[MR] History Blog: Sweet Potato Pie from Elizabeth Grey

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends, Especially our Cooks,

Today the History Blog feature concerns the recipe for sweet potato pie
promoted by the "best selling author" Elizabeth Grey, Countess of Kent. Her
cookbook was titled A TRUE GENTLEWOMAN'S DELIGHT. While this is a bit out
of our period of interest, as her cookbook wasn't published until after her
1651 death, Elizabeth Grey herself was briefly a lady-in-waiting to Queen
Elizabeth I. An avid and lifelong collector, many of her recipes may be
appropriate to Scadian feasts. I'm sure most Atlantian cooks are familiar
with Elizabeth Grey and her cookbook, but for some her work might be new.

Here is the recipe: "Take three pound of boyled and blanched Potatoes, and
three nutmegs, and half an ounce of Cinnamon beaten together, and three
ounces of Sugar, season your Potatoes, and put them in your Pie, then take
the marrow of three bones, rouled in yolks of Eggs, and sliced Lemon, and
large Mace, and half a pound of Butter, six Dates quartered, put this into
your Pie, and let it stand an hour in the oven; then make a sharp caudle of
butter, Sugar, Verjuyce, and white Wine, put it in when you take your Pie
out of the Oven."

The History Blog story also provides a link to a simplified modern version.

Here is the History Blog story: http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/65723
.

The 1653 edition of Elizabeth's cookbook is available online at
https://archive.org/details/truegentlewomans00kent .

For a bio sketch of Elizabeth Grey see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Grey,_Countess_of_Kent .

Yours Aye,


Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆
(Who, as a vegetarian, can do without the marrow bone)