Thomas Dawson’s 1594 Recipe for ‘Chewets in Lent’

“Take a fresh Eele and flea it, and cut off the fish from the bone, mince it small, and pare two or three wardens, & mince them lykewise small, as much of them as of the Eele or Oysters, and temper them together, and season it with Ginger, Pepper, Cloues, Mace and salt, and a litle collour it with Saunders, and put Corrans and prunes, and minsed great raisons and Dates, as you doe to the other pies of flesh when it is halfe baked put them out, and put to it a litle vergious. And if your Gelly be not fat, put to it a litle Sallet Oyle fried with some sweet flowers or hearbes, if yee put a litle Rosewater and salt it is good, but if you have any fat of fish it is better than Oyle.”

Thomas Dawson, The Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin (1594)

Apparently last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, which marks the first day of Lent, a tradition of fasting – and one upon a time prayer and almsgiving as well – that is probably much less rigorously observed today than it would have been back in Thomas Dawson’s era, at the end of the sixteenth century.

When Dawson published The Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin in 1594, the highly Protestant Queen Elizabeth I was sitting on the throne of England, and the attempted invasion by the highly Catholic King Philip II of Spain was still fresh in the national memory. So whether you observed Lent, and particularly how you observed it, would most likely have been a matter, quite literally, of life and death.

One thing you most certainly would have had to be careful about was when you ate, or more pertinently didn’t eat, the flesh of animals. I’m no expert, but I somehow gather that fish was considered fair game – no pun intended – in Lent, and especially by Elizabeth I, who I seem to remember hearing was keen to encourage the nation’s fishing industry, mainly in order to have a ready supply of sailors to man the warships if the Spanish Armada came calling again¹Although this may of course be one of those odd historical origin myths that I picked up from somewhere – probably an episode of QI – so perhaps don’t quote me as an authoritative source….

Thomas Dawson’s recipe for ‘Chewets in Lent’ therefore mixes the minced, fishy flesh of an eel, and/or oysters, with a selection of fruits; starting with chopped wardens, or cooking pears, which would still have kept well right through Lent, if they had been stored properly, and then adding chopped currants, prunes, raisins and dates, along with a whole spice-rack worth of aromatics, and just a dash of super-sour verjuice.

It’s an… interesting-sounding blend of flavours, one that harks back much more to the medieval palate than anything that might appeal to modern tastes. I’m sure the idea of a highly spiced blend of fish and dried fruit fried in “sallet” – salad? olive? – oil or fish fat would have sounded perfectly normal to Dawson’s Tudor audience, but I’m not so sure that I’m desperate to try it myself. To-date I’ve only encountered eel in sashimi form, and haven’t yet tried oysters, but I really don’t think this is the recipe that’s going to persuade me to give either of them a proper go.

How about you though? Is your palate a little more adventurous than mine? Do you fancy the idea of a fritter of chopped eel or oysters, with pears, dried fruit and spices? Do please let me know, via the comments.

Footnotes

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  Although this may of course be one of those odd historical origin myths that I picked up from somewhere – probably an episode of QI – so perhaps don’t quote me as an authoritative source… ↩︎