Gourdes in Pottage was the very first recipe I ever redacted back in the early years of my cooking in the SCA. Throughout the years, I have updated and changed he recipe. Trying different squash. Here is my most recent redaction, and one I'm contemplating using at my next feast in the English course.
Gourdes in Potage
England, 14th century
Forme of Cury
Take young Gowrdes; pare hem and kerue hem on pecys.
Cast hem in gode broth, and do þerto a gode pertye of oynouns mynced.
Take pork soden; grynde it and alye
it þerwith and wiþ yolkes of ayren.
Do þerto safroun and salt, and messe it forth with
powdour douce.
Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler.
Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century
(Including the Forme of Cury).
New York: for The Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.
Translation
Stewed Gourds. Take young gourds; pare them and cut them in pieces.
Put in good broth, and add a large amount of minced onions.
Take boiled pork; grind it and add it along with egg yolks. Add saffron, salt,
and powder douce.
Redaction
2 lbs. squash roasted and peeled
3 onions, minced
2 cup broth (made without bread crumbs)
1/2 cup pork, boiled then minced or ground
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 tsp. salt
2 tbs. of sugar and 1 tbs. each of cinnamon & ginger, mixed together
Bring the broth to a boil, add squash, and onions.
Reduce heat and cook until the squash just becomes tender.
Stir in the pork, egg yolks, saffron, and salt. Allow to cook for a few minutes,
then remove from heat.
Serve
Broth
England, 15th century
Noble Boke off Cookry
In making broth, I use the recipe for broth found in "Hens in bonet" from Napier's Noble Boke off Cookry, as translated in W.E. Mead's The English Medieval Feast, p. 71:
This is made by stewing hens and fresh pork together, grinding pepper, bread,
and cumin, seasoning it, tempering it with the hens' broth, colouring it with saffron,
adding salt, and serving it.
Mead, William Edward. The English Medieval Feast. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1967.
MODERN RECIPE:
3 cups chicken broth
1 cup pork broth
½ - 1 c. unseasoned bread crumbs
½ tsp. each pepper & cumin
pinch saffron
pinch of salt
Combine broths & bring to a low boil; add the bread crumbs & spices,
return to a boil, then reduce heat and allow to cook for a minute.
Remove from heat and use or refrigerate for later. Makes 4 cups.
The amount of bread crumbs used depends on the thickness of the sauce desired.
Less than ½ cup or more than 1 cup may be necessary, or none at all.
Use your best judgment. The same is true of the salt & other spices -
adjust them to your preferred taste.
My interest in making this recipe was a dayboard I was cooking in the Autumn of 2009.
I wanted a soup that was hearty, tasted good and was autumnal in theme.
The fact that this soup used gourdes(squash), was the main factor in my choosing it.
I have made this soup with several different types of squash.
Here are my tries with the different types of squash:
Pumpkin- had an amazing color, but the flavor was not exactly what I was aiming for.
Acorn squash- the consistency was stringy, the flavor too strong, and it overpowered the pork.
Hubbard squash- a very hard squash. I needed to use a hammer to just crack the squash open.
Flavor and color were good, just too much work to get to the flesh.
Butternut- an very nice squash, easy to work with, has excellent flavor, and texture.
This is the squash I have used in this recipe.
The types of gourde or squash that would probably have been used in period is the
bottle gourde or Calabash.
I realize the types of squash I have used here would not have been used in period.
