Guillaume Tirel was the author of perhaps the first important cookbook to appear at the end of the Middle Ages. Born in about 1310, he titled his book Le Liander, meaning “The Cook”. His focus was to move away from the heavily seasoned foods that were common at the time and instead he created many soups and sauces that accentuated the ingredients that were readily available by refining cooking techniques. At the time it was common to boil and then roast meat which he evolved into the use of braising techniques that capture the juices rather than washes them away. Tirel’s book was written before the use of the printing press and his techniques were so sought after that hand written copies continued to circulate for more than 100 years after his death.
“The earliest version of the work was written around 1300, about 10 years before Tirel’s birth. The original author is unknown, but it was common for medieval recipe collections to be plagiarized, complemented with additional material and presented as the work of later authors.”
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Viandier
The book contains passages that a modern viewer would hardly consider a “recipe”. They were more akin to quick noted denoting a vague general idea of what to do. There is nothing that lists amounts of ingredients or cooking times. This is clearly a guide for certified cooks, which is understandable as it was a licensed profession for many centuries.
“Recipes” from the book include:
Fresh mackerel. Filled by the ear and roasted on the grill, bunged with camelina, and tied all around with a net that does not come apart and, in pastry, powdered with spices, fine salt, salted with wine and siboulle or mustard.
Fresh salmon. Either banded, and kept the backbone to roast, then despecied by slabs 3 , cooked in caue, and wine, and salt, to be cooked; mixed with yellow pepper or camelina. Mule. Also as mackerel.
Atlantic cod. Combine and cook like red mullet, and wine to cook, which wants to jance, and salty, with mustard or fresh butter melted on it.
Flat Sea Fish Chapter
Please °. Affected from behind the back below the ear; is well cooked; for saulce put wine, and salt on top, and whoever wants it in soup, be fried without flour.
Scalded, and affeitiated, and cooked as pleis, and who wants to roast, without scalding; and no escorche
To sow, put conninshaller on the spit or on the grill, and sliced by pieces, and put suffere in a pot, and art sane, and beef broth to make the broth, take bread and foyes, you have to finish it, and put to soak in beef broth, and then pour the bread and the foyes, and then put inside the pot, and take ginger, cinnamon and small spices, and reduce it with green juice, and put to boil all together , and taste of salt as it belongs.
For a gibelet of river bird, it is necessary to hall birds on the spit or on the grill; make the same broth as for sowing, and green juice, and spices likewise.
To boil bacon or chicken lardé, stripped in pieces, and the lardés with a lardon or two, and boil in a pot of beef broth, to make it euyre, then take ginger, cinnamon and small spices, and green juice and salt as it belongs.
For grated broth, take veal, chicken, despecced by pieces, and put sour in a healthy pot of art and beef broth, and put bread soaked in it, and poured; and put grain and ginger, without other spices, seasoned competently. And when the soup is ready, take green grain juice or grouselles to put on it. ~Translation by Google.
The free copy uploaded to the google archives has a few photographs of original hand written recipes, but the rest can easily be copied and pasted into a translator such as Google Translate to understand it a bit easier.
I find it pretty neat. Check it out for yourself sometime!
