Medieval culinary glossary: jelly

Image: ‘Gelee of fysche’. Fourme of Cury. Manchester, John Rylands Library, MS English 7, folio 50r.

We have arrived at the letter j in the excerpts from my glossary of ingredients, equipment and terminology found in Richard II’s cookery treatise, Fourme of Cury (c.1390). J is for jelly:

jelly gelee. A semi-set, or jellied, sauce made by straining and cooling broth in which gelatinous fish (e.g. eels), or high-collagen cuts of meat (e.g. trotters, snouts, ears, calves’ feet), or poultry have been cooked. The gelatine released into the broth causes the sauce to thicken and become jelly-like as it cools. Jelly is served poured over the fish, meat or poultry that is set aside after being cooked in the broth. Also, as is suggested by a contemporaneous French recipe, in which the cook is instructed to put his plates of gelee in a cold place pour prendre (‘to set’), the jelly may have been served solidified, thus preserving the fish or meat within (see Viandier, pp. 128 and 286). For jelly translating galyntyne, see galentine, above.

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If you haven’t already read my blog post on jelly (actually the second most read to date), here it is:

Jelly in 13th- and 14th-century England