A German Brewet
I wanted to include this for the sake of historical interest. I was privileged to spend a few hours with Ivan at his Cumbrian farmhouse, talking about food and cooking sausages in a clockwork spit in front of an open fire. His knowledge of food is surpassed only by his generosity with it. He found the following recipe in one of the oldest cookbooks in the English language, The Forme of Cury.
Take kid and cut them in small morsels or in pieces. Parboil them with the same broth [referring to a previous recipe], make an almond milk and cook the meat in it, add powder of galingale and of ginger with rice flour and colour it with alkanes, boil it, season it with salt and serve it forth with sugar and powder douce.
‘Powder douce’ was a spice mixture, probably made with a mixture of cinnamon, mace and nutmeg, often ground together with a little sugar. ‘Alkanes’ is a saffron-like spice that leeches a bright red colour when warmed in oil or water. Sugar – just a little – was used as a seasoning and flavour enhancer for meat dishes during this period.