 Diners eating frumenty,Bartholomeus Anglicus | |
| Alternative names | Frumentee, furmity, fromity, fermenty |
|---|---|
| Type | Pudding |
| Main ingredients | Wheat,milk,eggs orbroth |
Frumenty (sometimesfrumentee,furmity,fromity, orfermenty) was a popular dish inWestern Europeanmedieval cuisine. It is aporridge, a thick boiled grain dish—hence its name, which derives from theLatin wordfrumentum, "grain". It was usually made with creedwheat boiled with eithermilk orbroth and was apeasant staple. More luxurious recipes includeeggs,almonds,currants,sugar,saffron andorange flower water. Frumenty was served with meat as apottage, traditionally withvenison or evenporpoise (considered a "fish" and therefore appropriate forLent[1]). It was also frequently used as asubtlety, a dish between courses at a banquet.
Florence White, founder of theEnglish Folk Cookery Association, wrote inGood Things in England (1932) that frumenty is England's "oldest national dish".[2] For several centuries, frumenty was part of the traditional Celtic Christmas meal. According to an 1822Time's Telescope, in Yorkshire, on Christmas Eve:
Supper is served, of which one dish, from the lordly mansion to the humblest shed, is, invariably, furmety; yule cake, one of which is always made for each individual in the family, and other more substantial viands are also added.Poor Robin, in his Almanack for the year 1676, (speaking of the winter quarter,) says, "and lastly, who would but praise it, because of Christmas, when good cheer doth so abound, as if all the world were made of minced pies, plum-pudding, and furmety [sic]."[3]
It was often eaten onMothering Sunday, the fourth Sunday ofLent, in late spring. On that day many servants were allowed to visit their mothers and were often served frumenty to celebrate and give them a wholesome meal to prepare them for their return journey. The use of eggs would have been a brief respite from the Lenten fast. In Lincolnshire, frumenty was associated withsheep-shearing in June. A diarist recalled of his youth in the 1820s that "almost every farmer in the village made a large quantity of frumenty on the morning they began to clip; and every child in the village was invited to partake of it".[4] A second batch, of better quality, was produced later and taken round in buckets to every house in the village.
Food historianPolly Russell describes one of the first English recipes for it in the 1390 manuscriptThe Forme of Cury, and how this served as the inspiration for the 2013 Christmas menu atDinner by Heston Blumenthal, transforming Victorianworkhouse food for paupers into modern luxurious dining.[5]
Frumentee is served withvenison at a banquet in the mid-14th century North Midlands poemWynnere and Wastoure: "Venyson with the frumentee, and fesanttes full riche / Baken mete therby one the burde sett", i.e. in modern English, "Venison with the frumenty andpheasants full rich; baked meat by it on the table set".[6] The dish also appears, likewise paired with venison, at the New Year feast in the Middle English poem known asTheAlliterative Morte Arthure (c. 1400): "Flesh flourisht of fermison, with frumentee noble."[7]
The dish, described as 'furmity' and served with fruit and a slug ofrum added under the counter, plays a role in the plot ofThomas Hardy's novelThe Mayor of Casterbridge. It is also mentioned inLewis Carroll'sThrough the Looking-Glass as a food that snap-dragon-flies live on.Snap-dragon was a popular game at Christmas, and Carroll's mention of frumenty shows it was known to him as a holiday food.[citation needed] It also appears in a girl's recitation of holiday traditions, inMy Lady Ludlow, published 1858, byElizabeth Gaskell: "furmenty on Mothering Sunday, Violet cakes in Passion Week" (Chapter 2).
Steve Roud, librarian and folklorist, compiled a compendium ofThe English Year including three recipes for frumenty.[8] They show considerable variation with place and time.
- The typical method of preparation was toparboil whole grains of wheat in water, then strain off and boil in milk, sweeten the boiled product with sugar, and flavour withcinnamon and other spices.
- Take clean wheat and bray it [beat it into small pieces[9]] in amortar well that the hulls go all off [this means that thehulls are broken off], and seethe [boil] it till it burst, and take it up [drain it by taking it out of the water] and let it cool; and take fair fresh broth and sweet milk of almonds, or sweet milk ofkine [cow's milk] and temper it all, and take yolks of eggs. Boil it a little and set it down and mess it forth ["mess" here in the sense of "plate and serve to table", the same root as navalmess] with fat venison and fresh mutton.[10]
- Somerset–Wiltshire: About forty years ago [from an unspecified date] country women in shawls and sun bonnets used to come to the market atWeston-super-Mare in little carts carrying little basins of new wheat boiled to a jelly, which was put into a large pot with milk, eggs, andsultanas, and was lightly cooked; the resulting mixture was poured into pie-dishes and served on mid-Lent Sunday and during the ensuing week. Frumenty is still prepared atDevizes forMothering Sunday.
A healthy dose ofspirit is often mentioned as accompanying the frumenty.
A dish made with boiled cracked wheat and soured milk was made inAncient Persia, and is still used, often as the basis for a soup, in Greece and Cyprus (astrahanas), and in Turkey (tarhana).Kutia is an Eastern European dish with a similar recipe.
