Gourdes in Pottage

10. Gourdes in Potage. Take young Gowrdes; pare hem and kerue hem on pecys. Cast hem in gode broth, and do þerto a gode pertye of oynouns mynced. Take pork soden; grynde it and alye it þerwith and wiþ yolkes of ayren. Do þerto safroun and salt, and messe it forth with powdour douce.

- Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). New York: for The Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

GODE COOKERY TRANSLATION:Stewed Gourds. Take young gourds; pare them and cut them in pieces. Put in good broth, and add a large amount of minced onions. Take boiled pork; grind it and add it along with egg yolks. Add saffron and salt, and serve it with powder douce.

The stock: I began my redaction by preparing my broth. I had saved the bones from a pork butt that had a bit of meat on them still and those became the foundation to my stock. To the bones I added 8 cups of water, 1 onion peeled, 4 bay leaves, 2 stalks of celery cut large, 5-6 whole pepper corns, 1 T salt, 1 T herbs de Provance. I brought this mixture to a boil and simmered it for approximately an hour.


I strained out the meat, veggies and herbs, discarded the herbs and picked the bones of all meat. The bones yielded approx 1 cup of pork. I ended up with 6 cups of stock.


I chose to use a butternut squash. I cut it, scooped out the seeds, peeled it and cut it into largish chunks. I put the squash into a medium size pan and added 2 1/2 c. of broth and one minced onion and let that simmer for 20 minutes.

The squash was nice and tender after cooking for 20 minutes and I used a potato masher to make the squash into a thickish paste. I think I could have used less broth because the dish was more runny then I would prefer, or I could have poured off a portion of the broth prior to mashing, which would have worked too.


I minced up the pork with a knife and added it to the squash along with the yolks of 3 eggs. I added several threads of saffron, 1 T of salt and mixed that in thoroughly. I transfered the dish into a stone pot and sprinkled the top with approx 2 tsp of poudre douce.


I let the dish rest for while I finished the decreases on DJ's socks, before dishing up a portion to try. Overall I found the taste to be pretty nice. I think it could use some more salt, but the mixture of the squash, onion, pork, cinnamon and sugar was very pleasant. I still think it is too runny and should be thicker, it's similar to a runny pudding. I'm wondering what the taste would be like if I put the pork through a grinder and but the squash in a blender. Maybe next time.

This dish did meet the almost 1 yr old test and was happily gobbled up to bouncing and yummy noises.

Giovanna