Reading Response, based on one course reading.
Guidelines
Note: web resources cannot be used for this assignment.
Goal: Respond critically to an issue that is discussed in this course and which
interests you.
Method: In no more than 2 pages, explore one theme/question that is addressed by
one of the course readings. You can use the suggested questions or develop your
own.
Reading responses should be in essay format and observe conventions for academic
writing. This means that any quote or focused discussion of a passage in one of the
assigned readings needs to be properly cited (either in-text references or footnotes).
Please double-space, use 12pt font, and include a bibliography.
A gentle reminder: your personal subjective responses and experiences are not the
focus of this assignment. You will be graded primarily on your critical engagement
and close analysis of the assigned readings for this course. Personal opinions and
subjective responses may only be included if you can critically incorporate them
into your analysis of the readings.
Criteria for Evaluation:
Writing skills: well-written, organized, no spelling mistakes, no typos or
grammatical errors. Uses relevant quotations to illustrate your argument and uses
appropriate citations.
Content: Demonstrate comprehension of the major issues as covered in the course
lectures and required readings.
Argument: Argument is logical, well-constructed and sustained.
Analysis: Demonstrates ability to reflect critically on and analyze the material.
Tips for writing a great reading response:
1. Prep work: Look at the readings. What themes, issues, questions connect
different readings? Choose one reading that will allow you to respond in a
thoughtful, interesting and original way.
2. Introduction: Start response with a thesis statement. This should be your
first sentence. What is the purpose in writing this reading response? What
are you arguing? What 2-3 points/issues/questions will you discuss? All of
this information should be in your introductory paragraph (1/3 page).
3. Description: Describe the authorÂ’s central argument in the course reading
and the points that will be essential to your own thesis statement; this will
demonstrate that you understand the material. If you are aiming for a higher
grade (B+ or higher), keep this part of the reading response relatively short
so that you can focus more on analysis and developing your own argument.
4. Analysis and Argument: Critically respond to each point raised in your
introduction individually. Some strategies to consider: identify weaknesses
and strengths in an authorÂ’s argument. Identify issues or arguments that
were neglected by the author. Identify biases and determine how they affect
the credibility of the authorÂ’s claims. Remember that not all critiques are
negative; one can critically identify positive elements as well and this will
demonstrate that you understand the material and can think critically about
it. This element of the reading response is necessary for a B grade or higher.
5. Conclusion: Conclude your argument in a final concluding paragraph.
Restate your thesis statement, highlight the major issues you discussed, and
reinforce the claims you have made in your analysis and argument. Add any
additional insights or thoughts that you might have (1/3 page= or one
paragraph).
Suggested Questions
1- Focusing on Lloyd, discuss and analyze how an “offensive” food became a marker
of class status.
2- Many of our readings discuss what is good to eat and what is even better to serve
and put on the table. Based on one of these readings (Douglas or Van Esterik),
describe the preparation of a meal and analyze the mealÂ’s significance.
3- Drawing upon Zumwalt or Montano, how can food represent identity? For this
question, you can focus on the ways the names of different food be positively or
negatively linked to identity. In terms of the latter, what is really behind a “food
slur”?
4- Seriff and Turner focus on the ritual presentation of food at a St. JosephÂ’s altar.
What specifically about this ritual presentation makes it “women-centered”? Does
the ritual shift any of the social hierarchies in place in this community?
2
Food, Culture & Society
An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research
ISSN: 1552-8014 (Print) 1751-7443 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rffc20
The Changing Status of Offal
Paul Lloyd
To cite this article: Paul Lloyd (2012) The Changing Status of Offal, Food, Culture & Society, 15:1,
61-75, DOI: 10.2752/175174412X13190510221940
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.2752/175174412X13190510221940
Published online: 29 Apr 2015.
