Lady Margaret of Buckrode

Documentation for Malaches of Pork

Recipe:
(Original from Form of Cury by Richard IIs master cooks transcripted by Samuel Pegge1)
Hewe pork al to pecys and medle it with ayren & chese igrated. Do erto powdour fort, safroun & pynes with
salt. Make a crust in a trap; bake it well erinne, and serve it forth.
(Redaction my own)
Cut pork into pieces and mix it with eggs and grated cheese. Do there to powder fort, saffron and pine nuts with
salt. Make a crust in a pie pan; bake it well there in and serve it forth.
Origin:
This particular recipe is from the Form of Cury1 a collection of late 14th century English recipes.
The recipe above suggests it was served in wealthy households given its use of imported ingredients and use of
both meat and dairy.
Explanation:
Because the original is unclear whether the pork is raw or cooked I opted to use raw ground pork since raw pork
will absorb the flavors from the spices better using cooked pork. I also allowed the filling to sit over night to allow the
flavors to mix.
I have chosen to use a mild cheddar cheese for the unspecified cheese in the recipe due to cheddar being a
period English hard cheese that could in theory be what was used for this dish.
The spices called for in the recipe are only given as powder fort and the only specific spice mentioned is
saffron. Powder fort is a spice blend that varies in both ingredients and proportions depending on the individual mixing
it and region where it was sold not unlike todays Italian herb blend. Samuel Pegge describes the spice mix as
consisting of warmer spices, ginger, and pepper so I based my spice mixture off of that description using cinnamon,
cloves, nutmeg, mace, grains of paradise, mustard, cumin, coriander, cubeb, galingale and cardamom in addition to
ginger and pepper all of which are spices used in Form of Cury1.
I have chosen to use a pie crust recipe from A Propre New Booke of Cokery 2 for the crust because it is a short
paste pie crust similar to what wouldve been used in the late 1300s (documentation in the following pages). It also is a
rather plain crust that wont compete with the intricate flavors of the filling.
For display purposes I have chosen to make many bite sized pies instead of one large pie in addition to facilitate
serving the judges.
While the original recipe does not designate to cover the top of the trap with paste it is possible that the author
assumed that the cook would know to seal the filling in a crust. I have chosen to do so to make the stacking of the small
pies easier without concern about the filling sticking onto the bottom of the pie stacked on top of it, which will facilitate
transport to site.

1) Master-Cooks of Richard II, Transcription by Samuel Pegge, Form of Cury, 1390 (transcription 1791), England
2) A Propre New Booke of Cokery, unknown author, 1545, England