Chices is related to the modern Italian word for chickpeas, cecci.
Since discovering this recipe, roasted chickpeas have become a favorite of mine; they sort of taste like a cross between corn nuts and roasted soy beans. After the boiling in this recipe, they soften, but still retain that lovely roasted flavor.
Dried chickpeas will turn purple and red after roasting, adding extra color to a broth already golden yellow from the saffron. If saffron is too expensive for your budget, substitute with a few drops of yellow food coloring.
Vegetarians will be pleased to note that this is one of the few completely non-meat dishes that can be found in period cookbooks.
Take chiches and wrye hem in askes al nyght ožer al a day, ožer lay hem in hoot aymers. At morowe waische hem in clene water, and do hem ouere the fire with clene water. Seež hem vp and do žerto oyle, garlek hole, safroun, powdour fort and salt; seež it and messe it forth.
Take chickpeas and cover them in ashes all night or all day, or lay them in hot embers. At morrow wash them in clean water, and do them over the fire with clean water. Boil them up and add oil, whole garlic, saffron, powder fort and salt; boil it and serve it forth.
Curye on Inglish; Gode Cookery
And then chick-peas marinated in saffron, plump in their tender youth.
Piloxenus, The Dinner, quoted in Anthenaeus (circa 170-239 CE), The Partying Professors; Anahita al-Qurtibiyya bint abd al-Karim al-hakam al-Fassi (SCA); Stefan's Florilegium
Take drawn beans and sethe them well. Take them up of the water and cast them in a mortar. Grind them all to doust till they be white as any milk, chawf a little red wine, cast thereamong in the grinding, do thereto salt, leshe it in dishes, then take onions and mince them small and sethe them in oil till they be all brown. And flourish the dish therewith. And serve it forth.
Form of Cury p. 41/A21
Si vols apperellar ciurons tendres ab let de amelles, se ffa axi: Prin los ciurons, e leva'ls be. E ages let de amelles, e mit-los a coura ab la let e ab holi e ab sal; e met-hi seba escaldade ab aygua bulent. E quant deuran esser cuyt, met-hi jurvert e alfabegua e moradux e d'altres bones epicies e un poc de gingebre e de gras. E quant hi metras los ciurons, sien levats ab aygua calda, que tentost son cuyts.
If you want to prepare tender chickpeas with almond milk, do it thus: take the chickpeas and wash them well. And take almond milk and set them to cook with the milk and with oil and with salt; and put in it onion scalded with boiling water. And when they should be cooked, put in them parsley and basil and marjoram and other good spices and a little ginger and verjus. And when you add the chick peas, wash them with hot water that they should cook more quickly.
Libre de Sent Sovi, 1323; Serena da Rida, SCA