Hippocras
Le Menagier de Paris
Original Recipe:
YPOCRAS. Pour faire pouldre d’ypocras, prenez un quarteron de très fine canelle triée à la dent[1258], et demy quarteron de fleur de canelle fine, une once de gingembre de mesche trié fin blanc et une once de graine de paradis, un sizain[1259] de noix muguettes et de garingal ensemble, et faites tout battre ensemble. Et quant vous vouldrez faire l’ypocras, prenez demye once largement et sur le plus de ceste pouldre et deux quarterons de succre, et les meslez ensemble, et une quarte de vin à la mesure de Paris.Et nota que la pouldre et le succre meslés ensemble, font pouldre de duc.
English Translation:
(From The Goodman of Paris: Atreatise on Moral and Domestic Economy by a Citizen of Paris c. 1393, Translated by Eileen Power)HIPPOCRAS. To make powdered hippocras, take a quarter of very fine cinnamon, hand-picked by tasting it, and half a quarter of fine flour of cinnamon, an ounce of very fine string ginger and an ounce of grains [of paradise], a sixth of nutmeg and galingale together, and bray them all together. And when you want to make hippocras, take a good half-ounce or more of this powder and two quarters of sugar, and mix them together, and a quart of wine by Paris measure. And nota that the powder and the sugar mixed together is [hight] the Duke’s Powder.
Redaction:
Spices:124.8g cinnamon
62.4g dried cassia flowers
41.6g dried ginger
41.6g lesser galingale (dried)
41.6g nutmeg
41.6g grains of paradise
Duke’s Powder: ( amounts have been adjusted for smaller quantity of wine)
31.7g spice mixture
190.4g sugar
Hippocras:
Dukes Powder
1 quart wine.
Process:
The recipe is somewhat vague. It calls for a quarter of cinnamon, half a quarter of flour of cinnamon. However, it does not specify a quarter of what? An ounce? A pound? However, the next recipe, also for hippocras specifically stated a quarter pound. It is reasonable to extrapolate that this is what is meant. In order to determine the weights of the ingredients, some research was necessary. I consulted Tractatus se Ponderibus et Mensuris. It is older than the recipe, but was still in use in the Elizabethan period.By Consent of the whole Realm the King’s Measure was made, so that an English Penny, which is called the Sterling, round without clipping, shall weigh Thirty-two Grains of Wheat1 dry in the midst of the Ear; Twenty-pence make an Ounce; and Twelve Ounces make a Pound and Eight Pounds make a Gallon of Wine; and Eight Gallons of Wine make a Bushel of London; which is the Eighth Part of a Quarter.
A quick google search provided the weight of a dried grain of wheat. According to Brittanica.com, a grain of wheat weighs .065 grams. A penny weighs 32 grains of wheat or 2.08 grams. An Ounce weighs the same as twenty pence, or 41.6 grams. A pound is 12 ounces or 499.2 grams.
Mt next problem was measuring the wine. According to “Capacity Measures of the British Aisles,” by carl Rickets
There were several versions of the Wine Gallon with a wide range of capacities from c100 fl oz (12Ö fl oz ‘pint’) up to c144 fl oz (18 fl oz ‘pint’). Physical standards for some of these have survived including the (City of London)Guildhall Gallon of c129 fl oz (c16 fl oz ‘pint’) and Renolds Pottle whose gallon equivalent would be c144 fl oz.
A chart later in the article states an old English wine gallon was 133 ounces (3933.28 ml). and a quart of wine would be 33.25 ounces or 983.3 ml. I decided to use this measure. Because wine is most often sold in 750 ml. bottles, the recipe was adjusted accordingly. The amount of dukes powder added was reduced to remain in proportion to the wine.
In order to recreate this recipe, I measured the ingredients and ground them by hand with a mortar and pestle.
The recipe calls for 1 ounce (41.6 grams) of the spice mixture to be mixed it with 2 quarters (249.6 grams) of sugar. To make the Duke’s Powder. I adjusted the measurements here to allow for a standard size bottle of wine. I combined 31.7g of the spice mixture with 190.4g sugar. I then added this mixture to the wine.
