Leach Recipe

Leach is a kind of milk jelly a little like a blancmange. There are milk versions but this one was a dish for Lent when the Tudors would not use milk. Almond milk was used during Lent instead.This is a high table dish for a gentry family and is served attractively. It is time consuming to make requiring setting time and a swift hand when turning out.The top half of the leach is coloured with red wine.

This period recipe explains how to make Almond Leach (Leech). Take a quart of almond milk and three ounces of gelatine, half a pond of beaten sugar; stir them together. Let it  be thick. Then strain it with three spoonfuls of rosewater. Then put it into a platter and let it cool, and cut it in squares. Lay it fair in dishes, and lay gold upon it.

Ingredients For the Milk Jelly: 1 pint full fat milk ( or Almond Milk- see recipe) 2-3 leaves of gelatine 2 oz sugar For the Almond Milk, if you want to try making it: 250 g almonds/2 tablespoon rice flour moistened with 550ml water For the Wine Jelly: 1/4 pint wine ( or grape juice) 1 leaf of gelatine 5-6 rose petals or a little rose water To decorate: a few raspberries or redcurrants

What Are Some Good Ways To Cook And Eat Leech?

Make Almond Milk: (Note: You need to make this the day before) 250 g almonds, roughly grated and 2 tablespoon rice flour moistened with 550 ml water, is about the right proportions to end up with 1 pint of almond milk.

Cover the ground almonds with the boiling water, stand for 15 mins, rub through sieve/ cloth. Straining trough a cloth produces a smoother milk. If it is a bit thin- add rice flour and warm in a pan until it thickens.Cool and put in the fridge overnight. Almond milk goes off very quickly

Soak the gelatine leaves in water. Warm the milk/ Almond milk ( do not boil). Add the gelatine and stir until disolved.Leach of Dates is a dish fit for a banquet table. (No, it’s not that kind of leech!) Naturally sweet from dates, elevated with sugar, scented with rosewater, and spiced with cinnamon and ginger, a tiny bite of this confection is immensely flavorful. In the early decades of the seventeenth century, Leach of Dates would have been served on a delightfully arranged banquet table alongside marchpane, jumbles, nuts, candied fruits, suckets, comfits, and gingerbread.

Leach Clear + Flint

“The word [banquet] itself derives from a board or bank mounted by a street performer or mountebank, or set on trestles for dining. Thus banquets could be staged anywhere, because in Renaissance-era Europe, homes lacked a fixed room with stationary tables for dining. The term took an odd twist in England, where it denoted the final portable dessert course of sweetmeats and fruit. Elsewhere it meant an entire meal, the grandest that could be imagined at European courts” (vii). Banquets were feasts for all senses and even the smallest confections were beautifully designed and highly flavorful.

Leach is a thick preserve of fruits that can be molded or sliced. Some recipes include nuts and emulsifying agents to add structure to the confection. As Stephen Schmidt writes in an excellent blog post about banqueting, “There was also a specialized jelly called leach (from a French word meaning slice), which was creamy and rose-water-scented and was set with the new-fangled isinglass, made from sturgeon swim bladders.” The recipe for Leach of Dates relied on the natural viscosity of the dates and bread crumbs for structure, rather than isinglass.

Like my last post about a cure “ffor a cold, ” this recipe “To make a Leach of Dates” is from an early seventeenth-century recipe book from the library of Prince Henry Frederick (1594-1612). It was likely created around 1610 and is now held at the Indiana University, Lilly Library. As Schmidt notes, the final pages of this manuscript list “Severall sort of sweet meates fitting for a Banquett” and fruit pastes and jellies form the bulk of this list.

Renaissance Leach Recipes

After transcribing this recipe, I was left with some questions about “sauders.” On the one hand, this could be a misspelling of “saunders, ” a common spelling for sandalwood in the period. Sandalwood was commonly added to sweet, savory, and medicinal recipes in the form of a powder. On the other hand, “sauders” could be connected to isinglass or other emulsifying agents that might help this leach set into a harder paste. Finally, I tested this recipe with Cinnamon Verum. If you’re using Cassia Cinnamon it will taste slightly different. Readers, I would love to hear what you think about “sauders” and if you happen to test this recipe using cassia.