Submit your article to this journal
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FOOD,
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SOCIETY
VOLUME 151 ISSUE 11 MARCH 2012
The Changing Status of Offal
A FASHIONABLE FOOD IN ENGLAND BETWEEN 1545 AND 1655
Paul Lloyd
University of Leicester
Abstract
With the variety of foods sought by the well-to-do increasing siguiiicantly
England,
there was a reappraisal
investigates
of the status
of animal
ill early modern
by-products.
the development of offal from a food that was traditionally
This paper
associated with
the poor, to an esteemed fashion-food that adorned the dining tables of the English gentry
during the early modern period. It does this by analyzing changes in purchasing patterns
at the homes of the social elite, and comparing
ingredients
historical
specified
in fashionable
cookbooks.
the foods that they bought with the
With reference
to these and other
sources it will be seen that offal, after it had been suitably prepared, enabled
the well-to-do to broaden the range of culinary tastes available to them, and add this food
to their expanding range of cultural identity markers.
Keywords: fashion, England, identity, early modern, gentry, cookbook
Introduction
Take a Lambs-head
and Purtenance
cieane washt & pickt and put it into a Pipkin
with faire water, and let it boile and skumme it cieane; then put in Currants
and
a few sliced Dates, and a bunch of the best fercing hearbs tyed up together, and
so let it boyle well till the meate be enough: then take up the Lambes head and
purtenance,
and put it into a cieane dish with Sippets; then put in a good lumpe
of Butter, and beate the yolkes of two Egges with a little Creame, and put it to
the broth with Sugar, Cynamon, and a spoonefull or two of Verdiuyce, and whole
Mace, and as many Prunes as will garnish the dish, which should be put in when
DOl: 10.2752/175174412X13190510221940
it is but halfe boyld, and so powre it upon the Lambes-head and Purtenance,
Reprints available directly from tbe
publisbers. Pbotocopying permitted by
and adorne the sides of the dish with Sugar, Prunes, Barberries, Orenges, and
licence only © Association for tbe Study of
Lemons, and in no case forget not to season well with Salt, and so serve it Up.1
Food and Society 2012
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This dish of lamb’s brains was not cheap to prepare in 1637. In Warwickshire,
central England, the market price of a lamb’s head on its own was 12d-typically
one day’s wages for a building laborer; and then there was the cost of the cinnamon,
mace and the variety of other expensive ingredients that went into the pot. But this
recipe was not directed at laborers; for like some of the other household manuals
and cookbooks published in the early seventeenth century, this 250-page work that
instructed the reader on how to make such a dish was aimed at relatively affluent
mistresses who managed rural estates.
The nobility and gentry had, since the earliest of times, expressed their cultural
identities by consuming goods appropriate to their respective statuses.2 But during
the period between Henry VIII’s reformation of the English Church and the Civil
War, which culminated in the execution of Charles I, the economic and social
polarization of society gathered momentum. While the size of the population
doubled, and livingstandards of laborers steadily declined as wages failed to keep
up with rising prices, there was a general increase in prosperity amongst middlingstatus people as some merchants, urban professionals and large-scale farmers
became wealthier by taking advantage of a growing market economy.3People who
looked for ways to mark their newly-acquired affluence found that it was achievable
by wearing the sort of high-quality clothes that their social superiors took for
granted, and by purchasing financiallyexclusive and high-value consumables-and
these included foods that could be turned into luxurious dishes. Such foods, which
broadened the range of tastes available to the well-to-do in addition to symbolizing
their hierarchical status, included young and tender produce, and expensive or
difficult-to-obtain English and foreign foods. The meals made with these items
generally contrasted sharply with the inexpensive and (usually) easily obtainable
fare associated with the lower orders.
