History Cookbook: Vegetable Pottage
About this recipe
Healthiness : (806 votes)
Difficulty: 
Comments:
Preparation Time: 10 mins
Cooking Time: approx 30 mins
Number of servings: 4 portions
Serving suggestions: Serve with crusty bread
This is a vegetarian recipe
People ate a lot of pottage throughout the ages, since they had first made cooking pots that would withstand heat. In Tudor times, it was still the main part of an ordinary person's diet. It is basically a vegetable soup, flavoured with herbs and thickened with oats.
The ordinary people would not have been able to afford much meat, so would rely on this soup as their staple diet with bread and sometimes cheese. Occasionally meat bones or fish would be added when available.

Comments:
This is a fairly straight forward recipe. The following processes are needed; peeling and chopping.
Preparation Time: 10 mins
Cooking Time: approx 30 mins
Number of servings: 4 portions
Serving suggestions: Serve with crusty bread
This is a vegetarian recipe
People ate a lot of pottage throughout the ages, since they had first made cooking pots that would withstand heat. In Tudor times, it was still the main part of an ordinary person's diet. It is basically a vegetable soup, flavoured with herbs and thickened with oats.
The ordinary people would not have been able to afford much meat, so would rely on this soup as their staple diet with bread and sometimes cheese. Occasionally meat bones or fish would be added when available.
The pottage would have been made with whatever vegetables were in season. However, dried vegetables such as peas and beans were often served in Lent, by which time the winter food stocks were very low. This helped people survive until early spring produce (nettle tips, ground elder and spring greens) began to grow.
In the past, it was considered that the thicker the soup, the better the quality of the pottage.
To see pottage being cooked in a Tudor kitchen go to: Vegetable Pottage
Ingredients
- 3 turnips
- 2 carrots
- 1 parsnip (About 1lb of vegetables in total)
- A knob of butter (1oz)
- 2oz oats
- Heaped tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
- 1 pint/16 floz or 570ml of vegetable stock (you could use a meat stock if preferred)
Equipment
- chopping board
- vegetable knife
- wooden spoon to stir
- deep sided saucepan
Making and cooking it

- Prepare the vegetables
- Put them in the saucepan with the butter and lightly fry to soften
- Add the chopped parsley and oats
- Add the stock
- Cover and cook slowly on a low heat for 20-30 minutes, stiring from time to time
- Once the oats have thickened the sauce and the vegetables are softened, the pottage is ready

If you tried this recipe and liked it, tell us about it
Comments
There are 14 comments for this recipe.
Add a comment
View all comments, or Add a comment
Add a comment
Name: SECRET (age 9) | 13th June 2018 |
WOW that helped me a lot for my homework THANKS So much!!!!!!! |
Name: Martha | 27th February 2018 |
I hope the pottage is good xxxxxxx |
Name: Pottage Lover 12 | 23rd February 2018 |
very tasty very nice very pottage nice tasty good |
Required fields are bold
|
Chop the plums into small pieces, removing any stalks or stones Put the plums and sugar into the...