[Smashy the Hammer] [An Aspiring Luddite]
I carry no phone
An aspiring Luddite
In a wired world.
[Jeff Berry]
Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he's experimenting with federated platforms. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance, and can found on t he PlusPora diaspora pod. He hates cell-phones.

Le Ménagier de Downham Market

Episode 0: Le Ménagier de Paris
Le Ménagier de Downham Market is a series of videos - mostly medieval, almost always food. The name comes from Le Ménagier de Paris, a fantastic 14th century book written by a well-to-do Parisian for his young wife. The introductory video explains the idea.

The newest videos will be on top, and the text will have references and recipes which were referred to in the video, beginning with these:

  • Greco, Gina L. and Christine M. Rose.The Good Wife's Guide (Le Ménagier De Paris: A Medieval Household Book. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009.
  • Power, Eileen Edna. The Goodman of Paris (Le Ménagier De Paris). Broadway Medieval Library. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1928.
Episode 5: Daryols
  • Austin, Thomas, ed. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. Early English Text Society Original Series. Vol. 91. London: Early English Text Society, 1888. Full text available at the Uni. of Michigan's Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse
  • Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglysch : English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century (Including the Forme of Cury). Early English Text Society. Supplementary Series. Vol. 8. London: Early English Text Society, 1985.
Daryols. Take creme of cowe mylke, oþer of almaundes; do þerto ayren with sugur, safroun and salt. Medle it yfere. Do it in a coffyn of ii ynche depe; bake it wel and serue it forth.
(from Curye on Inglysch, p. 141, recipe 191 in the Forme of Cury)
Not actually an Episode of Le Ménagier de Downham Market
Although this isn't properly an episode of Ménagier de Downham Market, it's a couple of related videos.
For Drachenwald Kingdom University in November of 2020, we made two videos about my cheese-making process. The first is the actual process I've been using with some refinements and variations for nearly twenty years.

The second is a short interview about some of the things I find appealing about cheese- making.


Episode 4: Sauces and Saucemakers
  • Greco, Gina L. and Christine M. Rose.The Good Wife's Guide (Le Ménagier De Paris: A Medieval Household Book. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009.
  • Hudson, William and John Cottingham Tingey, eds. The Records of the City of Norwich, Vol. 2. Norwich: Jarrold & Sons, 1910.
  • Prestwich, Michael, ed., York Civic Ordinances, 1301. Borthwick Paper 49. York: St Anthony's Press, 1976.
  • Stevenson, W. H., ed., Records of the Borough of Nottingham. Vol. 2. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1883.
Episode 3: Onions, oyngnones, and oynouns
Bruet de Alemayne. Milke of alemauns, itired clouwes de gylofree, quibibes, oyngnones ifried: & schal beon hot of clouwes & of quibibes; þe colour shal beon ȝeolu. (Diuersa Cibaria, #15)

To make blaunche porre. Tak whyte lekys & perboyle hem and hewe hem smale with onynouns. Cast it in good broþ & seþe it vp with smale bryddys. Coloure it with safferoun; powdur yt with pouder douce. (Forme of Cury, #2)

  • Cogliati Arano, Luisa. The Medieval Health Handbook Tacuinum Sanitatis [Tacuinum sanitatis.]. New York, N.Y.: G. Braziller, 1976.
  • Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglysch : English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century (Including the Forme of Cury). Early English Text Society. Supplementary Series. Vol. 8. London: Early English Text Society, 1985.
  • Scully, Terence. The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages. Rochester: Boydell Press, 1995.
Episode 2: Carving, Chicken, and Gobbets
Crustardes of flessh. Take peiouns, chykens, and smale briddes; smyte hem in gobettes. & sethe hem all ifere in god broþ & in gres wiþ veriows. Do þerto safroun & poudur fort. Make a crust in a trap, and pynche it, & cowche þe flessh þerinne; & cast þerinne raisouns coraunce, powdour douce and salt. Breke ayren and wryng hem thurgh a cloth & swyng þe sewe of þ e stewe þerwith, and helde it vppon the flessh. Couere it & bake it wel, and serue hit forth. (Forme of Cury, #161)
  • Furnivall, Frederick James. Early English Meals and Manners. Early English Text Society. Original Series. Vol. 32. London: Early English Text Society, 1904. (Contains inter alia Wynkyn de Worde's Boke of Kervynge)
  • Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglysch : English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century (Including the Forme of Cury). Early English Text Society. Supplementary Series. Vol. 8. London: Early English Text Society, 1985.
Episode 1: Leeks
Slyt soppes. Take white of lekes and slyt hem, and do hem to seeþ in wyne, oile, and salt. Tost brede and lay in disshes, and cast the sewe aboue, and serue it forth. (Forme of Cury, #82)
  • Apicius, C. W. Grocock, and Sally Grainger. Apicius : A Critical Edition with an Introduction and an English Translation of the Latin Recipe Textd. Totnes England: Prospect, 2006.
  • Cogliati Arano, Luisa. The Medieval Health Handbook Tacuinum Sanitatis [Tacuinum sanitatis.]. New York, N.Y.: G. Braziller, 1976.
  • Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglysch : English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century (Including the Forme of Cury). Early English Text Society. Supplementary Series. Vol. 8. London: Early English Text Society, 1985.


Luddite'sLog, 21 August 2020
© 2020 Jeff Berry