Note that this page provides an introduction to the Forme of Cury text, as well as links to all the recipes that have been redacted in modern version to allow you to prepare them at home. The entire text of the Forme of Cury is also given with a paralel modern English rendition of all the recipes. For the text of the Forme of Cury itself, either use the links on the left, or scroll down to the Table of Contents, below.

For the complete list of recipes, please scroll down to the 'links to The Forme of Cury recipes' below.

The Forme of Cury (The [Proper] Method of Cookery)

The Forme of Cury This represents the earliest recipe collection in English. The original version seems to have been a roll dating to the late 14th century (circa 1377 to 1391), attributed to the chief master cooks of King Richard II. Various versions exist, though it seems that two copies 'A' and 'B' were made from an original version.

The 'B' version, as exemplified by the University of Manchester's English MS 7 (containing 194 recipes and bound in book form and dating from about 1420), held in the John Rylands Library and British Library Additional MS 5016 (containing 196 recipes), which is the version copied by Pegge.

It is likely that the recipes were dictated by the Master Chefs of the royal household to scribes as the dishes were prepared. It should be remembered that the master chefs of Medieval kitchens were more like circus ringmasters than modern chefs, in that they directed proceedings as the meal was prepared, rather than being directly involved in the food preparation themselves.

The name Forme of Cury was the name given by Samuel Pegge to the entire collection of recipes. And though this phraseology does occur in the MSS it is not known what the roll was originally called.

The Forme of Cury is the first book solely about recipes and cookery written in the English language. As a result, it's an important volume to food historians, all those interested in cookery and in those interested in the origins of the English language itself. As a result I have taken it upon myself to present the original text, along with an update of the text to modern English and modern redactions of the recipes that anyone can cook at home. Like Apicius's De Re Coquinaria (the only surviving Ancient Roman recipe book) the Forme of Cury is of such importance that it simply had to be presented in its entirety here.

The word cury in the book's title is the Middle English word for 'cookery' and it is totally unrelated to the modern term 'curry', which derives from the Tamil for 'sauce'.

For the first time we also see references to olive oil and spices sourced from the spice islands.

This is the first time that the entire volume has been presented on the web, and it comes with a side-by-side modern English version. I am also working on redacting all the recipes for the modern cook so that they will be presented in a form that a modern cook can follow to re-create traditional Medieval dishes.

The version presented here is a diplomatic version based on Samuel Pegge's 1791 version (the Frontispiece of which is shown above) and the University of Manchester's manuscript (images of which are on the web). A single recipe, from the Rylands Manuscript, the first recipe in the collection For to make gronnden benes is shown to the immediate left of this page, so you can see the handwritten form of the original.

It's this site's aim to provide the original text of all the recipes in The Forme of Cury along with updates to modern English and to provide the modern cook with a current redaction of the recipe. You can also find more recipes from the Medieval period in this site's Medieval recipes page.

Though the Forme of Cury is an invaluable document, both in terms of the evolution of modern English (it's one of the few surviving examples of early middle English) and the evolution of English cuisine from Norman-French origins, it must be remembered that the Forme of Cury represents court cookery and not the food of the common people.

That caveat being said, the preamble to the Forme of Cury does state that the roll is intended to show how to prepare common dishes and there are a mix of more ordinary pottages and dishes as well as expensive and elaborate courtly ones. Indeed, comparison of The Forme of Cury with the French Villandier de Trevaillant shows a considerable overlap so, a critical examination of The Forme of Cury will reveal details about the more homely dishes and diets of the medieval age.

A note on this site's presentation of the text. As parchment and vellum were expensive, medieval scribes were very economical in the way they wrote. They used both colour along with concatenations, special symbols, superscripts and subscripts to write their texts. In re-creating the Forme of Cury text for this site I have tried to be as faithful to the way the original scribe wrote as possible. As a result I have used medieval fonts to create the look and feel of the original text whilst still allowing them to be rendered by modern wed browsers. For example, compare the computer version of the first recipe from the Forme of Cury (To Make Gronnden Benes) with the image of the original from the Rylands Library shown above. This site's aim has been not just to transcribe the text, but to try and remain fairly faithful to the original scribe's work.



The result of this may be a little difficult to read for those used to modern fonts and orthography, however, the handwritten texts do have a beauty all their own and I think that should be honoured as much as possible using modern fonts. As this site also gives a modern update of the recipe in parallel with the original (there are also links to modern versions of the recipe that you can prepare at home) it will be possible for you to get used to the medieval text by comparing the original words with the modern equivalent.

On the top right navigation menu you will find links to each and every section of The Form of Cury (the original was a single roll and has been broken down here for easier navigation), or you can go directly to the table of contents.