I’m writing a book (update October, 2024 )

How to Cook!

I’ve been writing a book. Its provisional title is, Fourme of Cury or How to Cook: The Cookery Book of Richard II.

I have already edited and translated the text from the manuscript you see above, which is the John Rylands Library version of King Richard II’s official cookery book.

If you want to see the digitised manuscript in full, just click on the image above.

The Middle English title, Fourme of Cury, which means Proper Method of Cookery, is taken from this manuscript’s preamble, or introduction. Very often historians use the spelling Forme which is not attested to in any version of the text.

I am now focusing on the research needed for completing the writing of the introductory material, recipe commentaries, and notes. In addition, I have been compiling, what has become, an extensive compendium for all the ingredients, cookery equipment and cookery terms used in the Rylands manuscript. What was once imagined as a comprehensive glossary has become a mini-encyclopaedia in its own right.

As some of you may be aware, I’ve been dealing with a number of health issues over the last year or so of this project, which has inevitably had an impact on my capacity to sustain long, continuous periods of both research and writing. So I am having to pace myself, working part-time, in effect. But I am getting there!