Britain invented lasagne, according to a front-page report in the Daily Telegraph. The claim came from organisers of a mediaeval banquet at Berkeley Castle. They appealed to ‘the world’s oldest recipe book’, The Forme of Cury, compiled under Richard II in 1390.
It seems the Berkeley banqueteers meant that not just the food but the word itself were English, for the dish concerned was called loseyns. At this point I smelled a rat. To me loseyns looked like a medieval form of lozenge, and so the OED confirmed it to be. Under the word lozen, ‘a thin cake of pastry’, it actually quotes The Forme of Cury.
Part of the recipe in the Telegraph ran: ‘Take flour of paynedemayns and make erof past with water.’ That sounds like pasta, sure enough, but what is that funny word erof? It should be therof.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in