Mawmenee

Maumenee

Mawmenee is one of the stranger medieval dishes I have run into. It is a sweet wine stew with foul and nuts. It is very much a medieval dish with all the spices and colouring and artificiality that was so priced.

Mawmenee is also a really tasty dish, but also very sweet dish, that  works really well as a side dish for game – like we in modern time use a jam or cranberry sauce with game dishes. The dish can be made with any kind of foul – the meat should be a game-meat as that adds to the flavour.

For our medieval diner we made the dish with rook chicks that our friend had from a hunter she knows. The deboning was quite a task, but it was really delicious and it felt exotic so it was worth the hassle.

The portion is very large – as you can see on the picture. I would recommend making a half portion unless you are serving ten or more people.

The source

The original recipe is from Forme of Cury, an english cookbook from around 1390.

Mawmenee. Take a portell of wyne greke and ii pounde of sugur; take and claryfye the sugur with a quantite of wyne & drawe it thugh a strynour in to a pot of wrthe. Take flour of rys and medle with sum of the wyne & cast gogydre. Take pynes with dates and frye hem a litell in grece oþer in oyle and cast hem togydre. Take clowes & flour of canel hool and cast þerto. Take powdour gynger, canel, clowes, colour it with saundres a lytel yf hit be nede. Cast salt þerto, and lat it seeþ warly with a slowe fyre and not to thyk. Take brawn of capouns ysteysed oþer of fasauntes teysed small and cast þerto.

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Mawmenee

Course Side Dish

Cuisine Historical cooking, Medieval

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 40 minutes

Servings 10 people

Ingredients

• 1 bottle white wine
• 400 grams sugar
• 100 milliliters rice flour
• 200 milliliters dates fresh or dried
• 200 milliliters pine nuts we used chopped almond and that worked fine
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon cloves whole
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon bark
• 1 teaspoon ginger ground
• 400 grams fowl meat chopped/ground
• 1/2 teaspoon sandalwood or enough red food colouring to color it red

Instructions

1. Heat the wine and sugar in a pot until the sugar is dissolved.
2. Stir the rice flour with a bit of water and add it to the pot to thicken the dish. (You might need to do this again if it is to runny at the end)
3. Fry dates and nuts in the oil in a separate pan. And add it to the pot.
4. Add the spices - if you use whole spices add them in a tea bag so you can remove them.
5. Colour the dish so it stops being grey.
6. Add the meat and heat it though until the meat is cooked.
7. Let it simmer for about 15 minutes. The finished dish should have a source consistency, if it is too thin - thicken with more rice flour.
8. Take out the whole spices, before serving the dish.
9. Take out the whole spices, before serving the dish.
10. Serve the dish with game meat or foul

Recipe Notes

Source: Middelaldermad by Bi Skaarup & Henrik Jacobsen, 1999