This was an attempt to recreate a menu that would have been eaten by Mary, Queen of Scots, and Scottish nobility; I've therefore offered English, French, and Italian entrees. Mary's adult years (1558-1561) were spent in France as the wife of the young Dauphin, Frances; her mother, Mary de Guise, was the daughter of a Guise/Bourbon alliance, and had both French and Italian blood. Both Mary of Guise and her daughter would have been accustomed to the finest French, English and Italian cuisine.

To judge by Fynes Moryson's account, the native Scots palate was not as delicate. He describes his visit to Scotland in 1598 in his Itinerary; one dinner which he listed had "great platters of porredge, each having a little bit of sodden meat" as well as a "pullet with some prunes in the broth." He mentions that the Scots eat heartcakes of oats as well as wheaten bread. I saw no need to recreate bad period cooking, but the rest of Moryson's account is recreated in the first remove.

The English dishes are taken from receipts found in Gervase Markham, The English Huswife (1615, ed. Michael R. Best, McGill University Press, 1986), Thomas Dawson's The Good Housewife's Jewell (1956) published by Walter J. Johnson Inc./Teatrum Orbis Terrarvoe, 1977, as well as A.W.'s Book of Cookrye (1591) published by the same publishers.

For the French and Italian entrees, I was limited by the period recepts available to me; there is a great deal of difference between the cookery of Le Menangier and La Varenne. I was able to copy receipts from Bartolomeo Scappis' Opera at Ohio State University.

Mistress Judith of Kirtland (mka Judith Carr) is a Viscountess of the Kingdom of AEthelmearc and a member of the Shire of Stormsport (Erie, PA).

Auld Alliance Royal Feast © 1995 Judith Carr.