The recipe did not specify how long to keep the spices in the wine. Looking at other period recipes I saw directions to allow it to steep anywhere from a few days to several months. Unlike some other period recipes, this one did not require heating the wine, or straining through a Hippocrates sleeve. Another hippocras recipe in Le Menagier notes “nota the sugar and cinnamon should predominate” As such I allowed the spiced to steep for several days until the cinnamon flavor was evident before decanting the hippocras into a bottle for storage and transport.
Notes:
About the Source:
Le Ménagier de Paris (often abbreviated as Le Ménagier, and meaning "The Parisian Household Book") is a French medieval guidebook from 1393 on a woman's proper behavior in marriage and running a household. It includes sexual advice, recipes, and gardening tips. Written in the voice of an elderly husband addressing his younger wife, the text offers a window into late medieval ideas of gender, household, and marriage. The recipe is from Article 5 in the second section of the book, under the subtitle “Other Small Things that be Needful.”Throughout the book, the author makes several references to Hippocras, including two different recipes for hippocras, as well as including it in dinner menus. In Article IV of the second section of the book, How to Order Dinners and Suppers (the which teacheth you, the sovereign mistress of your household, must know how to orde and devise dinners and suppers with Master Jehan, and how to devise dishes and courses), hippocras and wafers are included several times. In Menu II, Another Meat Dinner of Twenty Four Dishes in Six Courses, the author notes that the sixth course should include hippocras and wafers. It is also included in the fourth course of Menu VII, Another Meat Dinner, and the third course of Recipe XX, Another Fish Dinner for Lent. The author also specifies that Hipppocras and wafers should be served in the final course at wedding feasts.
Because I do not speak French, I worked predominantly from Eileen Powers translation of the book.
Hippocras:
HIPPOCRAS is an old medicinal drink or cordial, made of wine mixed with spices—such as cinnamon, ginger and sugar—and strained through woollen cloths. The early spelling usual in English was ipocras, or ypocras. The word is an adaptation of the Med. Lat. Vinum Hippocraticum, or wine of Hippocrates, so called, not because it was supposed to be a receipt of the physician, but from an apothecary's name for a strainer or sieve, “ Hippocrates' sleeve ”Early references to spiced wines refer to it as Pimen, a word derived from the late Latin pigmentum: aromatic or spice.
The earliest spiced wine recipe I found was in the Tractatus de Modo, a manuscript of recipes that was written in Latin at the end of 13th century.
A possible origin of the word hippocras:
Hippocrates, the famous Greek doctor, is spelled Hipocràs in modern Catalan and Ipocràs in medieval Catalan. Arnau de Vilanova (or Arnaud de Villeneuve) mentioned Ipocras (the doctor) and also gave a recipe for pimen. He taught in Montpellier. One can surmise that someone speaking Catalan and selling spices or pimen, would have changed the word pimen to ipocras or ypocras (the oldest spelling), with reference to Hippocrates, confirming the dietary orientation of the spiced wine. So, we assume the Catalan origin of the word hippocras. However, the notes in Forme of Cury (1390) suggest that hippocras took its name from Hippocrates' sleeve, the bag or strainer, through which it was passed.
The first recipe of hippocras (ypocrasse or ypocras) was written in English, in the Forme of Cury in 1390.
This is an excerpt from Forme of Cury
(England, 1390)
The original source can be found at the Project Gutenberg website
PUR FAIT YPOCRAS. XX.IX. XI. Treys Unces de canett. & iii unces de gyngeuer. spykenard de Spayn le pays dun denerer, garyngale. clowes, gylofre. poeurer long, noiez mugadez. maziozame cardemonij de chescun i. quart' douce grayne & de paradys stour de queynel de chescun dim unce de toutes, soit fait powdour &c.
Similar recipes:
• The following recipes can be found in Libre del Coch
(Spain, 1520 - Robin Carroll-Mann, trans.)
The original source can be found at Mark S. Harris' Florilegium
DUKE'S POWDER. Half an ounce of cinnamon, one eighth of cloves, and for the lords cast in nothing but cinnamon, and a pound of sugar; if you wish to make it sharp in flavor and [good] for afflictions of the stomach, cast in a little ginger. And the weights of the spices in the apothecary shops are in this manner: one pound is twelve ounces , one ounce, eight drachms; one drachm, three scruples; another way that you can more clearly understand this: a drachm weighs three dineros, a scruple is the weight of one dinero, and a scruple is twenty grains of wheat.
