Picture of Hannah Woolley Recipe Book

 

Calves Head with Oisters Old
Elizabethan Recipe

  • Ingredients for Calves Head with Oisters - an Old Elizabethan Recipe
  • Cooking method for Calves Head with Oisters
  • Calves Head with Oisters  - Old Elizabethan Recipe
  • Have fun reading this Calves Head with Oisters old recipe
  • What food people ate during the Renaissance era

Picture of Hannah Woolley Recipe Book

 

Calves Head with Oisters Old Elizabethan Recipe

To rost a Calves Head with Oisters
Split your Calves Head as to boil, and let it lie in water a while, then wash it well, and cut out the Tongue, then boil your Head a little, also the Tongue and Brains, then mince the Brains and Tongue with a little Sage, Oisters and Marrow put amongst it when it is minced, three or four Eggs well beaten, Ginger, Pepper, Nutmeg, Grated Bread and Salt, and a little Sack, make it pretty thick.

 
 
 

Take the Head and fill it with this, and bind it close, and spit it and rost it, and save the Gravie which comes from it in a Dish, baste it well with Butter, put to this Gravie some Oisters, and some sweet Herbs minced fine, a little white Wine, and a sliced Nutmeg; when the Head is rosted, set the Dish of Sauce upon hot Coals with some Butter and a little salt, and the Juice of an Orange, beat it up thick and Dish your Head, and serve it in with this Sauce; garnish your Dish with stewed Oisters and Barberries.

Calves Head with Oisters Old Elizabethan Recipe
The above Old recipe is taken from for Calves Head with Oisters is written in totally different way to today's recipe books.

 
  • There were no lists of ingredients - these were included as part of the text
  • Food and ingredient measurements were extremely basic - quantities were not often specified.
  • Temperature control was difficult and therefore not specified.
  • Cooking times were vague - and left to the cook to decide.
  • It was assumed that the reader would already have some knowledge of cooking

The History of the Recipe Book

  • Some of the language might be referred to as 'Olde English'
  • The art of cooking and the recipe was passed verbally from one generation to the next
  • The first printed book ever to be published in English was in 1474.
  • Most Elizabethan women were unable to read.
  • The idea of a Recipe Book was an entirely new concept
  • The first Recipe Books to be printed in England which included many old Elizabethan and Medieval recipes were called:

    • 1545 - 'A Propre new booke of Cokery'
    • 1588 - 'The Good Huswifes Handmaid for Cookerie in her kitchen'
    • 1596 - 'The Good Hyswife's Jewell'
    • 1610 'Mrs. Sarah Longe her Receipt Booke'

 

Calves Head with Oisters Old Elizabethan Recipe

The above Old recipe is taken from the book by Hannah Woolley (1622-1675) printed at the White Lion in Duck-Lane, near West-Smithfield, London in 1672 entitled:

The Queen-like Closet
OR
RICH CABINET
Scored with all manner of
RARE RECEIPTS
FOR
Preserving, Candying and Cookery

 

Picture of the Art of Cookery

 

Calves Head with Oisters Old Elizabethan Recipe

  • Ingredients for Calves Head with Oisters - an Old Elizabethan Recipe
  • Cooking method for Calves Head with Oisters
  • Free Calves Head with Oisters  - Old Elizabethan Recipe
  • Have fun reading this Calves Head with Oisters old recipe
  • What food people ate during the Renaissance era
  • The cooking instructions used
  • The different types of food used in old recipes

 
 

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Calves Head with Oisters Old Elizabethan Recipe

 

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