Whodunnit Dinners Podcast #7 Ellis Peters: Murderous monks, Benedictine banquets and medieval matchmaking

Welcome to our latest blog post, whipped together to be digested alongside the Whodunnit Dinners podcast. The chat on Episode #7 of the Whodunnit Dinners podcast is all about the Ellis Peters murder mystery book ‘A Morbid Taste for Bones’, set in a monastery in the summer of 1137. So here we will share a few recipes to help you recreate dishes giving full medieval monk. Although we're hard pressed to suggest a murder mystery dinner party kit from Whodunnit Dinners that would go alongside this particular book!

A Morbid Taste for Bones

In the podcast, Katie introduces us to this medieval whodunnit, which was the first novel in The Cadfael Chronicles, first published in 1977 and brought to our TVs in 1996 by ITV. This particular novel from the series was listed on the 1990 list of The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time by the Crime Writers' Association in the UK. In 2010, The Wall Street Journal named it one of their "Five Best Historical Mystery Novels". The hero is Brother Cadfael, a middle-aged herbalist monk at Shrewsbury Abbey.

Having chatted in the podcast about the book - along with such things as how the Benedictine monks bent the rules to get stuck into all sorts of previously banned food and images of Queen Matilda in her night clothes - we moved on to the important matter of medieval meals. 

As the challenge set by Katie at the end of the episode #6 was to  investigate typical dining in monasteries in the 12th century in England, Helen shared some recipes that you might find in the world of Brother Cadfael.

How to Make Medieval Pickles

There is an excellent website called Recipes from a Monastery Kitchen that offers a range of lovely dishes, if you don’t mind converting from the American measurements. 

https://monasterykitchen.org/ I can personally vouch for The Convent’s ‘Famous Bread and Butter Pickles’, which is delicious with cheese. You’ll need a large sealable glass container to store it once made, and allow about 10 hours for it to settle. This makes quite a lot but it will keep for ages. However, it does require you to use a water bath canning method, which is not hard but requires a bit of kit: you can easily research online. 

However this recipe is more user friendly:

Makes 2.3kg

Ingredients

• 900g mixed parsley roots, carrots, radishes and turnips

• 450g white cabbage

• 450g pears

• 6 tbsp salt

• 1 tsp ground ginger

• 1⁄2 tsp dried saffron strands

• 425ml white wine vinegar

• 50g currants

• 575ml sweet white wine

• 6 tbsp clear honey

• 1 tsp of French mustard

• 1⁄8 tsp each of ground cinnamon and black pepper

• 1⁄4 tsp each of anise and fennel seeds

• 50g white sugar

Method

1. Wash and peel the root vegetables and slice them thinly. 

2. Core and shred the cabbage. 

3. Put the vegetables into a large pan of water and slowly bring to the boil. 

4. Peel, core and cut up the pears and add them to the pan. Cook until they start to soften. 

5. Drain the contents of the pan and spread in a 5cm layer in a shallow non-metallic dish. 

6. Sprinkle with the salt, ginger, saffron and 4 tbsp of the vinegar.

7. Leave, covered, for 12 hours. Rinse well, then add the currants. 

8. Pack into sterilised storage jars, with at least 2.5cm headspace. 

9. Put the wine and honey in a pan. Bring to simmering point and skim.

10. Add the rest of the vinegar and all the remaining spices and sugar. Reduce the heat and stir without boiling until the sugar dissolves.

11. Bring back to the boil. Pour over the vegetables, covering them with 1cm of liquid. 

12. Cover with vinegar-proof seals and store.

To follow or accompany the cheese and pickles you could try whipping up fish mortrews or mortis, which is a type of pate. 

How to Make Fish Mortrews

This recipe is based on the original from the John Rylands Library’s Fourme of Cury, the cookery book compiled for the household of Richard II of England (r. 1377-99) by his master cooks.

Serves 6 as a starter

Ingredients

• 600g skinned cod fillet
• A pinch of sea salt
• 125g ground almonds
• 2 tsp rice flour or corn flour
• 3 tbsp deep yellow saffron water or food colouring
• 1⁄2 tsp ground ginger
• 3⁄4 tsp white sugar

Method

1. Poach the fish fillet in about 575ml of salted water until cooked through. 

2. Drain off the cooking liquid into a measuring jug. Pour 275ml of this liquid over the almonds in a bowl. 

3. Press the fish under a cloth or kitchen paper to squeeze out excess moisture, then flake it. 

4. Strain the almond 'milk' into a jug, stirring to separate the free liquid from the almond sludge in the strainer. 

5. Put the liquid into an electric blender, followed by the flaked fish, and process until smooth. If the mixture is too stiff to process easily, add a little more fish cooking liquid. Turn the mixture into a bowl. 

6. In a small saucepan, cream the rice flour or cornflour with 3 or 4 tbsp of fish cooking liquid, then heat the mixture gently until it thickens. Stir this 'cream' into the fish mixture and season with salt. Put half the mixture into a separate bowl and tint it deep gold with the saffron water or food colouring. 

7. Combine the ground ginger and 1⁄4 tsp of the sugar and mix into the golden fish, reserving a little of the mixture for sprinkling. If you like ginger, increase the quantity. 

8. Serve the mortrews in six small bowls or plates, putting a coloured and a plain spoonful of mixture side by side in each. Chill until needed. 

9. Just before serving, sprinkle the remaining ginger/sugar mix on the gold portions and the remaining 1⁄2 tsp plain sugar on the white portions.

Finally, a warming drink for the winter months comes in the form of piment, a kind of mulled wine. 

How to Make Piment

Ingredients

• 2 ltr red wine (check the label to ensure that ingredients are vegan if you want to make this recipe vegan)

• 175g white sugar

• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon

• 1/4 tbsp ground ginger

• 1 tsp each ground cloves, grated nutmeg, marjoram (fresh if possible), ground cardamom, ground black pepper and a pinch of grated galingal (if available)

Method

1. Warm the wine until it just begins to steam. 

2. Add the sugar and allow to dissolve. 

3. Mix all the spices and herbs together. Stir half this mixture into the wine, then taste and slowly add more until you achieve a flavour you like.

4. Simmer your 'mix' very gently for 10 minutes. Strain through a jelly bag (which may take some time). 

5. Bottle when cold, then cork securely. Use within a week.

This recipe and many more can be found on the British Museum website. 

https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/how-cook-medieval-feast-11-recipes-middle-ages

If you’ve found these recipe ideas suitably tantalising, you should take a listen to the full Whodunnit Dinners podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you find our pods, which will take you through the plot and themes of ‘A Morbid Taste for Bones’ , explain the reference to medieval matchmaking in the title of the blog and give you more background intel on medieval monks and dining. To hear the full Whodunnit Dinners podcast, go here.