How much would you pay for a really good bowl of stew? Ten dollars? Twelve dollars?
Well how about an entire English manor?
Well today's dish known as dillegrout was served at the coronation
of the kings and queens of England for over 750 years,
and it came at the steep, steep price
of one English manor.
So thank you to Babbel for sponsoring this video as I try to
recreate one of England's most expensive dishes ever.
This time on Tasting History.
This stew or pottage sometimes known as dillegrout was served at every royal coronation in England
from 1068 to 1821, but we don't exactly know what it was.
Now it is mentioned in many, many sources and
most descriptions agree that it's some sort of sweet and spiced stew with almonds, and chicken, and capons.
Though there is one recipe which if not the actual recipe which it might be
is probably very, very close and it comes from a manuscript from 1425.
The dish there is called bardolf,
which is actually a clue as to why it's probably our recipe for dilligrout, but we will get to that later.
Bardolf, take almond milk, and draw it up thick with vernage,and let it boil,
and braune of caipon's braied, and put thereto;
and cast there too sugar, cloves, maces, pines, and ginger minced;
and take chickens parboiled, and chopped, and pull off the skin, and boil all ensemble,
and in the setting down from the fire, put thereto a little vinegar alaied with powder of ginger,
and a little water of everose, and make the pottage haginge and serve it forth.
Now I put the modern translation for a few of those words in the recipe but for the most part except for some really odd spellings,
the language, the Middle English is pretty comprehensible at least to me unlike another
language which I am trying to learn right now with a little help from our sponsor Babbel.
I have been a fan and user of Babbel for years so when they offered to sponsor this video I jumped at the chance.
I used Babbel a few years ago to brush up on my German and French kind of as a refresher course
before going on a trip to Europe, something that I miss terribly, and the next place that I want to go
go i'm going to have to learn an all-new language
because I want to go to Spain.
[In Spanish]: Another beer?
Don't mind if I do .
Also my soon to be in-laws prefer speaking Spanish and so hopefully this will break down some of those linguistic barriers.
Though the end goal is that hopefully someday with a lot of practice
I'll actually be able to read through some of the Spanish and Mexican cookbooks that I have upstairs.
Historic ones that have not yet been translated.
Though I am still at the beginner level sooooooo.... be patient.
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Now my favorite part of the app are the podcasts because they immerse you in the language and
you can hear native speakers talking so it really helps with your pronunciation which if you watch
this show you should know that I pride myself on my foreign pronunciation.
So if you want to join me in learning a new language you can get six months free when you sign up for a six-month subscription
to Babbel by clicking the link in the description but as for today's recipe in Middle English what you'll need is:
1 cup or 120 grams of blanched almonds,
3 cups or 710 milliliters of vernage.
And what is vernage you may ask. Well it is probably an expensive sweet, strong, white wine from Italy.
Though there are conflicting histories but that seems to be the consensus,
so any sweet white wine should work.
3 pounds or 1 1/2 kilograms of chicken divided into white meat and dark meat.
Now this will serve as both our chicken and our capon because I don't want to buy
another capon because they're really expensive and I just got one for the cockentrice and it
turns out it pretty much just tasted like chicken.
1/4 cup or 50 grams of sugar,
a 1/4 teaspoon of clove,
a 1/2 teaspoon of mace,
a 1/4 cup or 35 grams of pine nuts,
a 1/2 teaspoon of dried ginger chopped up,
1 teaspoon of salt,
an 1/8 of a cup or 30 milliliters of white wine vinegar,
1 teaspoon rose water,
and a 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger.
Now the first thing to do is to prep our poultry.
For the dark meat chop it up and then pound the heck out of it just as you should the Like button
until it's nearly pulp.
Then parboil your white meat for about 10 minutes
and then chop that up into small pieces as well.
Then we make some boozy almond milk.
It was supposed to be boozy kind of sounds like bougie. It's boozy almond milk because
unlike modern almond milk which is always made with water, medieval almond milk which was a very,
very common ingredient was sometimes made with water but it could also be made with ale,
or with wine as we are doing today.
So first soak your almonds in cool water for several hours
then drain them and add them to the blender with the wine and blend.
You're not going to over blend this so just blend until you pretty much have all of the almonds pulverized.
Then set up an almond milk bag or cheesecloth with a strainer
over a bowl and pour the almond milk in.
Then let it drain as much as possible on its own before gently squeezing the bag to get all the liquid out.
And there's your almond milk.
So pour that into a pot and set it over high heat,
and then add your pounded dark meat and bring to a boil.