Put the chopped dates in a mortar and pestle with the sugar, spices, and rosewater. Beat into a uniform paste. Add bread crumbs and combine until thick.

Sweet and spicy, the Leach of Dates reminded me of panforte. Each tiny morsel was full of flavor and the scent of rosewater dominated.

Chris Leach's Cacio E Pepe

I was immediately able to slice the confection into small wedges. I’m planning to check on the Leach in the coming days and see if the texture changes. I anticipate that it will set more as it sits in my kitchen cupboard.

Ultimately, Leach of Dates surprised and delighted me. In the concordia discors of the banquet table, this petite confection invites as much pleasure as an elaborate marchpane sculpture or a prettily arranged plate.

I’ve been thinking about banquets quite a bit in the past weeks as I collaborated on the creation of a performance at Penn State Abington called Exit: A Banquet Piece. I’d like to thank Jac Pryor, for collaborating on this experimental course and performance with me, and I’d like to thank Jonathan Bercovici, Madison Branch, Kyleigh Byers, Jaleel Hunter, Trim Walker, George Ye,  and Aman Zabian for inspiration and conversation. As always, thank you to Joseph Malcomson for taste testing and brainstorming.

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Tagsalmond apple Before Farm to Table biscuits breakfast cakes California caraway carrot Catherine Cotton chocolate Christian Barclay Christmas Clark Library cookies creams drinks Earl of Roden Commonplace Book eggs Elisabeth Hawar Elizabeth Kendrick First Chefs Folger Shakespeare Library Frankland fritter gingerbread GRBBO Hannah Woolley holiday hot chocolate ice cream jelly Judith Bedingfield jumballs lamb lemon LJS 165 Margaret Baker marmalade Mary Baumfylde MS Codex 205 MS Codex 214 MS Codex 252 MS Codex 631 MS Codex 644 MS Codex 785 MS Codex 830 MS Codex 1038 MS Codex 1601 MS V.b.342 MS v.b.380 paleography pancakes pantry peas Penn State pickle pippins posset potato pudding puff quince rolls savories Scripps College - Denison Library seed cake sorrel soup strawberry syllabub tart UPenn Library - Kislak V.a.456 yeasted bread

© Marissa Nicosia, Cooking in the Archives, 2023. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author is prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Marissa Nicosia (Cooking in the Archives) with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.As part of my Medieval themed food posts I promised Marmaduke Scarlet that I would make and feature this recipe that she posted on her live better challengecolumn in the Guardian.I did not have space to include it in my post on Blancmange, and felt it warranted a post all of its own, so here it is.As Rachel explained to us, this rather unappetisingly named pudding, leach, was a medieval milk pudding that would have originally used isinglass to set it and was a precursor to blancmange.

The pudding is a little like a blancmange.The recipe she cited used milk and was adapted from Robin Weir and Caroline Liddell's wonderful Recipes from the Dairy,

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But there was also one for Lent when the Tudors would not use milk. Almond milk was always used as a replacement.

Take a quart of new milke, and three ounces weight of Isinglasse, halfe a pound of beaten suger, and stirre them together, and let boile halfe a quarter of an hower till it be thicke, stirring them all the while: then straine it with three spoonfuls of Rosewater, then put it into a platter and let it coole, and cut it into squares. Lay it fair in dishes, and lay golde upon it.

Leach means sliceand the top of the leach is coloured with red wine.When the leach is set it is turned out and cut into pieces which are decorated with edible gold leaf. I was devoid of gold leaf so used some fresh mint leaves.

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This is a high table dish for a gentry family and is served attractively. It is time consuming to make, requiring setting time and a swift hand when turning out.Something for nimble fingers, not for the clumsy, gawky or cloddish amongst us.Having said that, it would make a great contribution to a medieval themed childrens party.

Heat the milk to just about boiling. Stir in the sugar until it has dissolved. Add the orange blossom water. Set aside.

Turn out the set leach onto a plate or chopping board. Traditionally it would have been cut into squares and perhaps gilded with edible

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