Fried filled sage leaves from the Kuchenmaistrey

Sophisticated cuisine.

3. xxxiiii. Make a filled fritter of sage thus: Take dried leützbirn (a variety of pear) and clean them (mach sie schon). Boil them soft and pound them in a mortar. Cook (rost) them in honey and wine moistly (woll feücht) and add spices and saffron to them, but no salt. Spread a sage leaf with this and cover it (the filling) with another leaf. Press them together carefully so that they stick together. Make a batter with honey and wine, draw them through this and fry them. Serve them and strew sugar on them and bring them to the table warm.

3. xxxv. Item another filled fritter of sage. Make a filling or roast apples as is described above without colouring it yellow or salting it (on gel vnd saltz), spread it on a sage leaf, press another onto it, make a batter as before, draw them through it one after the other and lift them carefully into the pan.

Another interesting fritter recipe from the Kuchenmaistrey (though at this point, I am eagerly awaiting the end of fritters). I am positive this is worth trying out and will do well with modern diners if I can get the seasoning right. Fruit, especially apples and pears, need not imply sweetness.

I will continue posting recipes from the Nuremberg Kuchenmaistrey produced around 1490, but my mode will change. Instead of translating one daily and posting it here, I will try to use what time there is to translate as much as I can and post only some of them here. Once the entire text is done, I will try to get it published either as a book, or online.

The Kuchenmaistrey (mastery of the kitchen) was the earliest printed cookbook in German (and only missed being the earliest printed cookbook in any language by a few years). The book gave rise to a vibrant culture of amended and expanded manuscript copies as well as reprints spanning almost a century. The recipes seem designed to appeal to a wealthy, literate and cosmopolitan clientele.

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