Then add in the sugar, clove, mace, pine nuts, dried ginger, and salt as well as the parboiled white meat.
And then let it simmer for about an hour.
More than ample time to discuss the origins of this super fancy stew.
"King Hardikanute, 'midst Dantes and Saxon stout, caroused on nut-brown ale, and dined on grout;
which dish its pristine honor still maintains and when each king is crowned in splendor reigns."
A lovely 18th century poem and complete hogwash because King Hardikanute reigned about 25 years
before this dish became associated with any coronations.
It's actually a very hard dish to track because
the name keeps changing. Even in this poem he just called it grout and in all I came across a dozen
different words all referring to the same darn dish.
But regardless of the name it is thought that the first presentation came from William the Conqueror's cook Tezelin
at the coronation of Queen Consort Matilda in 1068.
What's cool is that not only was it in 1068 but it was on this very day in 1068.
May 11th, at least this very day if you are watching this on the day that I released the video.
I just thought that was kind of cool.
Side note only because this is my favorite period in all of english history and maybe even all of history,
so any chance to get to talk about it is not going to be passed by.
A year and a half earlier at William the Conquerors Coronation, William the first which
was on Christmas day 1066 at Westminster Abbey the people who were in attendance cheered and huzzah'd so loudly
that the Norman Guards outside they thought that it was a riot and their response
was to burn down all of the houses surrounding the church.
That's the aggravating thing about this time period in England especially.
You get a lot of lists of events
without much context or explanation. Sometimes you do, but not always.
So why they thought oh there's a riot inside,
let's burn down houses outside was a good idea, we are just left to wonder.
Another thing we are left to wonder about was was it William or was it Matilda who loved this dillegrout so much
that they were willing to pay someone a manor for making it.
As long as the cook Tezelin
and his descendants agreed to make this dillegrout or probably diligrout or something like that because
it was French at the time they would make this dish at every coronation in perpetuity
they got to hold on to the Manor at Addington, and that was worth five pounds which was a lot
of money back then. You could fill up your car for tuppence.
Now I know what you're thinking , stew for a manor. That's just crazy talk.
And it kind of is but it is not unique.
See when Duke William came to England in 1066 and defeated King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings,
William essentially owned England and so he had a lot of land to give out to people.
Some was given back to the Saxons who had already been living there but not very much and a lot actually most of
it was given to his knights and the other nobles for keeping the peace. Keeping those Saxons down,
and they would get large you know dozens or even hundreds of manors for their estates but others
just got one manor but it was for a lot less than keeping the peace and these were called serjeanty.
Tezelin was a serjeanty of the kitchen and the holder of a serjeanty very often actually lived
with the king or traveled with the king because they were itinerant and didn't actually live
at the manor but simply got the rents paid from the lands around it.
Manors were given to people like the chief butler, the chief larderer and the king sewer possibly and hopefully pronounced souer,
because it was French but it was the word sewer essentially and later on became server as we know it today.
Thank goodness.
Now obviously these people spent a lot of time with the king nd it was kind of a full-time job,
but manors were given to people for more occasional duties as well.
Say making a bowl of soup.... for every coronation which could happen every 20 years or so.
There was also the manor of Farnam whose holder had a duty to provide white kid gloves
and support the king's right arm while the royal scepter was in his hand during the coronation.
The holder of the manor of Kingston Russell had a duty to count the chessmen after a game of chess and put them away for safe keeping.
And whoever held the Manor of Hayden had to bear a towel for the king to wipe his hands on.
Which I guess that would probably be a full-time job,
but it's the manor of Addington that concerns our dillegrout today and in the English Coronation records
we get a far too detailed description of the dish's presentation.
Starting with the Coronation banquet of Richard I aka the Lionheart.
"When the king enters the hall, crowned and bearing the scepter and rod, or orb,
the King's sewers go to the kitchen, the sergeant of the silver scullery
calls for the first dish of meat wipes the bottom and covers the dish takes a say of it and puts on the cover."
It's this next part that is supe, super detailed because it names off every single person
pretty much who comes into the hall and there are a lot of people. It is kind of interesting,
but I'm not gonna read it right now. Anyway it ends with,
"The course of meat carried either by Gentlemen Pensioners two and two,
or as is more proper by the new made Knights of Bath.
Then comes the Lord of the manor of Addington carrying the 'mess called dillegrout'.
And the procession is ended by two clerks of the kitchen."
I love that there are all these different spellings for it and i'm also pronouncing it different every time.
I've said grew diligroot, diligrout, diligrote, maybe?
