First Course.
Boar’s head enarmed (larded), and “bruce,” for pottage.
Beef. Mutton. Pestles (legs) of Pork.
Swan. Roasted Rabbit. Tart.
Second Course.
Drope and Rose, for pottage.
Mallard. Pheasant. Chickens, “farsed” and roasted.
“Malachis,” baked.
Third Course.
Conings (rabbits), in gravy, and hare, in “brasé,” for pottage.
Teals, roasted. Woodcocks. Snipes.
“Raffyolys,” baked. “Flampoyntes.”
It may be well to make the general remark, that the ordinary number of courses at dinner was three. To begin, then, with the first dish, boar’s-head was a favourite article at table, and needs no explanation. The pottage which follows, under the name of bruce, was made as follows, according to a receipt in the same cookery-book which has furnished the bill of fare:—
Take the umbles of a swine, and parboil them (boil them slowly), and cut them small, and put them in a pot, with some good broth; then take the whites of leeks, and slit them, and cut them small, and put them in, with minced onions, and let it all boil; next take bread steeped in broth, and “draw it up” with blood and vinegar, and put it into a pot, with pepper and cloves, and let it boil; and serve all this together.
In the second course, drope is probably an error for drore, a pottage, which, according to the same cookery-book, was made as follows:—
Take almonds, and blanch and grind them, and mix them with good meat broth, and seethe this in a pot; then mince onions, and fry them in fresh “grease,” and put them to the almonds; take small birds, and parboil them, and throw them into the pottage, with cinnamon and cloves and a little “fair grease,” and boil the whole.