candy-msg - 2/17/08 Period candy. recipes. Comfits. Candied fruit peels. Sugared nuts. NOTE: See also the files: chocolate-msg, comfits-msg, gingerbread-msg, sugar-msg, honey-msg, Sugarplums-art, Roses-a-Sugar-art, desserts-msg, sugar-paste-msg, sotelties-msg, candied-peels-msg, sugar-sources-msg. KEYWORDS: sugar candy period candied fruit comfits banquet honey ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU> Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 09:51:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SC - Re: That candy stuff I asked Mistress Johanna about that "taffy stuff", and this is an edited version of her reply. Tibor Pennydes (or something very close to that--it has been a couple of years since my last big batch). There are descriptions of pennydes and of assaying the different "heights" of sugar in Curye on Inglysch. A similar recipe is found in Cariadoc's al-Baghdadi--but I can't remember the middle eastern name of the sweetmeat. If you compare the recipe for basic taffy in Joy of Cooking with the originals, there are many great similarities. The modern recipe calls for vinegar and that does seem to make the results much more predictable, so I do add it. If the humidity isn't right, the whole mess turns powdery and chalk-like, this can also happen when you store it. I have been on a quest for period nougat recipes for many years. There are some late period Italian mentions of sweets that might be nougat in banquet rolls. I haven't found a period recipe. From: Emily Epstein <epsteine at spot.Colorado.EDU> Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 14:48:25 -0600 (MDT) Subject: SC - taffy-like candy Greetings from Alix Mont de Fer. A short while back, someone (I forget who) asked about a period taffy-like candy. While rummaging through my files for something else, I found this recipe. I don't know if it's what you had in mind, but it's very tasty. I served this at a feast in Spinning Winds some years ago, where I discovered the property listed in the notes at the end that make it not very suitable for feasts. PAYN RAGOUN (Curye on Inglysch, p.113) 1/3 c. sugar 1/3 c. honey 1 c. pine nuts 2 t. ground ginger Bring sugar and honey to a boil, stirring constantly. When it reaches the point that a drop in cold water holds together, remove from heat. Stir in ginger and pine nuts, and stir until it starts to harden. Turn out on a wet surface. When cool enough to handle, form into a log. Slice and serve. NOTES: Neither the sugar nor the honey required clarification, nor did my granulated sugar require grinding, as loaf sugar would have. Ground ginger works best. Fresh ginger, even in large quantities lacks that nice ginger bite. I tested the mixture with a wooden spoon. My fingers still have live nerve endings & I'd like to keep them. Because of the honey, the mixture crystallizes differently than plain sugar syrup, and it won't do what a candy thermometer would indicate. 260 degrees (hard ball on a thermometer) is about right. If you accidentally overcook the mixture, it can be salvaged. Pull it like taffy and cut it in small pieces. It's tasty but extremely chewy, kind of like Bit-O-Honey. The honey makes this react more to humidity than other candy. It becomes a sticky mess in hot, moist rooms (like kitchens). Keep it cool, but not cold. It's hard (or impossible) to cut if worked cold. Never, ever wrap this in aluminum foil, unless you like bits of metal in your food. If anybody finds a way to make this stuff a little more manageable, please let me know. Enjoy! Alix Mont de Fer (m.k.a. Emily Epstein) Shire of Caer Galen, Outlands epsteine at spot.colorado.edu From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu> Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 21:52:13 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SC - taffy-like candy Alix Mont de Fer writes: > PAYN RAGOUN (Curye on Inglysch, p.113) > > 1/3 c. sugar > 1/3 c. honey > 1 c. pine nuts > 2 t. ground ginger > > Bring sugar and honey to a boil, stirring constantly. When it reaches the > point that a drop in cold water holds together, remove from heat. Stir in > ginger and pine nuts, and stir until it starts to harden. Turn out on a > wet surface. When cool enough to handle, form into a log. Slice and serve. We used the following proportions and directions: 2 C sugar 1 C honey 1 T powdered ginger 1 C pine nuts Heat sugar and honey to firm ball stage (c. 250 degrees). Remove from fire; stir in pine nuts and ginger and stir until mixture thickens. Pour into greased 8" x 8" pan and let cool. The first time we tried to serve it, it was at a potluck meeting in wintertime, and we found that on the way to the meeting the stuff had reached approximately carborundum hardness. As it warmed to room temperature, it gradually softened enough for us to hack off a few gobbets, which were quite tasty. mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib Stephen Bloch sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/ Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 21:18:06 -0700 From: atripp at sfu.ca (Allyson Tripp Rozell) Subject: SC - honey taffy I don't recall who first brought it up, but here is the recipe I have for honey taffy. 2 cups honey 1 cup sugar 1 cup cream Cook over medium heat until it reaches a hard ball stage. Pour onto a buttered platter. When cool, pull until it is a golden color. Cut into bite-sized pieces. As I mentioned before, good results can be obtained using only honey. I don't know anything about honey taffy in period. Allyson atripp at sfu.ca Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 00:38:13 -0400 From: Aine of Wyvernwood <sybella at gte.net> Subject: SC - killer candy recipe. although this may or may not be period...of any wants to win a dessert contest this should do it...sweet, rich, and to die for..... the name is deceptive...it is in truth homemade caramels...with pecans... OKLAHOMA BROWN CANDY. 