I don't know there is no consistency with this dish.
Also it must not have been too long after Richard I coronation that they realized that whoever is now holding the manor of Addington
might not be a cook like his Norman forbearer because in 1377 at the Coronation of Richard II
"Baron William Bardolf holds certain land in the town of Addington by searjeanty,
making spits in the kitchen on the king's coronation day or someone for him must make a dish of something which is called Girunt,
and if fat is used, then called Malpigemoun."
And did you notice the name of the man who was holding the manor?
Baron William Bardolf. The same name as our recipe which was written only
a few decades later which matches the description of dilegrout, so...
it is a fair assumption that the recipe might actually be that for dilegrout.
We'll never know because they just keep changing the name.
It's really, really frustrating but it is always associated with the manor of Addington.
Also by this time the 14th century we find out exactly how much diligrout the man had to make for
the coronation and it wasn't actually that much probably just about enough
that he could carry it without spilling it.
"Three dishes... one before the King, the second to the Archbishop of Canterbury
and the third to whom the King shall assign it."
And early on that must have been a real honor to have
one of these three bowls bestowed upon you by the King.
Though as tastes started to change and medieval flavors started to kind of go by the wayside,
the idea of having some sweet and spicy almond chicken stew kind of lost favor I guess.
In 1661 at the Coronation of Charles II
Thomas Lee Esquire "brought up to the table a Mess of Pottage called Dillegrout,
whereupon the Lord High Chancellor presented him to the King who accepted his service but did not eat the pottage."
By this time the menus at coronations had become ridiculous.
The Coronation Feast of James II had 1,445 dishes presented so it's kind of like going to a modern buffet
you gotta be strategic with your plating. ou can't be taken on foods that you're not wild about.
Ah thank you for the dilegrout, how wonderful. Smells fantastic. Thanks. Thanks a bunch. Okay, buh-bye. Bye bye.
Give me the chicken tenders please.
Also that incident came from a book by Thomas Blount who was living at the time
and the book was all about kind of the weird things that people did for their land holdings,
and it has the perfect title.
'Fragmenta Antiquitatis. Antient Tenures of Land, And Jocular Customs of some Mannors
Made publick for the diversion of some and instruction of others.'
I love those long titles of old books. You'd think that they had ink to spare.
Even though they didn't.
Now the jocular custom of serving dilegrout at coronation feasts kept up for about another 150 years,
but the dish had its last hurrah on July 19, 1821 at the Coronation of George IV.
After that so long dilegrout, hello Victorian foods
that all were made with gelatin practically.
And I do have to do some of those weird Victorian foods like calves foot jelly and whatnot,
but luckily for me today
no gelatin in our dilegrout.
So once your diligrout is cooked and thickened up just a little bit take it off of the heat,
and then mix the vinegar, rose, water, and ginger together
and stir it into the pot and then serve it forth.
And here we are dilegrout fit for a king.
Sources say that it was made in an earthenware pot. I don't know if it was served in an earthenware bowl,
not terribly specific but earthenware pot so I did need something somewhat royal
so I have a golden chalice for my wine.
Chalis. Chalice for my- well that did not go as expected.
I got a goblet.
Now let us taste this dilegrout. It actually smells really, really good.
Try to get everything in there. Pine nuts, the chicken, some soup.
Hmmmm.
So before i say anything let me just say i'm going to eat this entire thing. >:)
I really, really like it.
It's weird.
So the rose water it's there but it's so, so faint you wouldn't even-
I'm not even sure that I would know that it was there if I didn't know that it was there,
but it's there. That make sense?
The spices are really nice. Not overpowering, but the sugar is very present it is a sweet dish,
but so is barbecue.
Don't think of it as a chicken soup or stew or pottage.
Think of it as a barbecued chicken, soup, stew or pottage because that's what i'm getting like a sweet barbecue-y
flavor with then like that hint of of the wine, the sweet wine and then the rose.
The rose really kind of- it's there. It's there, I know it's there. I can taste it but it's not strong.
All of the other spices are present but none of them overpower each other which is is nice .
I guess I put the right amounts in.
Yeah I'm, I'm gonna eat this. This is really, really good.
Also just a reminder that we have a Reddit and a Discord both of which I
have links in the description. They're great places to go and have conversation about
things on Tasting History but also about other foods that you're making, other history,
other things that you're enjoying. They are both fun places with a kind community.
Anyway thank you so much to Babbel for sponsoring this video and make this dilegrout. It's really very nice,
And I feel a little, a little more royal.
Anyway I'll see you next time on Tasting History.