SPICES FOR HIPPOCRAS. Five parts cinnamon, three parts cloves, one part ginger; half of the wine must be white and half of it red, and for one azumbre, six ounces of sugar, mix everything together and cast it in a small glazed earthenware pot and give it a boil, when it comes to a boil, [cook it] no more, strain it through your sleeve often enough that it comes out clear.
** Note the reference to the Hippocrates sleeve
Spices used:
Grains of paradise:
Grains of Paradise or melegueta pepper (aframomum melegueta), are the small brown to black seeds of a perennial reedlike plant in the Ginger family, or zingiberaceae. The plant is also related to cardamom.Indigenous to the West Coast of Africa and growing in swampy terrain, the seeds look like small black peppercorns with a white interior when crushed.
Grains of Paradise are commonly used in the cuisines of West and North Africa, where it has been traditionally imported by camel caravan routes through the Sahara desert, and whence they were distributed to Sicily and the rest of Italy. Mentioned by Pliny as "African pepper" but subsequently forgotten in Europe, they were renamed "grains of paradise" and became a popular substitute for black pepper in Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. The Ménagier de Paris recommends it for improving wine that "smells stale".
Galingale:
History and Etymology for galingale:Middle English, borrowed from Anglo-French, GALANGAL; sedges of the genus Cyperus so called from their aromatic rhizomes
Galangal is a rhizome (or root) that looks a lot like ginger. Its flavour is similar to ginger, but not nearly as spicy and with hints of lemon and cardamom. It is used in South-East Asia the way that ginger is used in other Asian cuisines. It’s a key ingredient of Thai curries, soups and stews.
There are two types of galangal, "greater" and "lesser." Greater galangal is larger and milder, while lesser galangal is smaller, sweeter and more intense. Greater galangal is by far the more common of the two -- lesser galangal is rarely seen outside of China and Southeast Asia. However, in period, lesser galangal was more common. As such, I opted to use lesser galangal in this recipe.
Galangal appears to have travelled from China to Arabia and was then introduced into Europe either as early as the tenth century or in the late eleventh century. In 1179, St. Hildegard of Bingen, the famed German herbalist and mystic, refers to it as “catarrh root” and “the spice of life” in her seminal work “Physica”.
For culinary purposes, both the French and English medieval people incorporated galangal in prepared dishes. It is used as an ingredient in a sauce called “Rapeye.” A recipe for Rapeye can be found in Form of Curreye.
In another recipe, Cameline, (second section, Article V, subtitled “Sauces Not Boiled”), the author of Le Menagiere notes that: Likewise, Galingale which is heavy and firm to the cut , for sometimes it is spoilt, mouldy and light as dead wood; that is not good, but that which is heavy and firm to the knife like a nut, that is good.
Sugar:
Crystallized sugar was discovered by the time of the Imperial Guptas, around the 5th century CE. The Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century CE described sugar in his medical treatise De Materia Medica, and Pliny the Elder, a 1st-century CE Roman, described sugar in his Natural History: "Sugar is made in Arabia as well, but Indian sugar is better. It is a kind of honey found in cane, white as gum, and it crunches between the teeth. It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut. Sugar is used only for medical purposes." Crusaders brought sugar back to Europe after their campaigns in the Holy Land, where they encountered caravans carrying "sweet salt". Early in the 12th century, Venice acquired some villages near Tyre and set up estates to produce sugar for export to Europe.In Le Menagiere, Article V in the second section, under the subtitle “Beverages for the Sick,” in the recipe for Tizanne Doulce, the author states: in each goblet put great plenty of crystallized sugar.
From this information, one can extrapolate that granulated sugar can be used in this recipe. However, since period sugar would most likely not be as refined as what is commercially available, I opted to use an organic sugar that is minimally processed in order to more closely match what would have been available in period.
Cinnamon:
Cinnamon is native to Sri Lanka (Ceylon), the Moluccas, and the Malabar Coast of India and Burma. The Arabs transported cinnamon via cumbersome land routes, resulting in a limited, expensive supply that made the use of cinnamon a status symbol in Europe in the Middle Ages.Through the Middle Ages, the source of cinnamon remained a mystery to the Western world. Explorers and crusaders reported wild tales of cinnamon being pulled from the Nile in nets, or stolen from giant birds that used it to build nests. Pliny the Elder wrote in the first century that traders had made this up to charge more, but the story remained current in Byzantium as late as 1310.
In period, cinnamon was available in both stick and powdered form.
