Good news, everyone! I finished the translation of the recipes in Solothurn S 392 today. There are still some interesting ones to merit posts in their own right, but once I’ve got it cleaned u and edited, the whole text will go u as a pdf to download. Now I’m trying to decide which source to take on next. Meanwhile, here is a neat one:
B29 Item make filled roast capon this way: After you have plucked it, open it and take out the heart, lungs, liver, and stomach. Fill (read füll for fürb) its stomach well, put in juniper berries and a little ginger cut up small, sew it shut, and attach it inside the capon. Then take the heart, liver, and lung, cut it up, and cut up bacon in pieces as small as dice with it, and (add) garlic cloves, juniper berries, ginger, cloves, and other good spices if you want. Fill it with that and then sew it shut. Prepare it with as much salt as it needs and lard it with a larding needle on the outside. Then roast it. That way, you will have a good roast capon. You can also make filled chickens and other birds this way if you want.
This is the kind of recipes people expect when we say ‘medieval’: heavily spiced, disconcertingly bloody, and complicated. It seems to mostly function as a way of using the innards of the bird which, since people did not buy poultry frozen and pre-processed, would have been on hand. So you fill the stomach with spices, fix it to the inside of the capon’s body cavity, then stuff the other organ meats and bacon all around it, again mixed with a plethora of spices. The bird is spitted, larded, and roasted by the fire, the most prestigious way of cooking it. In the end, we are informed that chickens and other birds can also be prepared this way, and surely were more often than the truly pricey and exclusive capons.
The recipe collection I am currently translating is part of a manuscript now held at the Zentralbibliothek Solothurn as S 392. The entire manuscript looks fascinating, a collection of craft recipes for things like dyes, stains, paints, vanishes, and parlour tricks, but I will limit The recipe collection I am currently translating is part of a manuscript now held at the Zentralbibliothek Solothurn as S 392. The entire manuscript looks fascinating, a collection of craft recipes for things like dyes, stains, paints, vanishes, and parlour tricks, but I will limit myself to the culinary recipes in it. The majority of them are in German and were edited and published in Brigitte Weber: Die Kochrezepte der Handschrift S 293, Transkription und Untersuchung einer spätmittelalterlichen Kochrezeptsammlung aus der Zentralbibliothek Solothurn, Gießen 2026.
The manuscript dates to the period around 1490-1510, based on watermarks and handwriting. There is no internal date. The recipes are an eclectic collection, which is not unusual for the medieval manuscript tradition. They were most likely written down in Baden. Some refer to Italian customs which were fashionable at the time while others are solidly in the German tradition.
The collection is sometimes called the oldest Swiss cookbook, a title that is contested because of its origins north of the modern border. The designation makes little sense at the time anyway, given how closely connected the cities of the Confederation were with their neighbours at the time. The recipes clearly were valued in Solothurn, most likely because they were useful.myself to the culinary recipes in it. The majority of them are in German and were edited and published in Brigitte Weber: Die Kochrezepte der Handschrift S 293, Transkription und Untersuchung einer spätmittelalterlichen Kochrezeptsammlung aus der Zentralbibliothek Solothurn, Gießen 2026.
The manuscript dates to the period around 1490-1510, based on watermarks and handwriting. There is no internal date. The recipes are an eclectic collection, which is not unusual for the medieval manuscript tradition. They were most likely written down in Baden. Some refer to Italian customs which were fashionable at the time while others are solidly in the German tradition.
The collection is sometimes called the oldest Swiss cookbook, a title that is contested because of its origins north of the modern border. The designation makes little sense at the time anyway, given how closely connected the cities of the Confederation were with their neighbours. The recipes clearly were valued in Solothurn, most likely because they were useful.