This paper sets out to show that offal, which had hitherto been associated with
poor folk, joined the “wanted” list of the elite and others who aspired to a relatively
affluent lifestyle.4 We will discuss the types of offal eaten and how it was cooked,
and we will see that, suitably prepared, internal organs and outer extremities of
animals and birds became increasingly fashionable at the highest levels of society
before losing favor and reverting back to their association with the “working
classes” as their price dropped.5 First, a range of household accounts that were
kept by the gentry and nobility to keep track of their financial affairs will be
analyzed. It will be argued that the small quantities of offal purchased with
increasing frequency, and the eating of it on special occasions, indicate that this
food was becoming a fashionable luxury. We then consider the sophisticated
techniques, and the exotic ingredients that cookbooks advised should be used in the
creation of offal dishes. Finally, by combining this evidence with other sixteenth
and seventeenth-century historical sources, the social statuses of people eating
this type of food, along with the reasons for its consumption, become apparent.
Offal Consumption at the Estates of the Nobility and Gentry
Between 1636 and 1640, at the Arbury home of gentleman lawyer and future
baronet Sir Richard Newdigate, the kitchen clerk listed and assigned financial value
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not only to the foodstock purchased from external sources, but also to that which
was acquired from the North Warwickshire estate’s demesne land, Here the family’s
expenditure on offal over the five-year period was £6 Os 3d; this amounted to 5,6
per cent of the family’s spending on animal meat, and 2,6 per cent of its overall
spending on food,6The sort of offal reaching the kitchen on a regular and frequent
basis included lambs’ heads with their “portenance,” calves’ feet, calves’ “tongs,”
udders and “tryppe,” Sausage, ewes’ ears, trotters, dishes of sweetbread, the heads
of oxen, sheep’s heads, and the feet and tongues of other domestically-bred farm
animals were also occasionally bought, Although there was no seasonal nature to
the consumption of most of these foods, ewes’ ears and sweetbread were normally
acquired in the summer, Udders, on the other hand, appear to have been associated
with winter consumption, The last week in December and the first week in January
was a celebratory time during which many estimable and luxurious foods were
eaten; it is thus perhaps noteworthy that these mammary organs, along with
tongues, feet, and heads containing brains, were delivered to the Arbury kitchen to
be prepared for eating during the Christmas festivities of 1640,7 None of these
animal products, however, was bought in any appreciable quantity during the year,
Sausage, for example, was usually purchased in weights of one pound or one-half
pound; and only two or three calf feet reached the kitchen at anyone time, As a
constituent of dishes that included many ingredients, a little offal could, of course,
be sampled by many people within the household; the jelly extracted from calves’
feet is an example of this, But if these animal “by-products” were cooked as
delicacies in their own right-by preparing them in the special ways that were
described in contemporary kitchen manuals-the quantities reaching the Arbury
Hall dining table would have been insufficient to feed more than a handful of people,
It is important to note also that offal during the late 1630s was not a cheap
alternative to beef. pork or mutton, While one pound of beef cost on average 2,8d,
and the same weight of mutton cost 3d, the price of a pound of sausage was 4d, At
the same time, a calf’s foot and tongue cost 5d and 12d respectively; the price of
an udder was 7d; the head of a lamb, as we have seen, cost 12d; and a calf’s head
cost the same as nine pounds of beef,8 Thus, both market prices and the
Newdigates’ spending patterns suggest that the status of this type of food may have
been elevated to an exclusive level by 1640,
The limitations of household accounts as a historical source render it
problematic to conclude that specific meals were made from items purchased; and
it is possible that Newdigate’s chef was ignorant of the luxurious recipe for lamb’s
brains described by Markham and detailed above, But this dish could have been
made for and sampled by the Newdigate family with very little improvisation, On
two occasions in early 1638, the Arbury Hall kitchen was in receipt of both lambs’
heads and most of the accompanying ingredients, Although mace and cinnamon
were not purchased at the same time, they were items in stock; and while the
garnish of prunes appears not to have been available to the chef. this was a matter
of detail only,
This meal and others like it were also available to a contemporary of Sir Richard
Newdigate-Sir Edward Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex, who lived at Gorhambury in
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Hertfordshire. Although these two gentlemen lived 80 miles apart, and the former
was a 36-year-old practicing lawyer while the latter was a 79-year-old earl, their
choices in food were remarkably similar to each other’s. Radcliffepurchased calves’
heads, feet and tongues every week between December 1637 and March 1638, and
bought tripe and sheep’s tongues and feet most weeks. Other occasional purchases
of offal included udders and sausages. The prices paid by the earl were similar to
those paid by Newdigate, and at Gorhambury, 5.1 per cent of the household’s
budget for animal meat was spent on offal. Although at Radcliffe’s estate, as at
Arbury Hall, this category of food was usually bought in small quantities, the heads,
feet and tongues purchased during the first week of January 1638 increased
significantly. Forty per cent of the £6 14s 2d spent on offal over the first twelve
weeks of the year occurred during the Christmas and New Year fortnight.9 While
offal may normally have been purchased in quantities that limited its distribution
within the household, the amount bought in the fortnight preceding Epiphany
suggests that Radcliffe’s servants were also allowed to enjoy the food as a festive
treat.
