Item #6: Creme Bastard
Okay, I have to admit, the name got me. How do you resist with a name like that? It’s recipe #112 in Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks (2nd ed). I’m not adding a photo. It’s white. It’s a liquid. There’s really nothing to see.
Take the whyte of eyroun a grete hepe, & putte it on a panne ful of mylke, & lt yt boyle; then sesyn it so with salt and hony a lytel; then lat hit kele, & draw it thorw a straynoure, an take fayre cowe mylke an draw yt withall, & seson it with sugre; & loke that it be poynant & doucet: serve it forth for a potage, or for a gode bakyn mete, wheder that thou wolt.*
*Please note: there’s a symbol that looks like a cross between a b and a p in the recipe. I don’t know how to replicate that letter here, so I’m substituting a “th” wherever it appears.
It’s a custard, basically, but instead of being made on the yolk like modern custards, it’s made on the whites. I wasn’t too sure of the smell after I’d made it, and I’m not one for enjoying the taste of egg-whites particularly, but the edge is taken off by honey. I had it with homemade apple pie, and it was delicious.
I’m not prepared to post the redaction here, as it’s not mine and I imagine that it’s covered by copyright, but the original should be easy enough to follow. Guesstimation is my favourite way of cooking.