Evening star., 1914-12-25

TN looking over ancient books on
II cooking one is astounded at the
quantity and variety of ingredients
which went to make up a Christmas
dinner, and wonders that our fore
fathers did not produce a race of veri-
table giants or of conSummate dys-
peptics.
This favorite recipe bears the sus-
Sestive title of garbage: Take fair
garbage, chickens hedcs. feet. livers.
and sysers, and wash hem clcne. Cast
hem into a faire pott, and caste fresh
broth of beef, powder of pepper.
canen. cloves. naccS. parsley and
sauge minced small. Then take bread,
steep it in the same broth. let boyle
enow, caste thereto powder ginger ver-
juice, salt and little saffron. and
serve it FORTH
Spices and herbs were used in all
manner Of dishes, and DIVERSE baked
Metys" and "Pigg Pye" was a great
delicacy made after the following
quaint direction: ITO make a l'igG Iye
take pigg and scald il and slit II
in the middle ard take out the bones,
season it with pepper, salt, cloves. mace
and nutmeSs. chop sweet herbs fine
with the yolks of two or three eggs
aud some plump'd currant. Then lay
the one half of the pigG into your pye.
and the herbs and currants and salt
over it and some butter. Then lay the
other half of the pigg on top of thatte.
and the rest of the herbs and currants
on the top with some butter. and so
bake it. The recipe adds: You may
eat it hot or cold.
y purveyor for the household of
Richard III of England gives the fol-
lowing marketing list for the house
hold of his majesty. Besides marrow
bones, of which our ancestors were
very fond, and which were hawked
about the streets, there were five
herons and bitterrs, fifty swans, one
hundred pelons'--the old name for pea
cocks-"twelve dozen curlews and one
hundred capons OF grease, which
meant fat birds.
Then there were ronger cells and
cranes and numberless carcasses of
which were to be roasted or boiled and
served whole, since they were for the
household of 2 king. In those days the
commonerS were hedged about with
laws and rules, both for dress and III
feeding, and no commoner was allow ed
:, Joint. but was ordered by law to
serve his meat in small pieces, or, in
his own language. to ''hew it in COB
bets, the privilege of joint served
whole being reserved for royalty or
those allied to the reigning house.
| Our English ancestors during the
middle ages mixed their Ingredients
in the most astonishing manner Vine
gar, verjuice, wine and hot spices We're
4 part of almost every dish. whether
this were great flesh Cor joints) or a
| "subtlety," which was their word for
an ornamental dish: for their taste in
sauces was extremely sharp, and would
give indigestion to a modern who tried
the experiment of dining as did his an
"cstor. Fer instance, there is an old
recipe for "Bukenade of potage." in
which the cook was instructed to cut
up the meat of comics in gobbets and
seethe it in a pot. She was then to
temper it with water and put in raisns
of cornace-or currants, we would
call them now-sugar, ginger and
camel, or cinnamon. The whole shaw
lngs of sandalwood to flavor We're to
be added. and the result was thick
ened with "amyden,' or washed flour.
Then came onions, sage. hyssop and
savory, added as a fiavoring, but no
salt, which was used in old-time cook
cry. for this was added at the table
where salt played an important part
| in ceremonial observances.
Two sauces, 'negur'' and "perra:e.
were very popular. the former being
| made of giblets, verjuice, thickened