how [Greek: oi polloi]
cooked theirs.

The _Liber_, or rather _Codex, Princeps_ in the very long and
extensive catalogue of works on English Cookery, is a vellum roll
called the Form of Cury, and is supposed to have been written about
the beginning of the fifteenth century by the master-cook of Richard
II who reigned from 1377 to 1399, and spent the public money in eating
and drinking, instead of wasting it, as his grandfather had done, in
foreign wars. This singular relic was once in the Harleian collection,
but did not pass with the rest of the MSS. to the British Museum;
it is now however, Additional MS. 5016, having been presented to the
Library by Mr. Gustavus Brander. It was edited by Dr. Pegge in 1780,
and included by Warner in his "Antiquitates Culinariae," 1791. The
Roll comprises 196 receipts, and commences with a sort of preamble
and a Table of Contents. In the former it is worth noting that the
enterprise was undertaken "by the assent and avisement of masters of
physic and of philosophy, that dwelled in his (Richard II.'s) court,"
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 Medici