''Utilis Coquinario'' is an English

cookery book A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes. Cookbooks may be general, or may specialize in a particular cuisine or category of food. Recipes in cookbooks are organized in various ways: by course (appetizer, first cour ...

written in

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...

at the turn of the fourteenth century. The title has been translated as "Useful for the Kitchen". The text is contained in the

Hans Sloane Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet (16 April 1660 – 11 January 1753), was an Irish physician, naturalist, and collector, with a collection of 71,000 items which he bequeathed to the British nation, thus providing the foundation of the British Mu ...

collection of manuscripts in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

and is numbered Sloane MS 468.

Author

The author's name is unknown. It has been theorised that he was "the high-ranking chef of a large kitchen", though not one as large as that of

Richard II Richard II (6 January 1367 – ), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales, and Joan, Countess of Kent. Richard's father died ...

(for example, compare this text to ''

The Forme of Cury ''The Forme of Cury'' (''The Method of Cooking'', from Middle French : 'to cook') is an extensive 14th-century collection of medieval English recipes. Although the original manuscript is lost, the text appears in nine manuscripts, the most fa ...

''). It is accordingly assumed that he was a man. The resemblance of some of the author's recipes to early French recipes indicates the author may have had a reading knowledge of

Middle French Middle French (french: moyen français) is a historical division of the French language that covers the period from the 14th to the 16th century. It is a period of transition during which: * the French language became clearly distinguished from t ...

. The author's references to "fyssh day" and

Lent Lent ( la, Quadragesima, 'Fortieth') is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke ...

indicate that the author cooked for a Christian household.

Text

The manuscript contains recipes for things such as butter of almond milk, roasted duck, a meat

pottage Pottage or potage (, ; ) is a term for a thick soup or stew made by boiling vegetables, grains, and, if available, meat or fish. It was a staple food for many centuries. The word ''pottage'' comes from the same Old French root as ''potage'', whi ...

and a sweet-and-sour fish preparation. The manuscript is loosely organised and has no real system beyond a basic grouping of recipes for cooking birds,

blancmange Blancmange (, from french: blanc-manger ) is a sweet dessert popular throughout Europe commonly made with milk or cream and sugar thickened with rice flour, gelatin, corn starch, or Irish moss (a source of carrageenan), and often flavoured with ...

, and fruits and flowers.

Purpose

It has been suggested that the text was not intended as a cookbook for the layperson since the level of lay literacy at the time was still relatively low and distribution of manuscripts was a "patchy affair". Several alternative purposes for its creation have been proposed, including: serving as testimony to the author's culinary skill, presenting and influencing trends, securing the status of the chef as a professional, and serving as a tool for professionals (e.g. doctors and lawyers) aspiring to raise their class status by learning about higher-class meals. The latter theory has been proposed in part due to the text's location in the Sloane collection of manuscripts, where it is placed in a selection of medical recipes described as "utilitarian".

Modern study

The text is notable to both culinary historians and

linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

, containing several examples of unique recipes and vocabulary.

Historical interest

Of historical interest, the work contains the only references to recipes such as ''pyany'' (a poultry dish garnished with

peonies The peony or paeony is a flowering plant in the genus ''Paeonia'' , the only genus in the family Paeoniaceae . Peonies are native to Asia, Europe and Western North America. Scientists differ on the number of species that can be distinguished, ...

) and ''heppee'' (a

rose-hip The rose hip or rosehip, also called rose haw and rose hep, is the accessory fruit of the various species of rose plant. It is typically red to orange, but ranges from dark purple to black in some species. Rose hips begin to form after pollinat ...

broth). The text was written in the time of

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He wa ...

and provides insight into the types of food Chaucer may have eaten and written about. As was the case with most late medieval cooking, the author did not associate colours with specific flavours, but he did occasionally use colour to denote contrasts in flavour. For example, one of the included fish recipes uses

saffron Saffron () is a spice derived from the flower of ''Crocus sativus'', commonly known as the "saffron crocus". The vivid crimson stigma and styles, called threads, are collected and dried for use mainly as a seasoning and colouring agent i ...

in part of the dish flavoured with sugar and ginger (giving that part a reddish, saffron colour), and leaves the remaining part of the dish white to denote that it is flavoured with sugar only.

Linguistic interest

Of linguistic interest, it contains the only known references in fourteenth-century English texts to

cormorant Phalacrocoracidae is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed, but in 2021 the IOC adopted a consensus taxonomy of seven ge ...

s and finches. Additionally, it contains the only references to

woodcock The woodcocks are a group of seven or eight very similar living species of wading birds in the genus ''Scolopax''. The genus name is Latin for a snipe or woodcock, and until around 1800 was used to refer to a variety of waders. The English name ...

s, ''botores'' ( bittern), ''pluuers'' (

plover Plovers ( , ) are a widely distributed group of wading birds belonging to the subfamily Charadriinae. Description There are about 66 species in the subfamily, most of them called "plover" or "dotterel". The closely related lapwing subfa ...

s), and

teals Teal is a blue-green color. Teal or TEAL may also refer to: Ducks * some members of the subfamily Anatinae (dabbling ducks): ** some members of the genus ''Anas'': *** Cape teal (''Anas capensis'') *** Red-billed teal or red-billed duck (''Anas ...

in fourteenth-century English cookbooks, though all are found elsewhere in menus of that era.

Footnotes

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * {{English cuisine Medieval cookbooks Sloane manuscripts 14th-century manuscripts Middle English literature English cuisine