Three years earlier, the Earl of Salisbury, Sir WilliamCecil, also purchased small
amounts of offal. Lambs’ or calves’ heads were bought weekly for consumption at
his Quickswood residence in Hertfordshire. Other occasional low-volume purchases
included udders, which were bought in October 1634 and in the fOllowingJanuary
for 12d to 15d each, and neats’ tongues, which were bought mainly in the fall for
between 6d and 12d each. Likethe Newdigates, the Cecils purchased lld of sausage
from time to time at a cost of 5d, and although more offal may have reached the
Quickswood kitchen from his estate, Cecil’s expenditure on this type of food over
the winter of 1634-35 was £412s 1d-out of a total meat budget of £552 16s 4d.1O
As at other locations, the frequency of purchases and the small quantities bought
are indicative of a special high-value food obtained for the enjoyment of a privileged
few. But at Quickswood, the exclusivity of animal by-products acquired from
external suppliers also applied at Christmas. Unless they were ingredients in larger
dishes, the four neats’ tongues, two lambs’ heads and one pound of sausage bought
during the festive period by Cecilwere clearly not enough to share among the earl’s
family,his three guests and their servants, and the entire household of at least 16
servants receiving board-wages at that time. At both Gorhambury and Quickswood,
all of the ingredients for making exotic offal dishes described in fashionable,
contemporary cookbooks were bought either on a weekly basis, or less often in
bulk. These included dried fruits such as currants and prunes, fresh citrus fruits,
sugar, an impressive range of spices, and, of course, dairy products.
A decade earlier, a Devonshire lawyer and gentleman who had been knighted by
James I and had entertained Charles I in 1625 also purchased offal frequently and
in small quantities. Residing mainly at Forde House near Newton Abbot, Sir Richard
Reynellwas the head of a household of around 20 people and, as he had business
ties in London, it is probable that he networked with others and was thus exposed
to fashionable trends. Tongues, calves’ heads, and calves’ intestines were the most
popular offal products consumed at Forde House-all of which were purchased
regularly. These were possibly bought to supplement the offal taken from the home-
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reared animals, for Reynell’s accounts indicate that, in addition to the meat
purchased from external suppliers, oxen and sheep were also slaughtered on the
estate for the table, Because offal products accounted for a considerable proportion
of the overall weight of an animal, the amount eaten by this household may have
greatly exceeded that which appears, on face value, to have been acquired by the
kitchen, Whiletongue was purchased at this location during most of the year from
May onwards, and was particularly popular at Christmas, calves’ feet and neats’
feet were normally acquired in April and October, Calves’ heads gained in popularity
year-on-year between 1628 and 1631. and these were usually bought in the
spring-particularly during March, In 1628, only 2s 6d was spent on this item; yet
by 1631 the amount spent on it had risen to £1 ls 2d,
Intestines costing 6d per (unspecified)portion were also a springtime acquisition
for Sir Richard and Lady LucyReynell;although they were not a major feature of the
accounts up until 1630, 5s was spent on them during the following year, Udders
also were purchased frequently by the Reynells after May 1630; and 3s 4d was
spent on them during the week preceding Christmas 1631.11 It is clear from the
Devon estate’s accounts that offal was gaining in popularity, and that it was also
associated with seasonal festivities-and this is illustrated in Figure 1, Unlikeother
families’ accounts, those relating to the Reynells give an indication as who was
eating offaLDuring the times that he stayed at his rented accommodation in Exeter,
with probably fewer servants, Sir Richard’s spending on this sort of food was
similar to that at Forde House when he was at home, The exception to this was the
more frequent purchases of greater quantities of udder made by Reynell at Exeter,
This suggests that low-levelservants may have been excluded from partaking of this
