Middle Kingdom Arts and Science Faire

Crustade Lumbard
A Prune and Date Tart from the Coronation Feast of Henry IV

The Honorable Lady Lote Winterborn

Division V- Cooking: Single Dish
28 May 2016 A.S. 51

Statement of Intent
The main intent of producing this dish was to practice the interpretation and production of
food from the Medieval Era. The recipe that I have selected is for crustade lumbard which is
found in Harleian MS. 279 written in 1420 and copied into Two Fifteenth Century CookeryBooks. An open tart with fine pastry, parsley, chopped dates, prunes, marrow, cream and eggs,
seasoned with salt and sugar (Laurence,144). It goes together and looks similar to a quiche.

Custard Today and Yesterday

Simply stated, a custard is a liquid-- milk, cream, or a combination of the two-- that is
thickened using a combination of eggs and heat. The coagulation of the egg protein sets the
custard. (Friberg, p575)
Crme brle, pots de crme, key lime pie, and quiche are all different varieties of custard in
the contemporary kitchen. They are made by either being stirred in a pot or baked in the oven.
These two cooking methods also seem to be true in the medieval era. Crustade lumbard is a
baked custard but the recipe for the custard found in MS. 279 is made by the stirring method. It
is an exciting thought that the palate has changed over time but the basic methods by which we
cook have remained steadfast.

Crustade Lumbard in History

In 1399 Henry IV succeeded Richard II to the English throne. Crustade Lumbard appears in the
menu for his coronation feast. It is situated in the Le Primer cours., the first course, Therefore
it starts out the feast. In 1404 when King Henry married his second wife Joan of Navarre where
we find the dish in Ibidem conuiuium de pissibus. Le .j. Cours., the fish course, which was the
fourth course. (Austin, 51-59 and Laurence, 149).

Redacting the recipe

This recipe is from Two Fifteenth Century Cookery-Books:
Take gode Creme, & leuys of Percely, & Eyroun, e olkys & e whyte, & breke hem er-to, &
strayne orwe a straynoure, tyl it be so styf at it wol bere hym-self; an take fayre Marwe, &
Datys y-cutte in .ij or iij. & Prunes; & putte e Datys an e Prunes & Marwe on a fayre cofynne,
y-mad yif fayre past & put e cofyn on e ovyn tyl it be a lytel hard; anne draw hem out of e
ouyn; take e lycour & putte er-on, & fylle it vppe, & caste Sugre y-now on, & Salt; an lat
bake to-gederys tyl it be y-now; & yif it be in lente, lef e Eyroun & e Marwe out, & anne
serue it forth.
I have translated it so:
Take good cream and leaves of Parsley and eggs, the yolks and the white, and break them there
to, and strain them through a strainer until they be so stiff that they would bear themselves;
then take marrow, dates and cut into two or three pieces & prunes and put the dates in and the
prunes and marrow in a fair coffin made of fair paste and put the coffin in the oven until it be a
little hard; then take it out of the oven; take the liquid and put it there on and fill it up and cast

sugar now on and salt; then let bake until it be done and if it be lent then leave the eggs and
the marrow out and then serve it forth.
Working version:
cup chopped dates
cup Chopped prunes
cup crumbled bone marrow, beef
1 cup heavy cream
2 Tablespoons minced flat leaf parsley
2 eggs
A pinch of sugar
A pinch of salt
Coffin crust
Preheat oven to 400F
Line pan with parchment and place in the crust. Fill with Dates, Prunes, and Marrow. Place in
oven until the marrow has melted. Take out every few minutes and give it a stir.
Whip the heavy cream and eggs to soft peak then fold in the parsley. Take the crust out of the
oven and pour in the filling. Bake for about 25- 30 minutes.
Notes:

I started out with the redacted recipe found on A Boke of Gode Cookery and experimented until
I had made it my own.
The first time I made the custard I whipped the eggs and cream to a soft peak. Even with the
help of a blender this took about 30 minutes. The next time, I whipped the mixture until it was
thick and frothy. I prefer the result of whipping the eggs to a stiff peak. This also causes the
custard to be a bit softer when baked.
This custard is very much like a quiche where-as you start with a shell, toss in the chunky bits of
fruit, meat, vegetable, or cheese and then the custard mixture is poured over the top.

A Fayre Cofynne
Culinary students of the contemporary era are first taught how to make the five French mother sauces-Bechamel, Veloute, Espagnole, Hollandaise, Tomato-- and by the time they graduate are expected to
know how to make them without a recipe. In the middle Ages (500CE-1500CE) encasing food in a crust
called a coffin (cofynne, cofyn, cophyn) was an everyday practice in order to help preserve the contents
of the dish over several days (Wilson, 32-37). Therefore it must have been of little use to have the recipe
recorded.

