Recipes from the Grace Acton manuscript, 1621
from the: wellcome historical medical library
Viande Royal
Take a greek or Rhenish wyne and clarifyde honee mix them well with grounde ryee ginger, pepper, cinnamon and cloves saffron, sugar, mulberries and sandal wood, boil the mixture and salt it and take care that it be thick
Browet of Almayne
Take coneys and parboil them chop them in gobbets and seathe wythe pork or kid, take cloves, maces, pines, minced ginger, currants and onions, boil and colour wyth saffron Take alkanet fry it and pres in a (smudged) thrugh a strainer then adde a little vinegar and ginger mixed together
To cure a Wen in neck
Chop an adder's tongue and pound wythe raw egg, sandal wood and saffron mix wythe lard from a fat hog and put on wen, follow by leche.
Syllabub
1 quartyrn of red wyne, 1 quartyrn of whyte wyne halfe quartyrn brandye sugar to taste, 1 bowle of milk, half pound cream quartyr of a nutmeg. Milk the cow into the bowle or pour from a height.
Peacock with the skin
Strip off the skin wythe the feathers tail, head and neck, Spread on a table and strew wyth ground cummin. Take the cock, roast and endore wythe raw yolk of egge, then cool sewe into the skin and serve alway at last course.
Cure for Bed Wetting
Boil a mouse in urine and pound wythe chopped acorn and see coal (coral?) and feed to the child on empty gutt.
Bruce
Take the umbles of a swine and parboil them, cut them small and put them in a pot wythe some good broth and draw it up wythe blood and vinegar, and put it into a pot wythe pepper and cloves and let it boil and serve all this together.
Drope
Take almonds, blanch and grinde them mix them wythe good meat broth and seethe this in a pot, mince onions and fry in fresh grese, put them to the almonds. Take small birds, parboil them and throw them in the potage wythe cloves and cinnamon and a little (writing is very smudged) boil the whole.
Rose
Take powdered rice and boil it in almond milk till it be thick take the brawn of capons and hens beat it in a mortar and mix wythe the preceding put the whole in a pot wythe powfered cinnamon and cloves and while mace and colour wythe saunders.
For a Sty on the eye
Take hedghogge lard and verdigris and mix wythe ashes milk in a silver pot apply to the eye with a hares tail.
Leche Lumbarde
Take raw pork pull off the skin pick out the skin sinews and pound the pork in a mortar wythe raw egge add sugar, salt, rasins, currants, powdered pepper and cloves, put it in a bladder and let it seethe til it be done enough then cut in slips of the form of peascods grind raisins in a mortar, mix wythe red wyne and put to them almond milk colour wythe sandal wood and saffron add pepper and cloves then boil the whole. When it is boiled mix cinnamon and ginger wythe wyne and pour on it and so serve it.
Cure for Cough
Halfe quartryn of honie, halfe quartryn of glyceryne or fysh oil 2 lemons Blend all together and take every twoe hours. for a childe every 4 hours
To ease a woman big wythe childe
Straddle a pot of boiling seewater to whych has been added vitriol and soot from a fire repeat till the childe be delivered.
Boar in egreduce
Take dates washed clean and currants boul them and pound them together and in a pounding put cloves to them and mix wythe vinegar or clarey or other sweet wyne, put in a faire pot and boil well then put to it halfe a quarteryn of sugar or honie and half an ounce of cinnamon in powder and in the setting down take a little vinegar and mix wythe it half an ounce of ginger ground wythe sandlewood and saffron, in the boiling put minced ginger to it, next take fresh brawne seethe it cut in thin slices and laye in a dish, fry pines in fresh grese take out and cast into same pot then put the syrup above the brawne in the dish and serve hot.