food for most of the year,
Although small amounts of offal appear to have been purchased frequently and
eaten at festive occasions after 1620, some household accounts show that animal
by-products had been appreciated as estimable foods prior to this time, In 1586,
the Earl of Northumberland was presented with a monthly butcher’s bill for £10 7s
6d, Among the animal products supplied to Henry Percy on credit were 18s 4d
250
l
200
150
1631
100
– – – ,1628
1
1
50
0
FOOD,
CULTU ,
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VOLUME 15
ISSUE 1
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J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
0
N
D
Fig 1: TheValueof OffalPurchases at Forde House During 1628 and 1631.
Monthly financial expenditure of the Reynells household on offal products (values
expressed in pence).
6S
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worth of “marie bones” -which may have been acquired for medicinal purposesand neats’ tongues. Five years later, an account of the food reaching the earl’s table
reveals that in the last week of April 1591 one pair of calves’ feet was consumed
for supper each evening by the seven to ten people present. Depending on how they
were cooked, the small quantity of meat yielded by these was enjoyed sparingly.
The same could be said of the four neats’ feet supplied to Percy during February
1607 while he was being held prisoner in a luxurious suite in Martin’s Tower within
the Tower of London. These four feet cost the earl 16d.12
Also residing in London at around that time was the poet, barrister and Lord
High Treasurer of England, Baron Buckhurst. He bought four neats’ tongues at a
cost of 3s every Wednesday in late 1603. His elevation to Earl of Dorset in the
followingyear did not result in an amendment of his lifestyle, for Thomas Sackville
continued to buy the same foods as he had done before-including the tongues and
other luxuries like partridges and small amounts of veal.13 But farther north, in
Lancashire, neither the household accounts of Henry Stanley, fourth earl of Derby,
nor those of Edward Stanley, the third earl. indicate that offal was bought by them
in the second half of the sixteenth century. The accounts are not finely detailed,
however, and, as was the case at Forde House and other estates with livestockrearing capacity, non-purchase does not necessarily mean that none was
consumed. 14The household accounts of another well-to-do Lancashire gentleman,
successful lawyer Sir Richard Shuttleworth, are, in contrast, finely detailed; but
here too in the late sixteenth century any acquisition of offal by the kitchen at The
Smithils estate was deemed not to be worth mentioning. The Shuttleworth family,
headed by Sir Richard’s younger brother Reverend Lawrence, and then by his
nephew Colonel Richard, developed a more sophisticated taste in food during the
early seventeenth century; but even though they purchased some luxurious foods,
animal by-products are conspicuous by their absence in the accounts relating to
both Gawthorpe Hall and their Islington residence.15
The provisions account book of Ingatestone Hall suggests that during the second
week of January 1548, the household of Secretary of State, Sir William Petre,
consumed just two neats’ tongues and two marrowbones. In 1551 over the
Christmas and New Year festive season, again just two tongues were served up at
the table-one on 20 December and one on 8 January.16The mention of this offal
product reaching the dining table, and this one only, suggests that no others were
consumed at Petre’s Essex estate. One of Sir WilliamPetre’s contemporaries was
Sir George Vernon, who lived at Haddon Hall in Derbyshire. At his estate, located
about 150 miles north of London in the southern part of England’s Peak District, the
steward meticulously compiled an expenditure account that not only listed the foods
bought, but also justified the occasional extraordinary purchases that were made
when his master was expecting visitors. Surviving accounts from 1549 and 1564
reveal that this gentleman, who was known as “King of the Peak” (due to his
authority over the area), bought ale and wine, poultry and wild birds, fish and an
