almaundys and cast therto and hony, nowt to moche, that it be nowt to swete, an safron and salt; an serve it forth ynne, rygth for a good potage.” The herbs used for jouutes are “borage, violet, mallows, parsley, young worts, beet, avens, buglos and orach”; and it is recommended to use two or three marrow bones in making the broth. Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books, ed. T. Austen (E.E.T.S. 1888), pp. 5, 6.
[1654] Frumenty or Furmety (Lat. frumentum, wheat) is wheat husked and boiled soft in water, then boiled in milk, sweetened and spiced. Here is a recipe for it from the same book as that for white worts: “Take whete and pyke it clene and do it in a morter, an caste a lytel water theron; an stampe with a pestel tyl it hole [hull, lose husks]; than fan owt the holys [hulls, husks], an put it in a potte, an let sethe tyl it breke; than set yt douun, an sone after set it ouer the fyre an stere it wyl; an whan thow hast sothyn it wyl, put therinne swete mylke, an sethe it yfere, an stere it wyl; and whan it is ynow, coloure it wyth safron, an salt it euene, and dresse it forth.” Op. cit. pp. 6-7. See the rhymed recipe in the Liber cure cocorum (c. 1460), ed. Morris (Phil. Soc. 1862), p. 7.
[1655] Crisps (Mod. Fr. crêpe) were fritters. Here is a recipe for them in a cookery book written c. 1450: “Take white of eyren [eggs], Milke, and fyne flowre, and bete hit togidre and drawe hit thorgh a streynour, so that hit be rennyng, and noght to stiff; and caste thereto sugar and salt. And then take a chaffur ful of fressh grece boyling; and then put thi honde in the batur and lete the bater ren thorgh thi fingers into the chaffur; And whan it is ren togidre in the chaffre, and is ynowe, take a skymour and take hit oute of the chaffur, and putte oute al the grece, And lete ren; and putte hit in a faire dissh and cast sugur thereon ynow and serue it forth.” Op. cit. p. 93.