Buttered Worts

We've done this a lot over the years, and with a lot of experimentation and individual variation.

Original sources

Harleian MS 4016, in "Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books", Early English Text Society.

"Take all maner of good herbes that thou may gete, and do bi ham as is forsaid; putte hem on the fire with faire water; put there-to clarified buttur a grete quantite. Whan thei ben boyled ynogh, salt hem: late none otemele come there-in. Dise brede small in disshes, and powre on pe wortes, and serue hem forth."

Sian's recipe and notes

"All manner of good herbes that thou may get" leaves the whole recipe pretty much up to the cook; and with modern supermarkets, "all thou may get" is a very wide choice. "Herbes" is just about any green leaf vegetable, and this dish works best with a wide range. Unless you like fiddling with quarter cabbages, this makes it best done for groups of twenty-plus, not intimate suppers for two.

Leeks. Or something else mildly onion-flavoured, but leeks work well.

Green leaf veg: choose from

green cabbage
white cabbage
savoy cabbage
spring greens
spinach (though spring greens are closer to medieval spinach than the modern plant is)
flat lettuce
kale
anything else not obviously Oriental or American!

Herbs: not essential, but they help. Fresh or not at all.

parsley
lemon balm

Chop everything, sorting in order of required cooking time. (Leeks first,and white cabbage if you're using it).
You might like to soften the leeks in butter to start with, otherwise put the slow-cooking things in a pot and add boiling water (not too much). Cook gently until just done, adding the medium- and short-cooking things (spinach, lettuce) when appropriate.

Drain off excess water, add butter (amount according to taste, but "lots" is the general idea). Heat through gently, mixing the butter in. Salt to taste: this will depend on how much salt was in the butter.

If this is a large revel with limited servitors, just serve the worts as they are. If you've got time and space to get clever, then put a helping of toasted bread cubes (made much, much earlier) in each person's bowl, and put the worts on top. Don't try mixing the worts and the bread, and then serving from one pan, the bread cubes go soggy by the time you're half way down the first table.

Christopher's recipe and notes

2-3lbs beetgreens, spinach, borage, violet, marrow, beet or other greens, plus some parsley
2-3 Leeks
2tbsp (or more) butter
4-6 slices bread, diced and lightly toasted

Blanch leeks and greens in a large pot of boiling salted water 3-4 minutes - no more. Drain in a colander; squeeze out the excess water with a potato masher or broad spoon, then chop roughly by running a knife through the mass in the colander. Combine with butter and 1/2 cup of fresh water in a pan; stir, cover and leave over very low heat for another five minutes. Salt to taste and serve, mixed with the toasted bread cubes.

Notes:

In 'Pleyn Delit' a suggestion is given that oatmeal can be used as a thickener or alternatively a puree of split peas could be substituted.
Cindy Renfrow in 'Take a thousand Eggs or More' comments that a rival cook must have used oatmeal perhaps instead of bread to as a thickening agent and this is to be avoided.
[Sian: the previous recipe in the manuscript does use oatmeal, and since it's being refered to in this one: "do bi ham as is forsaid": this point of difference is perhaps being emphasized.]

The Far Isles has used this recipe without a thickening agent successfully in the past. Valentines Revel 2003 I tried the split peas (1 bag with 9lb of greens and it had little effect. Probably needs more next time).
NB This did enough for 45 people with seconds.

Most recent revision 30th August 1999