Ajvar
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Verde sawse (medieval green herb sauce)
Verde Sawse · Verde Sawse · Verde sauce
A green herb sauce from The Forme of Cury, about 1390, of parsley, mint, garlic and sage ground with bread, wine, vinegar and warm spices, coloured and flavoured with saffron. It is not fermented.
What the sauce was
Verde sawse is a green herb sauce, ground to a smooth paste. The method grinds the herbs with the other ingredients and the saffron, then serves the sauce. The source does not say how it was kept or which dish it was served with.
The name means green sauce, but the edition's glossary points out that the recipe has no sorel, the sour leaf many green sauces of the period relied on. The acidity comes from wine and vinegar instead.
Sources for this section
Its place in the collection
The Forme of Cury sets this sauce beside other sauces of the same kind: a cameline sauce of dried fruit and spice, a white sauce of almonds and verjuice, and dark sauces made with liver or blood. Each is a separate preparation with its own ingredients, and they should not be read as one sauce with variations.
The herb list is long and mixes culinary herbs with spices. Ginger, pepper and cinnamon sit in the same sentence as parsley and mint, which is typical of the period's seasoning habits as this recipe records them.
Sources for this section
Why the ingredients matter
The bread and the wine and vinegar give the paste body and sharpness, and the grinding releases the herb oils. Saffron colours and perfumes the mixture. The record gives no amounts for any of them, so the ratio of herb to bread to acid is not known from the source.
Modern cooks who redraw the sauce choose their own proportions. Those choices are a reading of the modern cook, not of the manuscript.
Sources for this section
Reading the record
The manuscript gives ingredients and a grinding method, but no quantities, no temperatures and no holding time. The sauce is a historical dish component. No preserving process or safety claim is made for it, and herbs and acid do not establish a shelf life.
Sources for this section
History
The sauce is recorded in The Forme of Cury, an English recipe collection compiled about 1390 and attributed to the master cooks of King Richard II.
Ingredients
ParsleyGround fine with the other herbs.
Quantity not given
Quantity not given
Garlic
Quantity not given
ThymeA little wild thyme, read in modern editions as creeping thyme.
Quantity not given
Quantity not given
CinnamonA little.
Quantity not given
Quantity not given
Pepper
Quantity not given
Wine
Quantity not given
Bread
Quantity not given
Vinegar
Quantity not given
Quantity not given
SaffronGround with the herbs.
Quantity not given
Method
- Grind the parsley, mint, garlic, a little wild thyme and sage together.
- Add a little cinnamon, the ginger and the pepper.
- Add the bread, the wine, the vinegar and the salt.
- Grind everything fine with the saffron, then serve it.
Places
No source in this record establishes a place.
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Sources
Project GutenbergHistory · Method
The Forme of Cury: A Roll of Ancient English Cookery Compiled, about A.D. 1390Parsley, mint, garlic, a little wild thyme, sage, a little cinnamon, ginger, pepper, wine, bread, vinegar and salt are ground fine with saffron and served (XX.VII).
The glossary of the edition notes that the name sounds like green sauce but the recipe has no sorel, and calls it a sharp, sour sauce.
Cited in: What the sauce was; Its place in the collection; Why the ingredients matter; Reading the record