One of the hardest parts of recreating historical recipes is making something when you have no idea what its supposed to be like. It’s less of a problem with more modern recipes which give measurements and clearer instructions, but with medieval and earlier recipes you’re often going in blind. That’s how it was with this early 15th century recipe for fig potage:
Fyge to potage.
Take almondes, and blaunche hom, and grinde hom, and hempur hom up with watur and wyn, and let hit sethe, and take fyges, and cut hom on foure, and hole raisynges, and do therein, and pouder of ginger, and honey, and serve hit forthe. (from MS Arundel 334)
Pottage is an old word meaning soup, stew or porridge. So what consistency should this be?
Other versions of this recipe in other manuscripts, like the late 14th century Forme of Cury, didn’t provide much help:
Fygey
Take Almaundes blanched, grynde hem and drawe hem up with water and wyne: quarter fygur hole raisouns. cast þerto powdour gyngur and hony clarified. seeþ it wel & salt it, and serue forth.
Often at this stage I would turn to recreations by other food historians and historical re-enactors but unusually I couldn’t find any of this recipe specifically, so I was going it alone and going to have to figure out all the proportions by guessing.
I knew that the ground almonds were supposed to thicken the liquid, but I wasn’t sure how much. In the end, I got a really nice thin porridge consistency when it was warm, but it thickened a lot more and very quickly as it cooled so I wouldn’t cook it for quite so long next time.
The flavour was really good, and it would make an unusual but very easy addition to a medieval meal, especially if you needed a fasting recipe. The dried fruit adds a lot of sweetness, so don’t add too much honey.
The Redaction
1/2 cup ground almonds (I bought ground almonds, but you can also grind blanched almonds in a mortar and pestle)
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup white wine
~10 dried figs, quartered
1/3 cup raisins
1 tsp honey
Pinch of ground ginger
1. Mix almonds with water and white wine in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer, add the dried fruit and cook until it starts to thicken.
2. Stir in the honey and ginger and cook a little longer, until it is the consistency you want.
3. Garnish with some extra diced figs, raisins and/or a sprinkle of ground ginger.
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