Another deer blood porridge from Cod Pal Germ 551, section two

20 A spoon dish of roe deer (reh musz)

If you would make a dish of a spoon dish of roe deer (rech musz), take gingerbread (leczellten) as much as you wish and toast it over the coals as you do pfeffer brot (another type of gingerbread). Boil it in wine as thickly as you like and pass it through a cloth. Make it think (i.e. dissolve it) in roe deer blood and let it boil. And if you wish (?) add honey, and season it well. If it turns out too thin, help it with grated bread. Then add fat and do not oversalt it.

This recipe has a close parallel in section one. This one is clearer on some points, but the basic preparation remains the same. Blood was a common ingredient in medieval German cooking, and it can be quite tasty. I remain uncertain what the difference between leczellten and pfeffer brot is, but there must be one.

I owe thanks to my friend Libby Cripps for pointing me to the as yet untranslated fifteenth-century culinary recipe collection that is bound with similar works on fabric dyes and on medicine in the Heidelberg Cod Pal Germ 551. It looks, at first glance, unexceptional, but I will try to keep up a flow of recipes and see whether it has anything of particular interest to offer.

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