''Liber Cure Cocorum'' is an English cookbook dating from around the year 1430 and originating from County of

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

. Unusually for a cookbook, the recipes are written in

rhyming A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...

verse Verse may refer to: Poetry * Verse, an occasional synonym for poetry * Verse, a metrical structure, a stanza * Blank verse, a type of poetry having regular meter but no rhyme * Free verse, a type of poetry written without the use of strict me ...

Text

It was first printed from a transcript made by Richard Morris in 1862 from a text in the Sloane Manuscript Collection (No.1986, British Museum, now

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 ...

), found as an appendix to the " Boke of Curtasye". It is written in a northern English dialect of the 15th century, probably not much earlier than the time of Henry VI. The author titles his work "The Slyghtes of Cure", or, in modern English, "The Art of Cookery".

Content

The poem treats a great variety of dishes under the headings of potages, broths, roasted meats, baked meats, sauces and 'petecure', including the earliest references to several dishes, including

haggis Haggis ( gd, taigeis) is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver, and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and cooked while traditionally encased in the animal's stomach though now an ...

and

humble pie Humble Pie are an English rock band formed by guitarist and singer Steve Marriott in Moreton, Essex, in 1969. They are known as one of the first supergroups of the late 1960s and found success in the early 1970s with songs such as " Black Co ...

Sample recipe

An example:
Lamprayes in browet.
Take lamprayes and scalde hom by kynde,
Sythyn, rost hom on gredyl, and grynde
Peper and safrone; welle hit with alle,
Do þo lampreyes and serve hit in sale.

or, in modern English:
Lampreys in broth.
Take lampreys and scald them by kind,
then, roast them on a griddle and grind
pepper and

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 ...

; boil it with oil,
add the lampreys and serve it in the hall.

References

{{reflist

External links

''Liber Cure Cocorum'' Online Text, with modern translation, Published for the Philological Society by A. Asher & Co., Berlin 1862

Online text --- By Morris, Richard, ed., 1833-1894; Philological Society (Great Britain) Published 1862

''Liber Cure Cocorum'' PDF - By Morris, Richard, revised edition

References

1430s books Medieval cookbooks