John Murrell’s 1630 Recipe for ‘A Quince or Warden Pie’
“Pare faire pear Quinces or Wardens, and set them into an earthen panne, with the crownes upward, put to them a little Claret-wine, and a graine of Muske or more, according to the quantity of the fruit, put in a little Sugar, cover them close with a sheet of Paste, set them into a Bakers Oven with wheaten bread, but not houshold bread, for then they will be burnt and dry : when then have stood three or four houres in the Oven, they wil be very red and tender, then you may keepe them a weeke or more for use : when you have occasion to make your pie, take Butter, and the yolkes of Egges, and make short Paste, & raise a Coffin fit for your stuffe, one by another, put in whole Cloves, and a little whole Cinamon, poure in some sirrup from their former baking, or if you want it, then put in Claret-wine, and more Sugar, set them in an oven as hot as for Pies, and in one hour they will be bakte, and your fruit orient red. Remember before your first baking, that you coare your Quinces.”
Jon Murrell, The Second Book of Cookery (1630)
I’m beginning to amass quite a nice little collection of historical quince, warden – more a class of long-keeping, culinary pears than a particular variety – and/or pear pie recipes. There’s Gervase Markham’s 1623 recipe for ‘quince or warden pie’, Robert May’s 1665 recipe for ‘warden or pear tart’, and of course, Brigitte Webster’s recipe for ‘Spiced Pear Pie‘, which is her own creation, inspired by a late C16th recipe from Thomas Dawson, ‘To Bake Quinces, Pears and Wardons‘1This recipe actually appears in The Good Huswife’s Jewell (1587) rather than The Good Huswife’s Handmaide for the Kitchin (1594).
Of course, the similarities between these recipes are more distinct that their differences. After all, how much variation can there be between four pies made with quinces, wardens or pears, with added sugar and spices?
Well, the deviation is in the spicy detail. Dawson’s quinces are baked in the pie, with cinnamon, ginger and sugar. Markham cooks his pears in white wine and sugar, then adds them to the pie with cloves, cinnamon and more sugar. May cooks in the pie with cloves, cinnamon and ginger root sliced thin. And Murrell cooks pears by slow-baking them in wine with musk grains, then re-cooks them with cloves and cinnamon.
All similar, all subtly different. And they all sound very tasty indeed.
How about you? How do you like your quince, pear or warden pies? What’s your favourite spice mix for this kind of thing? Do let me know, via the comments.
Footnotes
- 1This recipe actually appears in The Good Huswife’s Jewell (1587) rather than The Good Huswife’s Handmaide for the Kitchin (1594). ↩︎
Murrell’s is a very interesting recipe because of the two uses of paste. First, what must have been a simple flour and water paste was used to create a crust around the fruit in which to slow bake it, rather like the way we might cook a celeriac, though this recipe has the fruit in an earthenware dish and there is some added liquid too. Second, we have the buttery, rich and tasty short paste, or pastry, made into a pie in which the pre-baked fruits are placed. I really like the clear distinction here between the two types of paste (or dough). One, a vehicle for cooking the fruit, the other to be eaten with the fruit, i.e. a pie in the way we would understand today. There are medieval recipes (my area) for tasty, egg enriched pastry, meant to be eaten, and also ones where the paste/dough is primarily a vehicle for slow baking. What doesn’t exist in the medieval period are paste recipes using butter, though cream appears twice. The very rich, what we would today call, short crust pastry, of Murrell’s recipe was very much a post medieval innovation. How delicious it must have been with these slow-baked quinces or wardens. I really would like to try his method.
Ah, so the “cover them close with a sheet of Paste” instruction means to wrap the fruit rather than just cover the pan? That is interesting. I guess that would be a great way of keeping all the moisture and juice in the fruit, which would help to prevent it breaking down too much as it cooks? And then making up that good-quality paste for the finished pie. Lovely bit of clarification, thank you very much!