Medieval Cookery

Recipe by Daniel Myers

While this wasn't a complicated recipe, I've chosen to simplify it further. The original called for pre-baking the pears but I believe that this was done to compensate for fruit that is overly hard or unripe. Pears will go from being too hard to eat to spoiled in a surprisingly short amount of time. With that in mind, the original recipe's first instruction to pre-bake the pears isn't necessary if the fruit is ripe and ready to eat.

I believe that the additional step of baking the pie cover separately was also necessary because the time needed for the pears to bake thoroughly would also result in the crust being overcooked. Again, with ripe pears this isn't an issue. From my experience, I'm certain these steps would be more suited to working with quince, which is interesting in that some earlier recipes freely substitute pears for quince.

Ingredients

6 - 7 pears
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. fresh flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger

Method

Peel, core, and slice the pears and set aside. In a small bowl, mix sugar, flour, cinnamon, and ginger. Layer sugar mixture with pear slices in the bottom crust of the pie. Cover with top crust and bake at 350°F until crust is done - about 40 minutes. If desired, brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar after baking.

To make a Tarte of Wardens. You must bake your Wardens first in a Pie, and then take all the wardens and cut them in foure quarters, and coare them, and put them into a Tarte pinched, with your Suger, and season them with Suger, Synamon and Ginger, and set them in the Ouen, and put no couer on them, but you must cutte a couer and laye in the Tart when it is baked, and butter the Tarte and the couer too, and endore it with suger.

Published: 2014-08-06