array of spices and fresh fruit. And although dairy foods and animal meat were
home-produced on his extensive estate, eggs, veal and beef were also bought from
external suppliers. Yethere there is no mention of any offal products in the extant
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accounts, Wherever animals were slaughtered there was offal to be had, of course,
and it may be that its acquisition was taken for granted; but unlike during the early
seventeenth century, any offal consumed by the family went unrecorded,17
These accounts suggest that offal was becoming a delicacy of the gentry and
nobility, and that this process was unfolding in the late sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries, Indeed, gifts of pastries filled with offal were received by
two assize judges who described themselves as “country gentlemen” and rode the
“Western Circuit” between 1596 and 1601,18Luxuries such as offal pies-together
with venison, veal, goslings, quails, grouse, pheasants, partridges, gulls, puffins,
dory, sturgeon, lobsters, carp, bream and fresh salmon-were bestowed on Messrs
Walmsley and Fenner by the sheriffs and local dignitaries of the Devonshire towns
that they visited,19The similarities between foods eaten by those of high social rank
at any given time demonstrates that those who had the wherewithal to travel and
spend freely were exposed to the influence of fashionable trends and novel ideas
through networking links in London, and through cookbooks published and sold
there, Some of the books included suggestions for preparing not onlythe animal byproducts bought by the gentry and discussed above, but also for preparing livers,
kidneys, lungs and hearts of sheep, lambs, calves and geese, And although these
internal organs were not listed as household purchases in their own right-perhaps
because of their very short “shelf-life” relative to feet, tongues, heads, udder and
tripe-they were obtained by the well-to-do from the animal and bird carcasses
they purchased, as they often were, whole or in part, These recipes for cooking
offal dishes, like those for producing other meals, were often sophisticated and
clearly articulated, Furthermore, the methods suggested for making them rendered
them exclusive to those householders who had the time (or the staff), the
ingredients, and the necessary equipment to produce luxurious meals,20
Methods of Preparing and Cooldng Offal
FOOD,
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MARCH 2012
In the mid-sixteenth century, the focus of cookbooks, and of cookery sections in
home-management manuals, was the nutritional aspect of the foods to which they
referred, From the late sixteenth century, however, as the taste for fine foods and
their presentation proliferated as a subject, cuisine played a greater part in such
publications,21As far as offal is concerned, food historian and sociologist, Stephen
Mennell, points out that English cookbooks on their own are ambiguous indicators
as to its consumption in early modern times, for there were few recipes for its
preparation until French influence became stronger in the eighteenth century,22
Despite this, however, the complexity in its preparation and the use of luxurious
ingredients called for by recipes in which offal did feature in the early seventeenth
century, indicate that animal by-products-formerly cheap enough for the poor to
buy-became status markers for a time, Manylate sixteenth and early seventeenthcentury cookbooks claimed to have been “augmented,” or included “new additions,”
or incorporated “new English and French fashions, “23But whether they were really
novel, or subsequent editions of earlier books, or simply thinly disguised copies of
popular old works, they were produced because there was an increasing market for
books that imparted culinary know-how,and books of this sort presented publishers
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with an opportunity to realize an acceptable return on their investment. It would
thus be almost axiomatic to state that they took reasonable care to ensure that
their books-sometimes reprinted with new additions shortly after their original
publication-reflected fashionable trends, one of which was the eating of specially
prepared offal.
