Get Saucy

Get Saucy: Basic Medieval Sauces 

El Senyor Abrahe çaragoça abrahe@westkingdom.org 

Modern Sauces.  

• We predominately think of French cuisine's mother sauces. (Julia Child)  

• 17th century with chef François Pierre La Varenne (1615–1678).  

• Marie-Antoine Carême (1784–1833) continued the movement.  

• Five French mother sauces are béchamel, velouté, espagnole, hollandaise, and tomato.  

• These were formally codified by French chef Auguste Escoffier in the 19th Century. 

Medieval Sauces are vastly different.  

• Most Medieval Sauces aren’t Dairy based.  

• Most Medieval Sauces based on acid (Wine, Vinegar, Verjuice).  

• Most use Bread or Breadcrumbs as a thickener (Sometimes Chicken Liver or Egg). 

Medieval Sauces in Period  

• Like today, adds extra flavor, depth, and moisture to a dish.  

• Like today, some sauces bought at the market as condiments. (Mustard, Cameline Sauce)  

• The same Sauce can be found throughout Europe; however, made quite differently. 

Basic Medieval Sauces  

• Sauces we will cover.  

• Green Sauce – Generally made with Parsley or other Herbs with additional Spices.  

• Best used with Fish or Chicken.  

• Cameline Sauce – Cinnamon Sauce. The most popular Sauce in Period.  

• Could be bought pre-made. Equivalent to Tomato Ketchup today.  

• Best used with Chicken or Pork.  

• Pepper Sauce – Very spicy. Similar to a BBQ Sauce.  

• Best used with Beef or Pork. 

Tools of the Trade: 

• Mortars and Pestles 

• Large Deep Mortar and Pestle: Good for grinding large amounts of matter with liquid. 

• Medium Mortar and Pestle: Good for common grinding matter and spices. 

• Small Mortar and Pestle: Too small for most uses. I primarily use it to grind delicate spices. 

• Cast Iron Grinder: Modern tool excellent for quickly grinding spices. 

• Although it isn’t period, do not be afraid to break out out the 110v Thundergod to Blend or Process your Food. Mine is named Herr Oster and he gets a workout. 

Strainers 

These are different sized strainers to strain your sauce into various sized pots or jars. To further refine the sauce, you can add cheesecloth to the inside of the strainers. Also, when pouring the sauce into jars, I use a wide mouth funnel that fits just inside the mouth of the jar. 

In presenting the sauces, I chose to stick to four types: Green, Cameline, Pepper, and Mustard. I selected 2 or three recipes for each one to show different variations. However, not all of the recipes have Interpretations with Ingredient lists and so forth. This will give you a chance to interpret some of these on your own. 

Green Sauce: 

Sauce Verte 

Take parcely, Mintes, Betany, Peleter, and grinde hem smale; And take faire brede, and stepe hit in vinegre, and drawe it thorg a streynour, and cast thereto pouder of peper, salt, and ℏ serue it fort . ℏ  

• Betany – Wood Betony (Hedge Nettle): Thought to have healing/magical properties. Flavor of a light tea.  

• Peleter – Pyrethrum (Peleter of Spain): Numbs, relieves aching, and relaxes muscles. Modernly found in insecticides. Low toxicity to Humans/Mammels. 

Sauce vert 

Take percely, myntes, diteyne, peletre, a foil or .ij. o cos marye, a cloue of garleke. And take f t faire brede, and stepe it with vynegre and piper, and sal ; and grynde al this to-gedre, and t tempre it vp wiþ wynegre, or wiþ eisel, and serue i forþe. t  

• Diteyne – Dittany of Crete: Native to Greece. Related to Oregano and Marjoram  

• Costmarye – Costmary: Mediterranean origin. Balsic minty smell and taste. 

[Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books 1430 – 1450, MS4016 c1450, Ed. Faulke Watling and Thomas Austin, 1888] 

Green Sauce with Spices 

Grind ginger very fine, clove, grain, and take out of the mortar: then grind parsley or allheal, sorrel, marjoram, or one or two of the four, and white breadcrumbs soaked in verjuice, and strain and grind again very fine, then strain again and put it all together and flavour with vinegar. 

[Le Menagier de Paris (1393), French edition of Jerome Pichon published in 1846, Translated by Janet Hinson] 

Ingredients 

• 3 slices Bread 

• 3/4 tsp Ginger 

• 1/4 tsp Clove 

• 3/4 tsp Grains of Paradise 

• 1 Bunch Fresh Parsley 

• 1 Cup Verjuice (Substitute 1 Cup White Wine and ½ tsp Sugar) 

• Vinegar (Approx 1/4 Cup) 

Interpretation 

Soak Bread in Verjuice. Grind Parsley, Ginger, Clove, Grains of Paradise, soaked Bread. Strain until smooth. Add Vinegar to taste. 

Cameline Sauce: 

Sawse Camelyne 

Take Raisins of Coraunce and nut kernels and crusts of bread and powder of ginger, cloves, flour of cinnamon. Crush it well together and do it thereto. Salt it, temper it up with Vinegar, and serve it forth. 

[The Forme of Cury, XX.VII.IIII, 144, c1390, From MS7 Ryland Library, University of Manchester, Rendered into Modern English by Glen Hughes, Derbyshire, England, Foods of England, 2016.] 