This recipe for Crustade Lumbard calls for a fayre cofynne, y-mad yif fayre past. We also find this
instruction for Daryoles (Austin, 47) which is another type of open tart. Upon looking at other recipes
that use coffins the description of fayre is not always used. In Curye on Inglysch we find Make a
coffin of past I 43, Do yt in a cofyn II 82, Make a cophyne of e heghte of e lyte fingur IV 165,
And an put em in a cofyn V 14. Two Fifteenth Century Cookery-Books, from which the recipe for this
dish came has do it on a cofynne dyurerse bake metis i., make in cofyn dyurerse bake metis ij. and
vj., do hem in a cofyn with yolks of eryoun dyurerse bake metis iiij.. This leads to the belief that cooks
of the period used a variety of coffins to use with different types of dishes.
In consideration of the term fayre and interpreting it to mean light the conclusion that the creator of
this recipe meant for the cook to use a fine granular flour which would make for a smoother dough and
lighter crust has been reached. Flour was milled by running wheat grains between moving stones which
would crush the berries to varying degrees of meal and flour. The more times the crushed grains were
turned through the mill the finer the flour would become. The higher you are in power the finer the
flour one would receive. The flour of a poor man would be very mealy in texture whereas the flour for a
king is as fine as one can find on a contemporary grocery store shelf.
For the coffin I have chosen a recipe found in Libellus de arte conquinaria: An Early Northern Cookery
Book (35) as it is a very basic dough and the addition of cinnamon to the crust will do well to
compliment the custard.
Recipe XX [K17]:
Quomodo conficiatur pastellum de medullis cerverom.
Man skal suith hiort been oc sla them syndr thawr the r kalde, oc gr en degh af hwe- te
mil, oc kalt watn, oc lat thr til salt oc pipr, oc kanil, oc lat marghn til af the been oc gr thr
af in pastel oc bak i en hovn.
How to prepare a pastry of deer marrow
One should boil bones of deer, and crack them open when they are cold. And make a dough of wheat
flour and cold water, and add salt and pepper and cinnamon, and the marrow from the bones and make
a pasty of it, and bake it in an oven.
Working Recipe:
2 cups whole wheat flour
cup bone marrow, beef or venison
tsp salt
tsp pepper
tsp cinnamon
Cold water
-Mix dry ingredients and set aside
-Boil bone, break open and extract marrow
-Rub marrow into dry ingredients
- add cold water until a dough ball forms
The only change that has been made from the original recipe is that beef marrow has been used in place
of deer as it is more readily available.

Incorporating Air into the Liquids

strayne orwe a straynoure, tyl it be so styf at it wol bere hym-self(Austin, 51). According to
Libbellus de arte conquinaria: An Early Northern Cookery Book the act of straining a liquid through a
cloth was a very common practice (20). Therefore this practice needed to be attempted. For this
experiment cup of cream and 1 egg would be strained through a linen cloth to see if soft peaks

could be reached.

With a lot of straining the incorporation it is believed of air could be achieved because bubbles
were starting to form on the surface which is usually one of the first indicators that air is
starting to appear inside the liquid. I stopped this method as I was starting to loose liquid, cup
after only about 10 times through the linen Perhaps linen was not the best choice of cloth. The
experiment should be attempted again with cheesecloth. For now, whipping the cream and
milk will be used to achieve the proper peak.

Making a Crustade Lumbard

First attempt:
Made using a commercial pie crust. The goal was to
see the end result.

Making the Crust:

Making the Filling:

Sources
Austin, Thomas. Two Fifteenth Century Cookery-Books. (London: Oxford University Press, 1964)
Heiatt, Constance and Sharon Butler. Curye in Inglysh. (London: Oxford University Press, 1985)
Grewet, Robert and Constance B. Hieatt. Libbellus de arte conquinaria: An Early Northern Cookery Book.
(Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001)
Friberg, Bo. The Professional Pastry Chef: Fundamentals of Baking and Pastry, 4th Edition. (New Jersey:
Wiley, 2002)
Amendola, Joseph and Nichole Rees. Bakers Manual, 5th Edition. (New Jersey: Wiley, 2002)
Wilson, Anne. Food & Society: Waste Not Want Not. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991)
Toussaint-Samat, Maguelonne. A History of Food. (New Jersey: Wiley- Blackwell, 2008)
The Supersizers Go... Performed by Giles Coren and Sue Perkins. BBC, 2007. Television Series.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/430672#i0,p5,d0.
Season 2 Episode 2, The Supersizers Go... Medieval. A television series about British food in history.
Laurence, Janet Royal Feasts. In Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery, 1990, edited by
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weboke.htm?ref=Sex%C5% 9Ehop.Com
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