Emulation of French culinary tastes cannot, on its own, account for the
increasing popularity of offal in England, for although some continental fashions
were embraced by the English, many others were not. The wording in some
cookbooks, such as the one attributed to John Murrell and discussed below,
however, suggests that the fashion for offal-eating on mainland Europe may well
have been one influential factor in its adoption by some English consumers. In 1587,
a recipe for boiling “lambes head and purenance” included the addition of “currants
and prunes” and “all manner of spices.” In the year of its publication, the market
price of both currants and prunes was 4d a pound; and pepper, a spice that was
relatively inexpensive, could be purchased for 3d per ounce. Although the recipe,
attributed to Thomas Dawson, could of course be adapted to suit personal
circumstances, it was aimed at husbandmen and their womenfolk who could afford
or had access to high-value ingredients. Whilethe feet of cattle and sheep could be
used to make the jellythat went into other dishes, the same book explained how feet
could become tasty meals in themselves. The good huswifes jewell explained that
feet were best stewed with the addition of saffron, sugar and pepper. And if the
sixteenth-century gourmet wished to bake his or her calves’ or sheep’s feet, then
the way to do it was to add currants, sugar, and either wine or verjuice to the meat.
To bake a neat’s tongue the Dawson way was no less expensive; it needed to be
cooked in an oven and infused not only with pepper, but also with cloves and
mace-a very expensive derivative of nutmeg.24
Four years later, a relatively inexpensive small book contained a compilation of
recipes that included a different method for stewing a neat’s foot. This called for
cloves and pepper to be added to the foot, which was then cooked in wine and
served with powdered ginger. A book of cookrye Very necessary also advised that
“pigges petitoes,” seasoned with pepper and boiled in “vergious,” were best cooked
by mixing them with another offal product-liver. This organ, which could derive
typically from a goose, pig or lamb, was to be mixed with mace and cloves, and was
a necessity in many recipes that included stuffed carrot or stuffed cucumber.
Readers of this 1591 book were also instructed on how best to cook “neatstungs.”
These were to be prepared by stewing them in a concoction of claret, sugar and
cinnamon.25 At the end of the sixteenth century, The good huswives handmaid
repeated almost exactly the instructive advice that was given two decades earlier
for the boiling of neats’ feet and sheep’s feet; but the book refined further the recipe
for boiling pig’s petitoes. Dates and currants were to be added to the trotters, and
the dish was then to be seasoned with cinnamon, ginger and verjuice. The foot of
a calf, baked “after the French fashion,” was offered as an alternative to the
preceding method of baking them. This wording tends to confirm that fashion was
important to the intended readership of the book. And judging by other recipes
contained in this publication-such as those for baking red deer and pheasant-the
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intended readers were those who wished to emulate the gentry who employed their
own chefs,26
In 1615, French fashions were also a concern of a book attributed to John
MurrelL A new booke of cookerie, which described methods of preparing meals
and making banqueting stuff to gentlemen and nobles, explained that tongue
should be cooked in a sauce that included herbs, ginger, nutmeg and lemon, And
while sweetbread could either be fried or baked after mixing offal with currants,
nutmeg, sugar, orange and pepper-and then sandwiching the mixture between
two sheets of puff pastry, a recipe for preparing a florentine of veal’s kidney was
even more elaborate, This called for the addition of seven types of exotic fruits
and spices together with sweet cream and shortcake, Murrell also included in his
book on culinary fashion a pie that incorporated all manner of offal; it was made
from the flesh and “purtenance” taken from the skull of a lamb, and mixed with
marrowbone, beef suet, heart, liver and lungs, Cooked with high-value spices and
sweet herbs, this was possibly the ultimate offal “pie” for those who could afford
to buy all of the ingredients,27An updated and extended version of Murrell’s book
published in 1638 gave its readers the benefit of examples of English, French and
Italian fashions, While neats’ tongues cooked the English way were best mixed
with spices using a silver spoon, tongues of either deer or calves that were to be
prepared “on the French fashion” were to be part-roasted on a spit with cloves
and rosemary, and then stewed in claret with cinnamon, ginger, mace and caraway
seeds, Two recipes for giblets also required the addition of expensi