Flour of Cinnamon:
I originally thought thought this meant ground cinnamon, but this made little sense to me. Why use stick and ground cinnamon? Upon further research, I learned that dried cassia flowers were used in period for various medicinal purposes. Dried cassia buds resembling cloves were, and still are used in the East for pickles, curries, candies, and spicy meat dishes.
Ginger:
The recipe calls for string ginger. In another recipe, Cameline, (second section, Article V, subtitled “Sauces Not Boiled”), the author of Le Menagiere states: Nota that three differences there be between string ginger and columbine ginger. For the string ginger has darker skin and is softer to the knife to cut, and lighter inside than the other, better and always dearer. I could not find information on different types of ginger. My best guesses are that he meant for her to choose young fresh ginger. There are also tuberous plants that taste similar to ginger that he could be referring to. I chose a light colored dried ginger for the hippocras.The history of Ginger goes back over 5000 years when the Indians and ancient Chinese considered it a tonic root for all ailments. While Ginger originated in Southeast Asia, it has been cultivated in other countries for centuries. Ginger was also one of the first spices exported from Asia, arriving in Europe with the spice trade, and was used by ancient Greeks and Romans. After the end of the Roman Empire, the Arabs took control of the spice trade from the east. Ginger became quite costly like many other spices. In medieval times it was commonly imported in a preserved form and used to make sweets.
For this reason I opted to use dried ginger for this recipe.
Nutmeg:
The nutmeg tree originates in Banda, the largest of the Molucca spice islands of Indonesia. The English word nutmeg comes from the Latin nux, meaning nut, and muscat, meaning musky. Prized in medieval times for its uses in cuisine, nutmeg was brought to Europe in the middle ages by the Arabs through the Venetians. The spice was very popular and very expensive. It was even rumored to ward off the plague and cause self-abortions.In Le Managier, the author includes nutmeg in the recipe for cameline , (second section, Article V, subtitled “Sauces Not Boiled”), and notes: Of nutmegs, the heaviest and firmest to cut be best. Because I found cutting an appropriately sized piece of nutmeg nearly impossible, I hand grated the correct amount by weight for the recipe.
Wine:
This recipe did not specify the type of wine to be used. The recipe is from Medieval Paris. In period wines were drunk young to prevent spoiling. To best match what would have been available in period, I looked for a relatively young French Bordeaux. I used a 2014 bottle of Mouton Cadet Bordeaux in this recipe.References:
Greco, G.L.; Rose, C.M. (2012). The Good Wife's Guide (Le Ménagier de Paris): A Medieval Household Book. Cornell University PressPichon, Jerome (18460 Le ménagier de Paris (v. 1 & 2)
Power, Eileen, (1928) The Goodman of Paris: A treatise on Moral and Domestic Economy by a Citizen of Paris c 1393
Hieatt, C.B., A Butler, S. 1985. Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century (including The "Forme of Cury"), pg. 148. Oxford University Press for the Early English Text Society.
Libre del Coch (Spain, 1520 - Robin Carroll-Mann, trans.
Daniel F. Austin, "Florida ethnobotany", p. 170, CRC Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8493-2332-0
Two Fifteenth-century Cookery-Books, Thomas Austin (ed,) Early English Texts Society, vol. 91 (1888)
Kew Science, Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 2017.
Tennent, Sir James Emerson. Account of the Island of Ceylon. 1. Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts.
Pliny the Elder; Bostock, J.; Riley, H.T. (1855). "42, Cinnamomum. Xylocinnamum". Natural History of Pliny, book XII, The Natural History of Trees. 3. London: Henry G. Bohn. pp. 137–140.
Websites:
https://www.sizes.com/library/British_law/ponderibus.htm
http://www.pewterbank.com/Measure_for_Measure...by_Carl_Ricketts....18.pdf
https://culinarylore.com/spices:what-are-grains-of-paradise/
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/galingale
https://unitproj.library.ucla.edu/biomed/spice/index.cfm?displayID=29
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44070/44070-h/44070-h.htm#page_vol-2-243
http://www.medievalcookery.com/search/display.html?forme:190
https://www.oldcook.com/en/medieval-hippocras
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/578007.Hildegard_von_Bingen_s_Physica
http://www.indepthinfo.com/ginger/history.shtml
https://www.history.com/news/cinnamons-spicy-history
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