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Pancake recipe from 1615

12/2/2013

4 Comments

 
This recipe for 'The Best Pancake' is from
The English Husewife by Gervase Markham, published in 1615.

''To make the best pancake, take two or three eggs, and break them into a dish, and beat them well; then add a pretty quantity of fair running water, and beat all well together; then put in cloves, mace, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and season it with salt; which done, make it as thick as you think good with fine wheat flour; then fry the cakes as thin as may be with sweet butter, or sweet seam, and make them brown, and so serve them up with sugar strewed upon them. There be some which mix pancakes with new milk or cream, but that makes them tough, cloying, and not crisp, pleasant and savoury as running water.''

Ingredients
2-3 eggs
Plain wheat flour - about 8oz
Water - about a pint (or replace some or all of it with milk and/or cream)
Salt
Ground spices: mace, cinnamon, cloves nutmeg

Mix the dry ingredients together, mix in the egg then gradually add the liquid. Beat well and let it stand for a while. Fry in a good heavy frying pan using a little butter or suet.

Serve with sugar or with fruits preserved in brandy.

Enjoy, because the Lentern fast begins tomorrow!


Picture
4 Comments
Gonzo
13/2/2013 01:49:23 pm

Read this on Shakespeare's England a year ago - if you're going to use other people's work, at least have the decency to credit them.

Reply
HistoryNeedsYou link
16/7/2013 05:34:40 am

Thank you for your comment. I have a large collection of historical recipe books, including the one from which this was taken, The English Husewife. Which I have credited. I do not subscribe to the blog you mentioned and was not aware that author had published from the same source.

Reply
Andrew Lowe link
13/2/2013 02:43:56 pm

What is "seam"?

Reply
HistoryNeedsYou
15/2/2013 07:58:35 am

'Seam' was lard - animal fat, in contrast to the dairy fat of butter.

Reply

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