Sauce Gamelyne ℏn 

Take faire brede, and kutte it, and take vinegre and wyne, & stepe þe brede therein, and drawe hit thorgh a streynour with powder of canel, and drawe hit twies or thries til hit be smot ; and þe take pouder of ginger, Sugur, and pouder of cloues, and cast þerto a litul n n saffro and lete hit be thik ynogh, and thenne serue hit forthe. 

[Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books 1430 – 1450, MS4016 c1450, Ed. Faulke Watling and Thomas Austin, 1888] 

Ingredients 

• 3 slices white bread 

• 3/4 cup red wine 

• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar 

• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon 

• 1/4 tsp. ginger 

• 1/8 tsp. cloves 

• 1 Tbsp. sugar 

• pinch saffron 

• 1/4 tsp. salt 

Interpretation 

Cut bread in pieces and place in a bowl with wine and vinegar. Allow to soak, stirring occasionally, until bread turns to mush. Strain through a fine sieve into a saucepan, pressing well to get as much the liquid as possible out of the bread. Add spices and bring to a low boil, simmering until thick. Serve warm. 

Salsa Camillina 

If you want to make camel sauce, make almond milk out of unpeeled almonds with a good chicken broth. After that, mince the chicken livers and blend them with the milk. Set it to boil, and put in sugar and pomegranate wine or red vinegar or verjuice – however, always be sure that it is red verjuice – and cinnamon as the largest portion, and ginger and other good spices and pepper, and the same with cloves, grains of paradise, nutmeg, two types of pepper, and white sugar. Let it boil a lot, and when it is well cooked, flavor it with salt, spices, and verjuice and sweetening. And if you want, you can put in a couple of roasted or boiled chickens or capons, which you should leave a while with the almond milk. And put in a lot of the roasted chicken grease. 

[El Llibre de Sent Sovi/The Book of Sent Sovi, III, c1325, Trans: Robin Vogelzang, 2008] 

Ingredients 

• 2 Cups Almond Milk 

• 1/4 tsp Ginger 

• 1/8 tsp Nutmeg 

• 1/8 tsp Pepper 

• 1/4 tsp Grains of Paradise 

• 2 tsp Sugar 

• 2 tsp Cinnamon 

• 1/2 Cup Red Wine Vinegar 

• 1 Chicken Liver 

Interpretation 

Cook one Chicken Liver in some Oil in a skillet. Grind Liver. Add two cups of Almond Milk and blend with the Liver. Cook the sauce at a low boil. Grind Pepper and Grains of Paradise and add to the sauce. Add Red Vinegar, Sugar, Ginger, White Pepper, Nutmeg, Salt, and Cinnamon

Pepper Sauce: 

Poivre Noir 

Crush ginger, burnt bread and pepper, steep in vinegar and verjuice, and boil. 

[The Viandier of Taillevent, 165, edited by Terence Scully, 227-8. Ottawa, University of Ottawa Press, (c1300) 1988] 

Salsa de Cervo 

If you want to make pepper sauce, take a mixture of spices without saffron, and take bread toasted and soaked in vinegar, and chop it and grind it all together with the bread. When it is all ground up together, blend it with the same broth. When it is blended, and when the salt is in, take vinegar and boiled fruit syrup, and add some in the usual way. When this is done, set it to boil. When it is boiled, take it from the fire, and add salt, vinegar, and fruit syrup to taste. And put it in bowls. 

[El Llibre de Sent Sovi/The Book of Sent Sovi, LXII, c1325, Trans: Robin Vogelzang, 2008] 

Ingredients 

• 3 slices Bread blackened 

• 2 tsp Black Pepper 

• ½ tsp Ginger 

• ¼ Cup Red Wine Vinegar 

• ½ Cup Fruit Syrup (Pomegranate) 

• ¾ Cup Chicken Broth 

• Salt to Taste 

Interpretation 

Toast two pieces of bread until blackened. Soak Bread in Red Wine Vinegar. Grind Bread with Black pepper and Ginger. Add Chicken Broth and set to boil. Add Salt, and Pomegranate Juice to taste. Allow to thicken then strain. 

Mustard: 

Mustard 

If you wish to provide for keeping mustard a long time do it at wine-harvest in sweet must. And some say that the must should be boiled. Item, if you want to make mustard hastily in a village, grind some mustard-seed in a mortar and soak in vinegar, and strain; and if you want to make it ready the sooner, put it in a pot in front of the fire. Item, and if you wish to make it properly and at leisure, put the mustard-seed to soak overnight in good vinegar, then have it ground fine in a mill, and then little by little moisten it with good vinegar: and if you have some spices left over from making jelly, broth, hippocras or sauces, they may be ground up with it, and then leave it until it is ready. 

 [Le Menagier de Paris (1393), French edition of Jerome Pichon published in 1846, Translated by Janet Hinson]

• 4 Tbsp. whole mustard seed 

• 6 Tbsp. white wine vinegar 

• 1/2 tsp. sugar 

• 1/2 tsp. powder douce 

Mostalla 

Mustard our way: grind the mustard [seeds] and crush them, or grind them in a mill. Scald two or three times, and then grind it and mix with cold broth. And put in honey or sugar. 

If you want to make some in the French way, mix it with vinegar. And you can put in Fruit Syrup. 

[El Llibre de Sent Sovi/The Book of Sent Sovi, XIX, c1325, Trans: Robin Vogelzang, 2008]