2 cups sugar into heavy skillet [that means a cast iron frying pan] 4 cups sugar + 2 cups milk in deep heavy kettle cook sugar in skillet over low heat, stiring with wooden spoon as it melts slowly becoming the color of brown sugar. Don;t smoke or turn dark brown [tastes nasty if you do]. When sugar in skillet starts melting, set kettle with sugar and milk mizture over low heat and simmer as you continue melting sugar. When melted, pour in fine stream into kettle, stirring all the time to blend. [if it does not blend perfectly, but becomes a lump, it is okay it will melt]. Cook and stir until the mixture reaches firm ball stage, 244-248 degrees. Remove from heat and add 1 stick of butter [butter NOT margarine] and stir, then add 1.2 teaspoon of soda and stir vigourously [it will bubble up, that is okay] Set aside and add 2 or 3 teaspoons of vanilla and beat until the candy becomes thick and dull. Fold in 4 cups [I use 5 to 8 cupps] of broken nuts [I use pecans] and pour into a buttered pans....a large cookie tin with sides is perfect and will nearly fill the whole tin. ps... I use 1/2 cup canned [evaporated] milk and 1/.2 cup regular whole milk. this candy is rich, creamy and to die for.....it is very easy to make, even tho it sounds complicated and makes up in less than an hour, the problem is in waiting for the candy to cool to eat....let it get sorta hard then cut into squares. warning it is rich, and very sweet, after it is carmelized sugar...it should be sorta soft...like real caramels...the ones from the store... my mom makes it for me without the nuts...as I dislike nuts of any sort... but it is still marvelous with the nuts...I think pecans are best, have tried all the others and most people tell me that they prefer pecans, besides it is soooooo southern [is there any other way to be, southern that is...grins] Aine Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 07:39:09 -0500 (CDT) From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming ) Subject: SC - Re: Pulled Sugar Greetings! Murkial asked about pulled sugar. I believe it might be marginally in period for Italy. I've seen a reference (Yeah, right! Where it it now???) for it. However, since I have some stuff that goes to the mid-1600s it might be that late. My "educated" guess is that it would not be appropriate for England and probably not France. The Italians seemed to be ahead of "us all" when it came to elaborate sugar works, but then, they were the middle men for sugar and had at least one refinery in Italy, if memory serves. Alys Katharine Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 22:20:49 -0400 (EDT) From: Uduido at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Re: Pulled Sugar << Greetings! Murkial asked about pulled sugar. I believe it might be marginally in period for Italy. >> There are also numerous recipes for taffy like confections in the Baghdad Cookery Book. Lord Ras Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 17:11:09 -0400 From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow) Subject: Re: SC - candied ginger > Is candied ginger a period food? > > If so does any one has a period (or not) recipe, documented (or not)? > > Lord Robert de QuelQuePart Hello! Yes, I think it is. I have a recipe in Take 1000 Eggs for "pickled ginger" : Harleian MS. 4016 97 Peris in compost.... And then pare clene rasinges of ginger, & temper hem ij. or iij. daies, in wyne, And after, ley hem in clarefied hony colde, all a day or a night; And [th]en take the rasons oute of the hony,... Cindy/Sincgiefu Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 12:22:32 -0600 (CST) From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming ) Subject: SC - Candied Ginger Greetings! Was it on this list or the Madrone list where someone asked about candied ginger? I found a few things. There is probably more out there but this is what came to hand quickly. Candied ginger "should" be within period. It is listed as one of the "thinges necessary for a banquet" (the dessert course) by Thomas Dawson, 1596, in _The Good Huswifes Jewell_. I am "assuming" that this is in candied form since the other items all have candied variations. There is a slightly OOP recipe in _The Ladies Cabinet_, 1655. It is #43, "To candy Ginger." "Take very fair and large Ginger, and pare it, and then lay it in water a day and a night; then take your double refined sugar, and boile it to the height of sugar again: then when your sugar beginneth to be cold, take your ginger, and stir it well about till your sugar is hard to the pan; then take it out race by race, and lay it by the fire four hours, then tak a pot and warm it, and put the Ginger in it, then tie it very clsoe, and every second morning stir it about roundly, and it will be rock-candied in a very short space." In this recipe the root (race) is not sliced into thin pieces to be candied. Alys Katharine Date: Mon, 3 Nov 1997 17:08:59 +1100 (EST) From: Charles McCN <charlesn at sunrise.srl.rmit.edu.au> Subject: SC -Anise (was cndied ginger) Anise seed and sugar are good - a texture not unlike small garlic buds roasted, and a taste a little like licorice, a little like pepper, and a little like sugar - I can't think of a better description at the moment, but I use it as a snack all the time - kind of mouth-freshener. Indian restaurants around do a similar thing, but they put more stuff in with it. Charles Date: Thu, 06 Nov 1997 23:09:48 EST From: kathe1 at juno.com (Kathleen M Everitt) Subject: SC - Re: candied ginger) > Hummmmmm, there should be some recipes in late period books, but I was >basicly thinking of cooking them in a bit of syrup until it was at >hard-crack, draining them and coating them with sugar. Or, more simply, >wetting the seeds with beaten egg white and rolling in sugar. The real >problem is figuring out how to get all the seeds separate afterwards. You >would have to do it before they completely dried or they'd never come apart. >And there's the difficulty in keeping the coating on them while separtating >them............................ > Any ideas out there? What do the period recipes suggest? > >Ldy Diana I don't know specifically about comfits, but the recipe for candied peel says spread them out to dry. Also, rolling them in sugar keeps them from sticking, not make them stick together. I always roll my peel in sugar if I'm in a hurry or it's really humid. I would imagine it would work the same way for candied seeds. Roll them in sugar, spread them on cookie sheets and let them dry, turning with a spatula occasionally to keep them from sticking to the pan. Try putting them in the oven after you turn it off from baking something. You don't want to bake them, but the residual heat will help them dry out. Julleran Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 11:01:56 -0500 (EST) From: Robin Carrollmann <harper at idt.net> Subject: Re: SC - Re: Worm Recipe (plus a "new" book) On Tue, 23 Dec 1997, Elise Fleming wrote: > A comment on the recipe for a confection from pine-nut kernels: There > is a painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art from the Renaissance which > has, I am convinced, a picture of this confection. I had been on the > prowl for art work with confections and spotted this in an alcove. I > sketched the candy which is somewhat cube-shaped with white ovals in > it. Only after I read this recipe did the picture and the recipe come > together. Now I need to find pine nuts and try it out. > > Alys Katharine No doubt you know (but I'll mention it for anyone who doesn't) that sugared pine-nuts are mentioned in Platina. I'm at work, and don't have my copy handy, but ISTR that he says to shape them into little rolls. They are served at the beginning of a meal (to stimulate the appetite, I think). Lady Brighid ni Chiarain of Tethba harper at idt.net mka Robin Carroll-Mann, who made sugared walnuts for Xmas gifts this year Date: Mon, 29 Dec 1997 08:39:06 -0600 (CST) From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming) Subject: SC - Pine-nut Confection Greetings. Here is the recipe from the Nostradamus book. Alys Katharine - Recipe follows "How to Make a Confection from Pine-Nut Kernels". "Take as many well-cleaned and carefully shelled pine-nut kernels as you will, dry them or toast them a little. Or take them whole with their skins and shells and put them in a basket. Hang this over the hearth near the fire and leave it there for three days. Tus the heat from the fire will slowly penetrate them and dry them. Then take them out and clean them thoroughly. Next take two and a half pounds of nuts, being careful to keep them close at hand. Then take some of the most beautiful and best Madeira sugar, dissolve sufficient of it in rose-water and boil it until it attains the consistency of a jelly. If it is winter or a time when there is a lot of moisture in the air, boil it a bit longer, but if it is summer, then let it just simmer. this is when it does not boil over or bubble when it boils, which is a sign that the moisture had been evaporated; but to be brief, when it has boiled to the consistency of a jelly, as I have said, thake the preserving pan off th efire and put it somewhere where th eliquid can dry off and become firm. Then give it a good stir with a piece of wood and beat it continuously until it turns white. When it begins to cool down a little, add the white of a whole or half an egg and beat it well again. Next place it over the coals, in order to allow the moisture from the egg-white to stiffen, and when you see that it is properly white and like the first lot you boiled, take the dried, well-cleaned pine-nut kernels and put them into the sugar. Stir them with the wood so that they are thoroughly mixed with the sugar - this should still be done over the coal fire, so that the mixture does not cool too quickly. Then take a wide wooden knife, like the ones used by the shoemakers, and cut the mixture into pieces, each weighing about ana ounce and a half, but not more than two, which would not be good, and spread them carefully on to some paper until they have properly cooked, at which stage put a little gold leaf on to them and your confection is ready. If, however, it is not possible to obtain pine-nut kernels anywhere, use peeled almonds instead, dividing them either into two parts or three and mixing them with the sugar to make this confection. And if there are too few pine-nut kernels, you can replace them with pieces of almonds, for the latter are not dissimilar to the former in taste and potency. You can also use fennel which is flowering or in seed, which is kept in houses and used during the wine harvest. When your sugar has almost completely boiled and is hot and white with everything mixed in it or scattered over it, it looks like manna or or snow and is so beautiful and lovely." Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 20:45:45 -0600 From: L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt <liontamr at ptd.net> Subject: SC - Re: sesame candy >HI Aoife: > On the sesame candy.....the stuff that they made in Sierra Leone is >not halwa (essentially a sesame based "peanut butter fudge". This was more >like sesame seed brittle. I *really* wish that I had learned to make it. >They must have caramelized sugar to some point & added lightly toasted >sesame seeds. The candy was 95% sesame seeds. They pressed it to almost >paper thinness & cut it in smallish rectangles. Overall, it was a bit >sticky & almost flexible. I've had some hard candy from Korea that is >similar in taste, but different in texture. I've tried making this, but the >silly stuff tends to harden long before I can get it to press down thin >enough to my liking. It would probably help to make this on a very hot >humid day in summer....perhaps the extra heat in the atmosphere would >prevent the candy from hardening prematurely. > Happy New Year, Antoine >Dan Gillespie >dangilsp at intrepid.net I'm cc'ing to the list, 'cause they might find it interesting. Pastelli (Sesame Candy, from Greece), from Middle Eastern Cooking, HP Books ISBN0-89586-184-4 copyright 1982, Tucson Arizona For thousands of years, this candy has been made in many Middle Eastern countries* 1 (1-lb) jar honey (2 cups) 1 lb. hulled sesame seeds Butter an 8-inch square pan. Set aside. heat honey in a medium saucepan over medium heat until a candy thermometer registers 280degrees farenheit (140C). At this temperature, syrup dropped into cold water will seperate into threads which are hard but not brittle. Stir in sesame seeds. immediately pour into prepared pan. Cool slightly. While still soft, cut into diagonal 2" x 1" strips or diamond shapes. Do not remove from pan until candy is firm. Makes about 3 pounds. * This statment appears in the book, unsubstantiated. Aoife Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 10:41:09 -0800 From: David Friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: Re: SC - Re: sesame candy There is a late manuscript of the Mappae Clavicula that has a few culinary recipes at the end (most of it is technical recipes, not culinary ones), one of which is a sesame candy. As best I recall, the recipe itself does not mention sesame, although the title does--I'm not sure if it is supposed to be assumed. David/Cariadoc http://www.best.com/~ddfr/ Subject: Re: ANST - previous threads ... keltoi / religion / holy-days Date: Sun, 01 Feb 98 09:51:31 MST From: Baronman at aol.com To: ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG In a message dated 98-01-24 11:18:45 EST, Wolf writes: >most importantly, being a order that prized knowledge, they brought >back many foreign ideas from the middle east that directly >threatened the "orthodoxy" of the church teachings. Other things that the Templars bring to us even in todays society is a hardend sugar that the Temple imported from the East into Europe called Kandish- now called candy. <snip> Baron Bors of Lothian Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 13:55:56 -0500 (EST) From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu> Subject: SC - Pine nut confection (was something about worms) Alys Katherine wrote: > By the bye, I received a copy of _The Elixirs of Nostradamus_ ... > The second part of this book contains sweetmeats: preserved lemon > peel, pumpkins, bitter oranges, walnuts, bitter cherries; a transparent > jelly from bitter cherries and one from quinces (Who was looking for > documentation for jelly??); ginger water; preserving roots of eryngos, > welted thistle; preserving limes, quinces, unripe almonds; preserving > the peel or rind of alkanet; candied sugar; pine-nut kernel confection; > marzipan; and penide sugar. > > A comment on the recipe for a confection from pine-nut kernels: There > is a painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art from the Renaissance which > has, I am convinced, a picture of this confection. I had been on the > prowl for art work with confections and spotted this in an alcove. I > sketched the candy which is somewhat cube-shaped with white ovals in > it. Only after I read this recipe did the picture and the recipe come > together. Now I need to find pine nuts and try it out. I don't know the painting in question, but that sounds EXACTLY like the payn ragoun my wife and I worked out two years ago from _Forme of Cury_. Once it cooled, we naturally cut it into cubes, which did indeed leave the white ovals of bisected pine-nuts visible on the cut faces. Payn Ragoun (FC 68) Take hony and sugur cipre and clarifie ir togydre, and boile it with esy fire, and kepe it wel fro brennyng. And whan it hath yboiled a while, take vp a drope therof with thy fingur and do it in a litel water, and loke if it hong togydre; and take it fro the fyre and do therto pynes the thriddendele and powdour gyngeuer, and stere it togyder til it bigynne to thik, and cast it on a wete table; lesh it and serue it forth with fryed mete, on flessh dayes or on fysshe dayes. Our redaction: 2 C sugar 1 C honey 1 T powdered ginger 1 C pine nuts Heat sugar and honey to firm ball stage (c. 250 degrees). Remove from fire; stir in pine nuts and ginger and stir until mixture thickens. Pour into greased 8" x 8" pan, cool, and cut into half-inch cubes (the ginger is pretty strong, so a small morsel is plenty at once). It was quite tasty, but sticky, the first time we made it. The second time we heated it a little higher, and it was quite tasty, but resembled Jawbreakers in consistency. (At least, when we took it in sub-freezing weather to a potluck; after half an hour in the house it was easier to cut and eat.) mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib Stephen Bloch sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 11:23:32 -0500 