amber to our Lord
the King, and a great man, Madge! Hie thee down when thou art dressed,
child, and make up thy choicest dishes. But, good Saint Christopher!
how shall I do from seven to one of the clock without eating? I will
bid Cicely serve a void at ten."

And so saying, Dame Lovell bustled downstairs as quickly as her
corpulence would allow her, and Margery followed, a few minutes later.
While the former was busy in the hall, ordering fresh rushes to be
spread, and the tables set, Margery repaired to the ample kitchen,
where, summoning the maids to assist her, and tying a large coarse apron
round her, she proceeded to concoct various dishes, reckoned at that
time particularly choice. There are few books more curious than a
cookery-book five hundred years old.

Our forefathers appear to have used joints of meat much less frequently
than the smaller creatures, whether flesh or fowl, hares, rabbits,
chickens, capons, etcetera. Of fish, eels excepted, they ate little or
none out of Lent. Potatoes, of course, they had none; and rice was so
rare that it figured as a "spice;" but to make up for this, they ate,
apparently, almost every green thing that grew in their gardens,
rose-leaves not excepted. Of salt they had an unutterable abhorrence.
Sugar existed, but it was very expensive, and honey was often used
instead. Pepper and cloves were employed in immense quantities. The
article which appears to have held with them the corresponding place to
that of salt with us, and which was never omitted in any dish, no matter
what its other component parts, was saffron. In corroboration of these
remarks, I append one very curious receipt,--a dish which formed one of
the principal covers on Sir Geoffrey Lovell's table:--

"Farsure of Hare.

"Take hares and flee [flay] hom, and washe hom in broth of fleshe with
the blode; then boyle the brothe and scome [skim] hit wel and do hit in
a pot, and more brothe thereto. And take onyons and mynce horn and put
hom in the pot, and set hit on the fyre and let hit sethe [boil], and
take bred and stepe hit in wyn and vynegur, and drawe hit up and do hit
in the potte, and pouder of pepur and clowes, and maces hole [whole],
and pynes, and raysynges of corance [currants], then take and parboyle
wel the hare, and choppe hym on gobettes [small pieces] and put him into
a faire [clean] urthen pot; and do thereto clene grese, and set hit on
the fyre, and stere hit wele tyl hit be wel frye