BREAD-MAKING, GROCERY, AND CONFECTIONERY.
nder the designation of Panis, Mr. Hudson Turner thinks that grain and flour, as well as bread, were included. It would appear that bread of different degrees of fineness was used. Thus, in the Household Expenses of Eleanor, Countess of Leicester, third daughter of King John, and wife of the celebrated Simon de Montfort, 1265, "the earliest known memorial of the domestic expenditure of an English subject," we find that there was "bread purchased for the Countess," and "bread for the kitchen." Loaves or cakes were made of bolted flour, are twice mentioned, as well as cakes, or wastells, perhaps biscuits; on one occasion half a quarter of flour is set down for pastry. It is inferred that the bread generally used in the family was made of a mixture of wheat and rye. As the dogs were fed with corn, it may be concluded that the servants fared no worse: at any rate there is no distinct notice of bread made of barley, oats, or the more inferior grain which were commonly used in France and other countries.
It is not clear that their bread was leavened with yeast, as that article occurs but once, and then in connexion with malt. The price of the quarter of wheat or rye varied from 5s. to 5s. 8d.; of oats, from 2s. to 2s. 4d.; twenty-five quarters, however, were bought at Sandwich, at 1s. 10d. When grain was brought from the Countess' manors, some of the prices were rather below the average. The bailiff of Chalton was allowed 5s. the quarter for wheat, 4s. for barley, and 2s. 4d. for oats; the bailiff of Braborne had 4s. 4d. for wheat, and 1s. 3d. for oats.
The Manchet is a fine white roll, named, according to Skinner, from michette, French; or from main, because small enough to be held in the hand:
"No manchet can so well the courtly palate please
As that made of the meal fetch'd from my fertil leaze."
Drayton's Polyolbion.
Here are two olden recipes for manchets:
"Lady of Arundel's Manchet.—Take a bushel of fine wheat-flour, twenty eggs, three pound of fresh butter; then take as much salt and barm as to the ordinary manchet; temper it together with new milk pretty hot, then let it lie the space of half an hour to rise, so you may work it up into bread, and bake it: let not your oven be too hot."—True Gentlewoman's Delight, 1676.
"Take a quart of cream, put thereto a pound of beef-suet minced small, put it into cream, and season it with nutmeg, cinnamon, and rose-water; put to it eight eggs and but four whites, and two grated manchets; mingle them well together and put them in a buttered dish; bake it, and being baked, scrape on sugar, and serve it."—The Queene's Royal Cookery, 1713.