Transcription
Today, let's make a spiced milk dish that was used to treat the sick in medieval England. Welcome back to Eats History.
This is Pacet from medieval England, a sweet milk dish infused with herbs to help treat those infected with the plague. So, if you're from the UK, you might think of modern as a creamy lemon dessert. But this dish was originally a milk drink helped to cure the sick way back in medieval England.
When the Black Death swept across Europe in the mid-14th century, there was no true understanding of disease. So, plague doctors did their best to treat the sick with aromatic herbs like rosemary, mint, sage, and cloves, believing that the pleasant smells could ward off the poisonous air. During the centuries of plague and the years after, English households turned to home remedies like Poset, a drinkable dairy elixir for fevers and coughs.
The recipe I'm using today is from Thomas Dawson's The Good Housewife's Jewel, written a few centuries after the Black Death in 1596. I took his base recipe of seasoning milk cream with ginger and rose water and added the tonics used during the Black Death of honey, rosemary, sage, mint, and cinnamon, all natural remedies for sickness.
Pacet was so well known by the 17th century that King Charles I himself had a bowl during an illness recorded in the journals of the House of Lords. It's really comforting and it reminds me a bit of eggnog and it might be the perfect home cure as cold season approaches. I'm giving it an 8.2 two out of 10 and follow for more historical cooking.