Straight to the recipe A recipe from the Hunger Winter ’44/’45 I have deliberated for a long time whether to publish this recipe. For some Dutch people this dish raises memories to a traumatic period in their lives. It was a means of survival during the infamous hunger winter of 1944/1945. More recently, tulip bulb…
DIET
Chicken with redcurrant sauce
Straight to the recipe A bright summer-sauce from the sixteenth century Blackbirds, thrushes, finches – who doesn’t enjoy hearing these beautifully singing birds? Except of course if you happen to grow currants in your garden. Then suddenly these birds turn into voracious monsters that plunder the bushes before you’ve had the chance to harvest a…
An old family recipe
I have good memories of this salad. My grandmother (on the right, with me on her lap) prepared it during long vacations during the summer in Maastricht, the Southern-most city of the Netherlands, when it was very hot. My mother also had it on her repertoire as an easy meal during heatwaves. So this is…
Medieval apple sauce
Disgustingly healthy! Apple sauce is a medieval relic. It was a popular dish, considering the many recipes for apple sauce that can be found in medieval cookbooks all over Europe. Some of those recipes are rather unusual, like the following recipe for apple sauce with … fish liver! The recipe’s title is ‘appelmoes in de vastene’ (apple…
Real Dutch ‘Slavink’
A very special meatball This meat dish is typically Dutch. I have not been able to find an exact translation of the name slavink, which derives from slagvink, a singing finch. Some Dutch/English dictionaries translate it with kromeski, but since that is dipped in batter and deep-fried, it is not the same dish. If you want to know how…
Capon with caper-sauce
Straight to the recipe Prepared ‘à la braise’ A delicious dish from the nineteenth century that is easy to prepare. How delicious exactly, depends on the poultry (a real capon -mouthwatering but expensive-, a good poularde -very tasty as well-, or the watery pale poor industrial chicken -bleh-) and the stock you use (homemade chicken stock or a…
Herb soup with potato dumplings
Straight to the recipe A delicate herald of Spring The text for this recipe is from a cookbook from the nineteenth century, but in fact the recipe is older. In Le cuisinier from Pierre de Lune (1656) there is a ‘potage the santé’ with sorrel, purslane, chervil and herbs, and no doubt there are other comparable recipes. Two…
Medieval Easter Eggs
Straight to the recipe Playing with colours During Lent, which starts on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Saturday before Easter, eggs were banned from the table. But as the days started to grow longer again after the winter solstice, hens began laying their eggs again! So you can bet that on Easter Sunday, when…
Pickled anchovies
For the third course of the menu with adapted recipes in the edition of Het excellente kookboek (The Excellent Cookbook) we decided to put some anchovies on the table as well. There is a still life by the German painter Sebastian Stoskopff (1597-1657) with a dish filled with anchovies as centre piece. It looks like…
Medieval pea soup
Very simple The recipe is taken from ms KANTL Gent 15, second part. Edition: W.L. Braekman, Een nieuw zuidnederlands kookboek uit de vijftiende eeuw. Scripta 17, Brussel, 1986, recipe nr 92 (edition p.53). About this manuscript. The erweijten (peas) in this recipe can mean either green peas or marrow fat (or field) peas. The liquid in which peas were…
Recipes – Diet
The recipes in these indices can be found in four ways: by source (only historical recipes), on their place in the menu, by origin and by food preference. You can also click on a category in the sidebar for a view with pictures and descriptions. Straight to Vegetarian – Pescetarian Vegetarian Aubergines in aubergine sauce. (hist) Barley Soup from…
Nineteenth-century Anchovy Toast
The recipe on this page was my Christmas card from 2018. Christine Charlotte Riedl The illustration above is from the Lindauer Kochbuch that contains the recipe for anchovy toast. This is a German cookery book that has been in print from the middle of the nineteenth century to 1925. The full title is the Lindauer…
Kale with chestnuts and groats
Straight to the recipe A recipe from the cook of Stadtholder Willem IV The recipe on this page is from Le cuisinier moderne, written by the French cook Vincent La Chapelle (1690 or 1703-1745). He wrote his book first in English, while he was in the service of the fourth Earl of Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope. The…
Roman chestnuts
Straight to the recipe High in carbohydrates, low-fat, gluten free Edible chestnuts were probably introduced in the Netherlands by the Romans. Dutch summers do not always yield ripe chestnuts, but usually enough chestnuts can be gathered under a tame chestnut tree for a nice meal. The picture on the right shows two ancient tame chestnut trees in the…
Jacobin Sops
Straight to the recipe Take 200 capons … This is a recipe from the delightful cookbook Du fait de cuysine by Maître Chiquart. He was a cook in the service of Amadeus VIII (1383-1451, also known as the last Antipope Felix V from 1439 to 1449), count and first duke of Savoy. Amadeus was a regular guest at the…