Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 4 Canabens With Bacone

Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany (Beinecke MS 163)

This manuscript is dated about 1460.

The 200 (approx.) recipes in the Wagstaff miscellany are on pages 56r through 76v.

Images of the original manuscript are freely available on the Yale University Library website.

I have done my best to provide an accurate, but readable transcription. Common abbreviations have been expanded, the letters thorn and yogh have been replaced with their modern equivalents, and some minor punctuation has been added.

Copyright © 2012 by Daniel Myers, MedievalCookery.com

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4.  Canabens With Bacone
Do suete brothe yne a potte wesche the canabens clene and do there to and boyle yt up put no lykure there to loke thay be salte & serve heme take ribbys of bacone boylyde do a way the skyne and ley heme one a dysche and serve heme forthere as ue serve vensone yne brothe.

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Keeping with the pattern so far, this little recipe parallels number 145 in A Noble Boke off Cookry.

To mak canebyns with bacon tak and put swete brothe in a pot then wesche canebyns clene and put to none other licour but boile them up and let them be salt and serue them then tak ribbes of bacon boled and do away the skyn and lay them in another disshe and serue them as ye do furmente and venysen. [A Noble Boke off Cookry (England, 1468)]

The only significant difference is that in the version from Noble, the recipe refers to frumenty, but Wagstaff only mentions venison in broth.


While not directly related, there's a similar recipe in Forme of Cury.

For To Make Gronden Benes. I. Take benes and dry hem in a nost or in an Ovene and hulle hem wele and wyndewe out þe hulk and wayshe hem clene an do hem toseeþ in gode broth an ete hem with Bacon. [Forme of Cury (England, 1390)]

All told, I've found six different recipes in medieval cookbooks for beans with bacon.  It was obviously a popular combination that is still common in the modern day.