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: SC - Dragiees: A Speculative Experiment - Long! I thought people might find this interesting, especially the sugar mavens out there. What follows is an account of my speculative attempt to recreate a period candy. We have no real reason to assume the candy existed in this exact form, but if I'm forgiven for working from such secondary sources as Scully's "The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages", I'd say there is a fair chance that it did. In the course of working with the Terence Scully translation of Chiquart's "Du Fait de Cuisine" (c. ~1420 C.E.), I ran across several different references to an item known as a dragiee. A modern drage is a sugared almond, which are _also_ referred to in the text, but Chiquart appears to be referring to a spice candy, used either as a garnish or as a larger candy eaten out of hand in its own right. In its simplest form this would be just a candied seed like the Anglo-Norman confit, generally anise or caraway, classified as either red or white, and which might or might not include artificial coloring. Roughly equivalent to the candied fennel seeds one finds in an Indian restaurant. These would likely be used as a garnish, but there appear to have been larger dragiees, often found at the end of a great feast, generally served with wafers, as a substitute for, or in addition to, hippocras, the spiced wine cordial drunk after a large meal as a digestive aid. It occurred to me that there ought to be a way to incorporate the spices used for hippocras into a dragiee, the spice combination being more or less a medical prescription. So, what would those spices be? "To make powdered hippocras, take a quarter of very fine cinnamon selected by tasting it, and half a quarter of fine flour of cinnamon, an ounce of selected string ginger, fine and white, and an ounce of grain of Paradise, a sixth of nutmegs and galingale together, and bray them all together. And when you would make your hippocras, take a good half ounce of this powder and two quarters of sugar and mix them with a quart of wine, by Paris measure. And note that the powder and the sugar mixed together is the Duke's powder." Le Menagier de Paris, 'The Goodman of Paris', c. ~ 1393, trans. Eileen Powers, 1928. The fractional measurements are probably parts of a pound, which would make it pretty consistent with the proportions of other hippocras recipes of the period. Which gives the following amounts: 4 oz stick cinnamon 2 oz powdered cinnamon "A sixth" (probably of a pound - 2 2/3 ounces) of nutmegs and galingale mixed together in equal parts 1 oz of ginger 1 oz of grains of paradise 'and bray them all together', giving us roughly 11 ounces of mixed hippocras spice, just over three cups. Now the trick is to figure out how to incorporate the spices into candy. My biggest fear was that powdered spices stirred into sugar syrup cooked to the hard-crack stage (300 degrees F.) would immediately burn, which is why modern hard candy recipes use essential flavoring oils for this job. Try finding an essential flavoring oil for galingale or grains of paradise, though! I thought of various infusions, and experimented a bit with them, but without much success. I pretty much concluded that the only way to do the job would be to use the powdered spices, since whole spices, which would burn less, would be candied whole spices, and not candied hippocras. The trick was to let the syrup cool down to a reasonable temperature before adding the spices, and hope that at that temperature the syrup would still be liquid enough to stir the spices in properly. So, starting with proportions based on a couple of different cinnamon-sugar recipes, and a hard candy recipe from "The Joy of Cooking", I boiled one cup of water with three cups of sugar (substituting the third cup of sugar for the 3/4 cup light corn syrup called for in the recipe; 3/4 cup of corn syrup weighing in at around 8 ounces) to 300 degrees F. on a candy thermometer. Various period sugar recipes indicate that even without a good thermometer, there were ways for period people to tell when their sugar was done, such as the nature of the thread it spun, or how it would stick to wet fingers, etc. The names commonly used, such as soft or hard ball, hard crack, etc., were developed before the thermometer came into common use in making candy: now you know where the terms come from. I was expecting a bit of trouble with the simple substitution of sugar for the corn syrup, since it was probably included to make the candy easier to work without excess early crystallization. I must try this again with sugar and honey as a substitute for the corn syrup, and let you know the results. I let the syrup cool down somewhat, just shaking the pan slightly, since excessive stirring will cause the syrup to crystallize. I was able to get the temperature down to around 237 degrees F. before it began to get as thick as I wanted to try stirring powdered spices (evenly) into. My written candy recipe suggested leaving the main portion of the syrup in the pan, on the lowest possible heat, while working batches of candy, so after stirring in about six tablespoons of my spice mixture (which brought down the temperature a bit more), that's what I did. That kept the syrup at more or less an even keel, without burning it or destroying the flavor. The other advantage was that when individual portions of candy became too cool and hard to work, they could be stirred back into the syrup to melt. The temperature never got much higher than 240 degrees F., which was enough to melt the mistakes without burning the spices. I tried forming the dragiees