Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Boke of Kervynge, part 8 (into modern English)



And here begins the feast from Pentecost to midsummer

In the second course for the meats before-said, you shall take for your sauces: wine, ale, vinegar and powders after the meat be and ginger and cinnamon from Pentecost to the feast of Saint Johan Baptist.
The first course shall be beef, mutton sodden with capons or roasted/ and if the capons are sodden, arrange them in the manner aforesaid. And when he is roasted, you must cast on salt with wine or with ale/ then take the capon by the legs and cast on the sauce and break him out and lay him in a dish as he should flee [could be flee as if to leave, or “fly” being mush the same]. First you shall cut the right leg and the right shoulder/ and between the four members, lay the brawn [chopped meat] of the capon with the croup [likely the crop/gizzard] in the end, between the legs as it were possible to join it together again/ and other bake-meats after.

And in the second course, pottage shall be Jussell [egg/bread dish], charlet [meat dish with eggs and milk] or mortrus [dish with ground/minced meat] with young geese, veal, pork, pigeon, or chickens roasted with payne puffe,/fritters and other bake-meats after the ordinance of the book.
Also, the goose ought to be cut member to member beginning at the right leg and so fourth, under the right wing and not upon the joint above/ and it ought to be eaten with green garlic or with sorrel or tender vines or verjuice in summer season, after the pleasure of your sovereign.
Also, you shall understand that all manner of fowl that have whole feet [webbed feet] should be raised under the wing and not above.

Here ends the feast from Pentecost to midsummer.

And here begins from the feast of Saint John the Baptist unto Michaelmas.

In the first course, pottage, worts [vegetables/pot-herbs], gruel, and frumenty with venison and mortrus and pig legs with green sauce. Roasted capon, swan with chawdron [sauce made with entrails].
In the second course, pottage after the ordinance of the cooks with roasted mutton, veal, pork, chickens or endoured [hardened, likely with yolk] pigeons, heron, fritters or other bake-meats/ and take heed to the pheasant [that] he shall be arranged in the manner of a capon/ but it shall be done dry, without any moisture, and he shall be eaten with salt and powdered ginger. And heron shall be arranged in the same manner without any moisture and he should be eaten with salt and powder [spice, likely ginger as well]. Also, you shall understand that all manner of fowl having open claws, as a capon, shall be dressed and arranged as a capon and such other.

From the feast of Saint Michael unto the feast of Christmas. 

In the first course, pottage, beef, mutton, bacon or legs of pork or with goose, capon, mallard, swan, or pheasant as it is beforesaid, with tarts or bake-meats or chines of pork.
In the second course, pottage, mortrus, or conys of “sewe” [some sort of broth or boiled dish]/ then roast flesh, mutton, pork, veal, pullets, chickins, pigeons, teals, widgeons [duck], mallards, partridge, woodcock, plover, bittern, curlew, heron/ venison roasted, great birds, snipes, fieldfares, thrushes, fritters, chewets [small pies], beef with sauce “gelopere” roasted with sauce “pegyll” and other bake-meats as it is aforesaid.
And if you carve before your lord or your lady any sodden flesh, carve away the skin above/ then carve reasonably of your flesh to your lord or lady and specially for ladies for they will soon be angry for their thoughts are soon changed/ and some lords will soon be pleased and some will not, as they be of complexion.
The goose and swan may be cut as you do [for] other fowls that have whole feet [webbed feet] or else as your lord or your lady will ask it. Also a swan with chawdron [sauce made with entrails], or pheasant, ought to be arranged as it is aforesaid/ but the skin must be taken off/ and when they are carved before your lord or your lady/ for generally the skin of all manner [of] cloven footed fowls is unwholesome/ and the skin of all manner of whole footed fowl is wholesome for to be eaten.
Also know you well that all manner [of] whole footed fowls that have their living upon the water [that] their skins are wholesome and clean because they are cleaned by the water/ and fish is their living. And if that they eat only stinking things, it is made so clean with the water that all the corruption is washed away from it. And the skin [missing in Myers transcription: of capon, hen or chicken for they eat foul things in the street and therefore] are not wholesome/ for it is not their kind to enter into the river to make their meat void of filth.
Mallard, goose or swan, they eat upon the land foul meat/ but immediately after their kind, they go into the river and there they cleanse them[selves] of their foul stink. A pheasant, as it is aforesaid/ but the skin is not wholesome/ then take the heads of all field birds and wood[land] birds as pheasant, peacock, partridge, woodcock and curlew for they ear in their degrees, foul things as worms, toads and other such [things].

Here ends the feasts and carving of flesh.


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See notes here for information on the book and translation. In this case, I did refer to other versions of the same book for better translation.
Note: this is not divided up the same as the original

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