Once I had all my ducks (i.e. limitations) in a row, I dug into Curye in Inglysch. It’s been a while, so I stumbled across some old favorites, and a few things I’d forgotten about over time.

The basic format I was trying to fill was three courses of:

• A meat main dish
• A vegetarian dish hearty enough to serve as a main.
• 1 or more vegetarian-ish side dishes, possibly one being a starch
• A sweet or fruit dish.

As a rule I only want to try for only one ‘prime allergen’ dish of a type in each course: meaning only one dish with onions, only one with milk/cheese, only one with nuts. I want to vary the textures and flavor profiles. And I want it all documentable.

My current first draft is:

First Course:

• Bread
• Pot roasted Beef
  • Cherry Sauce
  • Mustard
• Chickpeas in saffron broth
• Salad of greens and herbs
• Furmenty (Wheat cooked with eggs and milk)
• Apples cooked with butter and spices

Second Course

• Roast chicken
  • Black Sauce
  • Cumin sauce
• Frittata of Herbs
• Tart De Bry (cheese)
• Pottage of Carrots
• Stewed Mushrooms

Third Course

• Pommes Dorry (meatballs in batter)
• Pears poached in red wine.
• Crispels (pizzelles) with rapeye (raisin/fig sauce)  
• Gingerbrede

You’ll notice that the second course really doesn’t have a sweet in it, and the third is primarily sweets. That is at least partly exhaustion with this current round of planning, and my current feeling that there’s a LOT of food there already. Third course is always a little problematic because people don’t tend to pace themselves well – by the time they get to the last course, they seem to be stuffed and to eat very little. You see this in period recipes where they suggest loading up the ‘heavy’ and inexpensive things near the beginning, and having the last course be more ‘dainty’ treats, which can be sweets, or fritters and small birds, depending.

I’m also cheating a bit to fit modern tastes: the cherry sauce in the first course is actually a dish that includes ground meat in the sauce to create a ‘spoonmete’ which I’m always tempted to call “meat pudding.” You’d never find anything so simple as a ‘pot roasted’ meat in Curye in Inglysch: there’d be a broth, and spices, etc, etc. However, to cater to varying tastes, I’m looking to do plain meats with sauces on the side. Mustard is a standard sauce for beef or other ‘grete flesh’ which is often roasted.

The second course is similar: while the Sauce Noir is described for roasted capons (and in a later manuscript for boiled ones), the Cumin sauce I’m looking to use is actually the sauce for Cuminade, which should have the chicken cooking in it, not just served with.

In the first course I have one dishes with onions (chickpeas), one with milk (furmenty), and one with almond milk (Cherry sauce). The ‘recipe’ for salad includes onions, but it also includes a list of about 15 herbs: only some of which are available or in season. I’ll be substituting lettuce and whatever fresh herbs I can get for a reasonable price – leaving out the onions isn’t a bit change after that.

The second course has onions in the ‘shrooms, and should have them in the carrot pottage, but I’m going to amend the recipe there to avoid the repeat. I think they add more to the mushrooms. The cumin sauce could be made with milk or almond milk, but since Tart of Bry pretty much mandates dairy fat, I’ll be going with almonds for the Cumin sauce. So again, one each of the primary allergens.

Third course’s primary issue will be anyone sensitive sugar (like me), but there won’t be the major allergens as it stands.