in various ways; most methods involved pouring small amounts of candy onto a lightly oiled marble slab. I tried spooning drops the size of a penny, which came out too flat. I also tried larger puddles, roughly an inch across, give or take a bit, which could be left to cool for a few minutes, peeled, while still soft, off the slab, and rolled into a ball 1/2 inch in diameter. The problem was that this was extremely slow unless I dropped several puddles at a time, and usually half of them cooled until brittle before I could get to them. Finally I found that the best way to do it was to drop 2-3 tablespoons in an oblong ribbon about 1 inch by four, carefully lifting the cooled long leading edge with an oiled knife blade, and folding it over on itself repeatedly, until I had a rough six-inch-long cylinder about 1/2 inch in diameter. I was then able to cut off pillow-shaped chunks, a few at a time, which could be left as is or rolled into balls. Enlisting a friendly native six-year-old, we were able to get a reasonably good production line going, except perfect spheres were low in proportion to egg-shapes, what with the kid hands and all. I'd strongly advise you try several methods of forming yourself, before allowing anybody whose hands can't take much contact with hot stuff to participate. My hands are pretty well calloused, and don't burn easily, and it was only when I felt that the rolled cylinder method produced relatively cool chunks of candy that I allowed my son to hold them in his hands. We stored our proto-dragiees in an airtight plastic box, covered with lots of powdered sugar, another non-period convenience, which we'll shake off in a sieve when we want to serve them. Rice flour is probably what would have been used in period to keep them separate, but since that too would have to be removed if used in any quantity, I felt it made little difference. We got about 160 small bullets, roughly 3-8 to 5/8 inch, from our 1 1/2 pounds of sugar, and they're a bit like cinnamon hard candies, except they taste, well, like hippocras. Obviously this is a rather speculative approach. As far as I know, we have no recipes for spice dragiees. We do have a few confit recipes from period sources, but they're mostly for whole spices, which would make the hippocras mixture difficult or impossible to achieve in a single bite of candy. We are reasonably sure that hard candies, made from syrup boiled to the hard crack stage, existed, so this is just one way they might have been flavored and made. Adamantius Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:12:38 -0400 From: Margritte <margritt at mindspring.com> Subject: Re: SC - rose sotelties >> << I am currently working on a solteltie dessert board for our >> upcoming Red Rose Ball (if we get the event bid :) ) >> >> >I don't know if this will help, but I ran across a recipe for crystallized >rose petals in my local Safeway, of all places. I don't know if it is >period - can anyone tell me if such things were used? Aha! I knew I had it here somewhere. Sorry it's taken me so long to dig them out, but here are period recipes for rose petals. If any of the characters come out looking strange, they're probably a long "S". I've made candied rose petals and mint leaves. The mint leaves made a much bigger hit. - -Margritte *** How to pre erve whole Ro es, Gilliflowers, Marigolds, &c. Dip a Ro e that is neyther in the bud nor ouerblowne, in a irrup, con i ting of ugar double refined, and Ro ewater boiled to his true height, then open the leaues one by one, with a fine mooth bodkin either of bone or wood, and pre ently if it be a hot unnie day, and while t the unne is in ome good height, lay them on papers in the unne, or el e drie them with ome gentle heate in a clo e roome, heating up the roome before you et them in, or in an ouen vpon papers, in pewter di hes, and then put them vp in gla es and keep them in drie cupbords neere the fire. You mu t take out the eedes if you meane to eat them. You may prooue this, pre eruing with ugar candie, in tead of ugar if you plea e. (Delightes for Ladies, by Sir Hugh Plat, 1609). *** How to candy Rosemary flowers, Rose leaves, Roses, Marigolds, &c. With preservation of color Dissolve refined, or double refined sugar, or sugar candy itself in a little Rosewater, boile it to a reasonable height, put in your rootes or flowers when your sirup is either fully colde, or almost colde, let them rest therein till the sirup have pearced them sufficiently, then take out your flowers with a skimmer, suffering the loose sirup to run from them so long as it will, boile that sirup a little more and put in more flowers as before, divide them also, then boyle all the sirup which remaineth and is not drunke up in the flowers, to the height of manus Christi, putting in more sugar if you see cause, but no more Rosewater, put your flowers therein when your sirup is cold or almost cold, and let them stand till they candie. (from Hugh Plat's Delightes for Ladies, printed by Humphrey Lownes, 1609, as quoted in Dining with William Shakespeare, by Madge Lorwin) *** To candy any Roots, Fruits, or Flowers Dissolve sugar, or sugar-candy in Rose-water. Boile it to an height. Put in your roots, fruits or flowers, the sirrop being cold. Then rest a little; after take them out, and boyl the sirrop again. Then put in more roots, etc. Then boyl the sirrop the third time to an hardness, putting in more Sugar, but not Rose-water. Put in the roots, etc. The sirrop being cold, and let them stand till they candy. (from Gervase Markham's The English Hous-wife, printed by J.B.., For R. Jackson, 1615, part 2 of Countrey Contentments, as quoted in To the Queen's