which illustrates the ancient alliance between medicine and cookery,
which has not till lately been dissolved. The directions were to
enable a man "to make common pottages and common meats for the
household, as they should be made, craftily and wholesomely;" so that
this body of cookery was not prepared exclusively for the use of the
royal kitchen, but for those who had not the taste or wish for what
are termed, in contra-distinction, in the next sentence, "curious
pottages, and meats, and subtleties." It is to be conjectured that
copies of such a MS. were multiplied, and from time to time reproduced
with suitable changes; but with the exception of two different, though
nearly coeval, collections, embracing 31 and 162 receipts or nyms, and
also successively printed by Pegge and Warner, there is no apparent
trace of any systematic compilation of this nature at so remote a
date.

The "Form of Cury" was in the 28 Eliz., in the possession of the
Stafford family, and was in that year presented to the Queen by
Edward, Lord Stafford, as is to be gathered from a Latin memorandum
at the end, in his lordship's hand, preserved by Pegge and Warner in
their editions. The fellowship between the arts of healing and cooking
is brought to our recollection by a leonine verse at the end of one of
the shorter separate collections above described:--

"Explicit de Coquina
Quae est optima Medicina."

The "Form of Cury" will amply remunerate a study. It presents the
earliest mention, so far as I can discern, of olive oil, cloves, mace,
and gourds. In the receipts for making Aigredouce and Bardolf, sugar,
that indispensable feature in the _cuisine_, makes its appearance; but