Ever tasted chicken blancmange, porpoise porridge? Well, these are some of the dishes English Monarchs enjoyed some 600 years ago, according to one of the world's oldest recipe books penned by chefs of King RichardII.

According to the reports, a team at Manchester University, which has discovered the manuscript, translated a handful of its 150 recipes, which are written in Middle English and date back to 1390.

They include frumenty, a porridge-type dish made of bulghar wheat, chicken stock and saffron, and payn puff, a dish of boiled fruits wrapped in pastry.

The unusual cookbook, called the Forme of Cury, is believed to have contained dishes to feed servants and the royal family alike. It gives a fascinating insight into the delicacies of the time, including dishes of swan and peacock.

After translating the recipes, historians wanted to try the dishes themselves. However, with no ingredient quantities or instructions, making the dishes proved tricky.

John Hodgson, who looks after the university library's archives, said: "One of the difficulties was that a lot of the recipes were very vague. The book doesn't specify quantities of ingredients or cooking times, so it was a case of trial and error to get the recipes to suit modern tastes.