Taste, by Lorna J. Sass) Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 15:18:15 -0700 From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: Re: SC - Seeking period recipes & sources... At 4:49 PM -0400 5/2/98, Kallyr wrote: >I am seeking period recipes, documentation and sources for the following: <snip> >A Honey Pine Nut candy "They are often eaten with raisins and are thought to arouse hidden passions; and they have the same virtue when candied in sugar. Noble and rich persons often have this as a first or last course. Sugar is melted, and pine kernels, covered with it, are put into a pan and moulded in the shape of a roll. To make the confection even more magnificent and delightful, it is often covered with thin gold leaf." from Platina, 15th c Italian; worked-out version in the Miscellany. This is a sugar candy; our experience with honey candies is that they come out sticky whatever you do. Also: Payn ragoun Curye on Inglysch p. 113 (Forme of Cury no. 68) Take hony and sugur cipre and clarifie it togydre, and boile it with esy fyre, and kepe it wel fro brennyng. And whan it hath yboiled a while, take vp a drope erof with fyngur and do it in a litel water, and loke if it hong togydre; and take it fro the fyre and do therto pynes the triddendele & powdour gyngeuer, and stere it togydre til it bigynne to thik, and cast it on a wete table; lesh it and serue it forth with fryed mete, on flessh dayes or on fysshe dayes. [end of original; I've substuted th's for thorns.] >~~MinnaGantz <KALLYR at aol.com> Elizabeth/Betty Cook Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 14:29:17 +1000 (EST) From: The Cheshire Cat <sianan at geocities.com> Subject: SC - Candied Almonds Lea wrote: >I'm new here! =0)...I was wondering...does anyone have a good period >recipe for candied almonds? What I do to make candied/sugared almonds is reletively simple. I have documentation around somewhere. I will dig it out for you if you want. Get a whole load of blanched almonds. Toast them slightly and let them cool. When they are cool, dip them in egg white and roll them in Raw sugar. Then set then aside to dry. The raw sugar and egg white makes and attractive and cruchy coating to the almonds. Keep them in an airtight tin until ready to serve. The people in my Barony love them. To the point that I can't set them on a table anwhere in view without a significant portion of them going walkabout. The process of coating them in the egg white can be a little messy, but it's fun. Failing that I go to the candy store around the corner. They sell huge boxes of sugared almonds for a reletively cheap price. I sometimes get boxed of gold and silver ones. They look really speccy strewn around a buffet table or in a dish in a pool of candlelight. Lovely and shiny. (Yeah, I cheat every now and them, but sometimes on has to have an artists eye when laying out the food on a buffet table or something similar =) - -Sianan Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 22:29:33 -0400 From: Marilyn Traber <margali at 99main.com> Subject: Re: SC - candied almonds LrdRas at aol.com wrote: > No. You let them sit until they dry. Egg white washes are very nice for > holding things on to stuff (e.g. Sugared almonds). It is a great glue! :-) And > it dries very quickly. And has no taste of it's own. > > Ras And if you are worried about salmonella, you can buy commercially available dehydrated merengue powder that is sweetened egg whites warrented salmonella free. IIRC, it is 1 tbsp mix, 1 tsp water = 1 egg white, and at 5.00 for the container, making something on the order of 3 dozen eggs worth of goo, thats a lot of almonds! You can also goo the almonds, then wrap in gold and silver culinary leaf! margali Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 22:10:24 -0400 From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow) Subject: Re: SC - Honey Molasses >During the week I tried to pop a mead on but completely stuffed it. >Rather than ending up with a mead, I've got a couple of liters of a >very thick, rich caramelised honey. It's little use for brewing but I >thought it might have a culinary purpose (it reminds me of Dibs a bit >in taste). Questions: How and what can I cook this in, > Is there any precident for this pre-1600. > >I tastes like predominately like liquid caramel with a honey >backtaste. > >Drake Morgan. Hello! Did you forget to add the water? Or, like me, get distracted & let the water boil off? You may be able to turn your honey to candy with a little careful cooking & stirring. For documentation, there is a spicy honey taffy called "pynade" in the Harleian MSS (c.1430-1450); also a 'gyngerbrede' recipe with honey, spices, & breadcrumbs from the same source. Let me know if you're interested & I'll try to find them. Cindy/Sincgiefu Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 17:56:45 -0800 From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: Re: SC - Honey Molasses At 9:13 AM +1000 9/11/98, Craig Jones. wrote: >During the week I tried to pop a mead on but completely stuffed it. >Rather than ending up with a mead, I've got a couple of liters of a >very thick, rich caramelised honey. It's little use for brewing but I >thought it might have a culinary purpose (it reminds me of Dibs a bit >in taste). Questions: How and what can I cook this in, > Is there any precident for this pre-1600. > >I tastes like predominately like liquid caramel with a honey >backtaste. Take a look at candy recipes--the period Islamic cookbooks have lots of them. You could try turning it into Hulwa, for example. I assume, if you are familiar with Dibs, that you have the relevant sources--al Baghdadi, Ibn