Two mid-15th Century Recipes for ‘Chardewardon’, or ‘Chare de Wardon’

“Take Pere Wardonys, an sethe hem in Wyne or in fayre water ; þan take an drynd in a morter, an drawe þem þorwe a straynoure wyth-owte ony lycoure, an put hem in a potte with Sugre and clarifyd hony, an Canel y-now, an lete hem boyle ; þan take it from þe fyre, an let kele, an case þer-to yolkys of Raw eyroun, tylle it be þikke ; & caste þer-to pouder Gyngere y-now, an serue it in maner of Fysshe ; an if it be in lentem lef þe yolkys of Eyroun, & lat þe remenaunt boyle so longe tylle it be þikke, as þow it had been temperyd wyth þe yolkys, in þe maner of charde quynce ; an serve hem in maner of Rys.”

Anon, from Harleian MSS. 279, British Museum, via Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books (1888), ed. Thomas Austin

According to the foreword of the source volume for this recipe, Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books , Harleian MSS 279 dates to “about 1430 or 1440”, but nothing more is said of its provenance. The recipe for ‘Chardewardon’ appears on page 12, and on page 88 of the same book is a very similar recipe – this time from Harleian MS 4016, dated to around 1450 – for ‘Chare de Wardon’:

“Take peer Wardons, and seth hem in wine or water ; And then take hem uppe, and grinde hem in a morter, and drawe hem thorgh a streynoure with the licour ; And put hem in a potte with Sugur, or elles with clarefiede hony and canell ynowe, And lete hem boile ; And then take hit from the fire, And lete kele, and caste there-to rawe yolkes of eyren, til hit be thik, and caste thereto powder of ginger ynowe ; And serve hit forth in maner of Ryse. And if hit be in lenton tyme, leve the yolkes of eyren, And lete the remnaunt boyle so longe, til it be so thikk as though hit were y-tempered with yolkes of eyren, in maner as A man setheþ charge de quyns ; And then serve hit forth in maner of Rys.”

Both recipes should result in a similar dish: thickened, stewed, pear-pulp, flavoured with ginger and cinnamon. Which sounds rather lovely to me. But allow me to do a bit of interpretation work, see if I can come up with something that a modern audience might be able to follow.

Let’s start with the name of the dish. The later recipe makes it clear that the term ‘Chardewardon’ is actually a compound of three words: ‘Chare de wardon’. ‘Chare’ comes from the French ‘chair’, meaning ‘flesh’, and a ‘wardon’, or more commonly ‘warden’, is a ‘keeping’ pear – per Margaret Roberts’ suggestion that ‘warden’ comes from the old Anglo-Saxon word ‘weardian’ and the old French ‘warder’, meaning to ward, to preserve, or to keep¹See my Book Notes piece on The Original Warden Pear (2018) by Margaret Roberts for more detail.– rather than a softer dessert pear, so the recipe is for a dish of ‘flesh of keeping pears’.

Authentic Warden pears are pretty difficult to get hold of these days, but any cooking variety of pear should do the job. I think ‘Black Worcester’ (a.k.a. ‘Worcester Black’ or ‘Black Pear of Worcester’) would be ideal, as would ‘Double de Guerre’. At a push you could try unripe ‘Conference’ pears from the supermarket, but results may vary.

Once you’ve selected your pears, you should “sethe” (seethe / boil) them in wine or fair (clean) water, until they are tender. Then take the pears out of the cooking liquor (reserving it, depending on which recipe you follow) and grind them up in a mortar.

The next step varies: the earlier recipe says to pass the pear pulp through a suitable “straynoure” (strainer / sieve) without any liquor, whereas the later recipe says to pass the cooked pear flesh and the liquor through, so the latter version will of course result in a looser pulp.

Next, put the pulp into a cooking pot with sugar and either a measure of clarified honey, or clarified honey instead of sugar, again depending on the recipe. Maybe half and half might be a good compromise. I’d suggest a tablespoon of each would be more than enough, but then I don’t have a very sweet tooth, so you may want to add more.

Then add “Canel(l) ynowe”, which means cinnamon enough, or cinnamon to taste. Maybe start with a teaspoonful, you can always add more if you want more spice.

Once everything is nicely mixed up together, you’ll need to let it all cool down completely, otherwise when you add your “yolkys of Raw eyroun” (raw egg yolks) they’ll cook and scramble.

How many egg yolks you add will depend on how much pear pulp you’re working with. I’d suggest starting with two and seeing what that does to the mixture before you add any more. The desired result seems to be a thickened pulp, perhaps even a paste, which you then flavour with powdered ginger, again to taste.

By the way, if you’re making this dish during Lent – when, back in the day, eggs were off the menu – or you’re just not an egg-eater, then you can thicken the pulp by simmering it until it reaches the desired consistency instead. Again, you’re aiming to make a pear paste or, if you cook it down a bit further, pear cheese²See my article on making medlar cheese for a very similar method using a different type of fruit.

Finally, we’re told to “serve hem in maner of Rys”. The word “rys” is indeed rice, and “maner of” suggests serving this dish as you would a dish of rice. Which could mean to make it look like rice, or to serve it in the same sort of container as you would rice, or to serve it at the same stage of the meal as you would rice; perhaps as a side-dish, or as part of a lighter course between the main courses?

However you serve it, I think it sounds rather delicious. Quite similar to the endless batches of stewed fruit that I make all through the autumn, to freeze and then bring out as porridge toppings in the winter. I haven’t thought of thickening the fruit with egg yolks before – mainly because I hate wasting food and I’m not a fan of either meringues or egg-white omelettes – but I might give it a go, just the once, to see what the yolks bring to the pear pulp party.

How about you? Do you like the sound of ‘chardewardon’, or ‘chare de wardon’? Would you add egg yolks to your stewed fruit? How loose do you like your pear pulp? Do please let me know, via the comments.

Footnotes

• 1
  See my Book Notes piece on The Original Warden Pear (2018) by Margaret Roberts for more detail. ↩︎
• 2
  See my article on making medlar cheese for a very similar method using a different type of fruit ↩︎