Gervase Markham’s 1623 Recipe for ‘A Pruen Tart’

“Take of the fairest damaske pruens you can get, and put them in a cleane pipkin with faire water, suger, un-bruised cinamon and a branch or two of Rosemarie ; and if you have bread to bake, stew them in the oven with your bread ; if otherwise, stew them on the fire : when they are stewed then bruise them all to mash in their sirrop, and straine them into a cleane dish ; then boyle it over againe with suger, sinamon, and rosewater till it bee as thicke as Marmalad ; then set it to coole, then make a reasonable tuffe paste with fine flower, water, and a little butter, and rowle it out very thin ; then having patterns of paper cut in divers proportions, as Beafts, Birds, Armes, Knots, Flowers, and such like ; lay the patterns on the paste, and so cut them accordingly ; then with your fingers pinch up the edges of the paste, and set the worke in good proportion ; then prick it well all over for rising, and set it on a cleane sheete of large paper, and so set it into the oven, and bake it hard : then draw it, and set it by to coole : and thus you may doe by a whole oven full at once as your occasion of expence is : then against the time of service comes, take off the cõfection of pruens before rehearsed, and with your knife, or a spoone fill the coffin according to the thicknes of the verge : then strow it over all with caraway comfets, and pricke long comfets upright in it, and so taking the paper from the bottome, serve it on a plate in a dish or charger according to the bignesse of the tarte and at the second course, and this tart carrieth the colour blacke.”

Gervase Markham, Countrey Contentments or The English Huswife (1623)

It’s getting very close to damson season in our neck of the woods, and what better way to celebrate that humble but oh, so tasty fruit than with a classic from deep in the archives: an early seventeenth century “pruen” tart. The word Pruen is of course a variant of “prune”, which back in the day was used to refer to most forms of fresh plums, rather than the dried or canned version that most probably springs to mind today.

In this particular instance we’re told to use “the fairest damaske pruens”, and “damaske” refers to Damascus, the capital of Syria, from where it was widely believed damsons originated – as suggested by, among others, Pliny the Elder¹According to the paper ‘Origin and Dissemination of Plums’ by Faust and Suranyi in Horticultural Reviews 23 (1999), referenced in Damsons an Ancient Fruit in the Modern Kitchen (2018) by Sarah Conrad Gothie. as long ago as the first century C.E. – and so it’s a damson tart that we’re making here.

It’s quite a long recipe – which is rather unusually helpful, by the standards of the seventeenth century²The typical recipe, or “receipt”, of the day reads something along the lines of: “Take some stuff. Cook it the usual way. What? What’s the problem?” – for a simple tart, and there are a couple of intriguing details to take a closer look at.

Firstly, we’re told to stew the damsons – sadly we’re back in typically vague territory here, as we’re not told what measure of damsons to use, so let’s just say as many as you’ve got – with sugar, cinnamon and “a branch or two of Rosemarie” – fresh rosemary – which is an intriguing flavour note to add to the mix, if you ask me. I expect by “branch” the author means a sprig or two though, rather than all the leaves from a two-foot long section.

The resulting stewed fruit mix is then strained, to remove the stones and skins, and the pulp is re-boiled, this time with “suger, sinamon, and rosewater” until it has reduced “till it bee as thicke as Marmalad”: so you’re aiming for a marmalade-thick consistency.

The next stage – making the pastry casings – is interesting as well. We’re told to make a “reasonable tuffe paste” – “paste” here being the term for pastry, rather than a thick spread – from “fine flower, water, and a little butter”, rolled thin. That’s “flower” as in “flour”, not “flower” as in “Geranium“, obviously.

Once you have your thinly rolled paste, you need to get a bit crafty. Cut out some paper shapes, lay them on the paste and cut around them. Your cut-out shapes will need to be large enough to allow the edges to be pinched up to a reasonable depth, because the damson filling will be poured into each one, after they’ve been blind-baked first. The fruit is then strewn with “caraway comfets”: caraway seeds crystalized in sugar – Markham doesn’t provide a recipe for these, but they were probably so common and easy to make that he didn’t see the need – before serving it up, with no final bake.

It took me a couple of read-throughs to realise that this recipe is actually for a batch of individual-sized tarts in the shape of “Beafts, Birds, Armes, Knots, Flowers, and such like”, rather than a single, plate-sized tart, but I suppose there’s no reason not to make the larger size, if that’s what you’d prefer.

I really, really like the sound of these damson tarts. Dr Christopher Monk has a recipe for a gluten free³I am so afflicted, alas… pastry, using chestnut flour, over on his Monk’s Modern Medieval Cuisine YouTube channel – see ‘Pistachio and Ginger Toffee Tart‘ video (from 2:18) for details. I think I’ll combine his chestnut pastry with Markham’s damson filling, and add a generous scoop of damson ripple ice cream, that I made a couple of times last year. Damson heaven, surely?

How about you? Do you like the sound of this delicious damson dessert dish? Have you made your own version of damson ice cream? Do you have any favourite damson recipes that you can tell me about or point me in the general direction of? Please do let me know if so, via the comments.

Footnotes

• 1
  According to the paper ‘Origin and Dissemination of Plums’ by Faust and Suranyi in Horticultural Reviews 23 (1999), referenced in Damsons an Ancient Fruit in the Modern Kitchen (2018) by Sarah Conrad Gothie. ↩︎
• 2
  The typical recipe, or “receipt”, of the day reads something along the lines of: “Take some stuff. Cook it the usual way. What? What’s the problem?” ↩︎
• 3
  I am so afflicted, alas… ↩︎