Gervase Markham’s 1623 Recipe for ‘A Warden Pie or Quince Pie’

“Take of the fairest and best Wardens, and pare them, and take out the hard chores on the top, and cut the sharp ends at the bottome flat ; then boyle them in White-wine and suger, untill the sirrup grow thick : then take the wardens from the sirrup into a cleane dish, & let them coole ; then set them into the coffin, and prick cloves in the tops, with whole sticks of cinamon, and great store of sugar, as for Pippins ; then cover it, and onely reserve a vent-hole, so set it in the oven and bake it : when it is bak’t, draw it forth, and take the first sirrup in which the wardens were boyld, and taste it, and if it be not sweet enough, then put in more suger and some rosewater & boile it again a little, then powre it in at the vent-hole, and shake the pie wel ; then take sweet butter and rose-water melthed, and with it anoynt the pie-lied all over, and then throw upon it store of suger, and so set it into the oven againe a little space, and then serve it up. And in this manner you may also bake Quinces.”

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

Wardens and quinces, quinces and wardens. Delicious things, some of the absolute highlights of late autumn and early winter, along with medlars, of course.

Both quinces and wardens should be in season round about now, if you can find them. Quinces are easier; they tend to be sold by specialist greengrocers and/or delicatessens, although a lot of their stock is probably imported. Check farm shops and/or orchard gate stalls for locally grown fruits.

Wardens might be a bit trickier to find, if you didn’t know that “warden” is a term that, historically speaking, was applied to a broad group of culinary pears that were superb for baking and stewing and were long-keeping too, some of them lasting, with proper storage, well into the following spring. A vital source of fresh fruit in an era before cold storage systems, or even domestic refrigeration.

But why am I telling you about wardens, when I could just point you in the direction of The Original Warden Pear (2018) by Margaret Roberts – see my book notes post here for more info – which covers the history of these fantastic fruits in superb detail. Also The Worcester Black Pear (2018) by Wade Muggleton, which tells the story of another truly heritage variety of warden-adjacent pear that’s still grown today, particularly in and around Worcestershire, but also in a few other places.

As for that recipe from Gervase Markham, it seems simple enough to follow, as long as you don’t need anything along the lines of, oh, I don’t know, quantities of ingredients, cooking times, oven temperatures, that sort of thing.

Tell you what, why don’t I just point you in the direction of Brigitte Webster’s Spiced Pear Pie recipe, which has all the explanation you need. You can decide whether to “anonyt the pie all over” with a mixture of butter, rosewater and sugar, or not. Your call.

What do you reckon? Does this sound like the sort of seasonal fruit pie you’d love to get your teeth into? Do you have a similar recipe that you always make this time of year? How do you like to cook your wardens and/or quinces, and/or Black Pears of Worcester? Please let me know, via the comments.

And if you’d like to try your hand at a few more warden or quince dishes, see the Recipes page of the site for more historical examples.