8) The Cockentrice
When it comes to the weirdest food delicacy of the Tudor Age, the Cockentrice takes the trophy. As a half-pig, half-capon (old rooster) hybrid that was posthumously stitched together to resemble some kind of mythical beast, the Cockentrice was pièce de résistance of any banquet worth its salt. The modest size of this monstrosity might suggest that medieval men may have had a different idea to us as to what exactly constitutes a beast. But this doesn’t make it any less unnerving.
We’re not entirely sure when the first Cockentrice was fashioned. One story goes that it was first prepared for the English Tudor monarch Henry VII (1485 – 1509). But the fact that it crops up on the menu of a banquet held by the English bishop of Bath and Wells, John Stafford, given on September 16 1425 reveals it actually predated Henry’s reign by some decades.
As a culinary challenge, the Cockentrice really does throw down the gauntlet. But thanks to a couple of surviving fifteenth century recipes we know how it was made. Firstly, you took a pig and a capon, scalded them, drained them, and then cut them both in half at the waist. Taking a needle and thread, you then had to sow the back of the pig to the front of the capon and the back of the capon to the front of the pig.
Stuffing this Frankensteinian creation as you would stuff a pig, you then glazed it with egg yolks, saffron, ginger, and parsley juice before roasting it on a spit. This wasn’t the only way to go; some Tudor chefs got even more creative by soaking their Cockentrice’s head with brandy and setting it alight so it seemed to breathe fire.
Indeed, more than just there to be eaten, the Cockentrice was there to be admired. Banquet hosts would present it to their guests at the climax of the feast, ideally still resplendent with its original fur and feathers. Whipping back this outer layer they would then wow their dinner guests by revealing the cooked meat within. This might all be a bit hard to swallow. But as bellytimber—that’s medieval slang for food— we can all probably agree that the Cockentrice is hard to beat. And even harder to eat.