Pottering About Making Pottage

Well I guess I'm not so wealthy anymore, really shouldn't have done all that fasting! Today I'm exploring the life of a peasant, the lowest of the low, reliant on the mercy of the local lord, the church and the weather! A pottage is what most peasants would have eaten on almost a daily basis, it's basically just a hearty soup with any and all vegetables, herbs and grains thrown into it. I did look at a couple of recipes for it, but decided to go true traditional and make my pottage with any old vegetables and herbs I had in the fridge. 

I, also, may or may not have deceived my partner. Before anyone goes jumping to conclusions, the only thing I fooled him on was my addition of pearl barley to the soup. Basically, ages ago I went to a restuarant and had a pearl barley risotto, it was insanely good, so I brought my own pearl barley to recreate it. Unfortunately, said partner did not appreciate my pearl barley risotto, but that then left me with a fairly full bag of the stuff. Which is quite the difficult conundrum. Either I cook two seperate dinners, but then I would have to cook two seperate dinners, or I use it to make some lunch for myself, but pearl barley takes an hour to cook, so I didn't fancy using up my whole lunch break to make it! 

Anyway, as he had been so pleased with the historical recipes so far, I decided to sneak in some of the pearl barley into the soup. You have to precook pearl barley before you can do anything with it, so while I was chopping up the veg, the pearl barley was simmering behind me. My partner entered the kitchen, offered me some help with chopping the veg, and while he was washing the leeks told me a very funny story about how he and his brother came up with an incredible idea, when they were young, to write a cook book. The first recipe was apparently called 'Buttery Surprise' and was a recipe on how to make toast, but get this, with lots of butter spread on it. Hence the Buttery Surprise! Apparently, that was the first and only recipe they came up with, because they couldn't think of anything else. This made me laugh for five minutes and I said that would be a perfect present to give the partner's brother at Christmas!

However, not even my laughter could keep him distracted for long, because he noticed the pearl barley.

"What's this?" he asked, "It's not pearl barley is it?"

"No," I lied, "It's just barley."

"And that's different from pearl barley?"

"Yes."

Dear reader, I cannot honestly say I know what the difference is between pearl and regular barley, but if you want to lie about something make sure you partially tell the truth and say it with enough conviction! Anyway, here's the recipe for Vegetable Pottage, but please do remember you can throw anything in the pot and my ingredients list here is just a rough guide:

Vegetable Pottage

Ingredients

• 100g pearl barley, rinsed and precooked (most come with instructions on the packet, so just follow what they say).
• 1/2 cabbage
• 1 onion
• 1 leek
• 1/4 cauliflower
• 2 carrots
• 2 litres of stock (I used vegetable, but you can use any type)
• 5 sprigs of thyme
• 2 tbsp of parsley
• Optional: You can add salt and pepper to taste, but both were considered luxuries during this time, so for a more authentic taste don't add either.

Method

1. Chop the vegetables up into bite size chunks, wash and chuck into the pot.
2. Pull the leaves of the thyme off the sprigs and chop it up with the parsley, add to the pot.
3. Pour the stock over everything, bring to the boil, and then simmer for ten minutes.
4. Add the cooked pearl barley and simmer for two more minutes.
5. Serve with bread, peasant style! Or Buttery Surprise style!
6. Hope that the winter is not too harsh and you will survive the plague!

Also, keep any and all vegetable peelings for tomorrow, so you can make a delicious stock from them. Just chuck them in a pot, with enough water to cover, and leave them to simmer for several hours. I've honestly left stock simmering for a whole day and it makes the most flavoursome, goodly stock ever. Which is what a lot of Medieval recipes ask for, don't expect them to specify what goodly stock is or what's in it, but it has to be goodly. Also, very Medieval too because they wasted absolutely nothing! Least Medieval, but still useful, is the fact you can freeze it. So you can have fresh stock on hand whenever you need it.