al Mubarad, and Manusrito Anonimo (the Andalusian). David/Cariadoc http://www.best.com/~ddfr/ Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 16:27:58 -0400 From: Nick Sasso <Njs at mccalla.com> Subject: SC - RE: SC-Hulwa Duke Cariadoc suggested to Drake to make Hulwa out of his "molasas honey". I just recently tasted Hulwa for the first time and it was quite good, if a bit pasty. I have a question though. What excactly is hulwa? On the ingredients list for the candy it said tahini, hulwa....etc. Is it a flavoring? Does it come from a plant? Or am I missunderstanding/missremembering what I read? Alys D. ******************************************************************************** Hulwa (or Halva as on the can I puchased) is a confection of sesame seed and sesame paste that is sweetened with honey and or sugars, then flavored however desired. I have tried vanilla and chocolate. It is rich, sweet, and quite uniquely textureful. Can't eat more than a tablespoon or two of it. It is a Middle Eastern confection that can be had near the tahini or sometimes near the cheeses in farmers' markets. niccolo difrancesco Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 23:40:18 -0400 From: Phil & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Hulwa Kiriel & Chris wrote: > Weiszbrod, Barbara A wrote: > > I have a question though. What excactly is hulwa? On the > > ingredients list for the candy it said tahini, hulwa....etc. Is it a > > flavoring? Does it come from a plant? Or am I > > missunderstanding/missremembering what I read? > > > > Alys D. > > Hulwa (known sometimes as halva) here is really just a kind of solid > sweet tahini! It is basically ground sesame seeds with honey. (I do > love the sort that you can buy with chocolate swirls through it; not > period of course but scrumptious) > > Kiriel I believe hulwa, halvah, etc., is a generic term meaning "candy" , or solid sweet, or some such. You can make hulwa out of a number of different ingredients, the one commonly sold commercially is indeed made from ground sesame and honey or other syrup, but there are versions calling for semolina, nuts, and a bunch of other stuff, if I remember correctly. I think there are several hulwa recipes in Al-Baghdadi. Or is it the Kitab-al-thingummy? Or both. Adamantius Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 20:33:41 -0800 From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: Re: SC - RE: SC-Hulwa At 4:27 PM -0400 9/11/98, Nick Sasso wrote: > Duke Cariadoc suggested to Drake to make Hulwa out of his "molasas >honey". I just recently tasted Hulwa for the first time and it was quite >good, if a bit pasty. > > I have a question though. What excactly is hulwa? On the >ingredients list for the candy it said tahini, hulwa....etc. Is it a >flavoring? Does it come from a plant? Or am I >missunderstanding/missremembering what I read? > Alys D. "Hulwa" means, roughly, "sweets." Hence Halvah and the Indian Hulawat, which are entirely different, are etymologically the same. The particular recipe I was thinking of, which is in the MIscellany, is a period Islamic candy along the lines of divinity. The ingredients are sugar, egg white, water, and whatever you are binding together (chopped nuts, for example). There are also versions using honey and dibs (date syrup). David/Cariadoc http://www.best.com/~ddfr/ Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 09:18:06 -0400 From: Phil & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - RE: SC-Hulwa david friedman wrote: > The particular recipe I was thinking of, which is in the MIscellany, is a > period Islamic candy along the lines of divinity. The ingredients are > sugar, egg white, water, and whatever you are binding together (chopped > nuts, for example). There are also versions using honey and dibs (date > syrup). >From the fifteenth-century "Kitab al-Tibakhah", Charles Perry, trans. : "Hulwa. Its varieties are very many. Among them are sweets (halawat) made of natif. You put dibs [fruit syrup], honey, sugar or rubb [thick fruit syrup] in the pot, then you put it on a gentle fire and stir until it takes consistency. Then you beat eggwhites and put it with it and stir until it thickens and becomes natif. After that, if you want almond candy (halawah lauziyyah) you put in toasted almonds and allaftahu: that is, you bind them. Jauziyyah, walnuts; fustuqiyyah, pistacchios; bunduqiyyah, hazelnuts; qudamiyyah, toasted chickpeas; simsimiyyah, sesame; tahinayyah, flour [tahin] . You beat in the natif until it thickens. For duhniyyah you put in flour toasted with fat. As for halawah ajamiyyah, toast flour with sesame oil until it becomes slack, and boil dibs or another sweet ingredient and put it with it. As for khabis, take dibs and put it on the fire until its scum rises, and skim it. Dissolve cornstarch in water and put it with it." I assume we needn't go into whether maize or wheat starch is meant here ; ). As for the flour/tahin / tahiniyyah reference, I think ground (and possibly defatted) sesame might be what is meant, based on the name of the candy. I imagine the use of the beaten egg white would give the sweet a chewy or rubbery texture, ranging from a taffy consistency to something like a marshmallow, so that would probably be the most obvious difference between tahinayyah and the modern sesame "halvah" we buy commercially. Adamantius Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 10:39:16 -0500 (CDT) From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming) Subject: SC - Re: Halvah Greetings! This isn't the "Arabic" halvah with tahini, sesame, etc., but more closely resembles the one someone said was like a "nougat". Here's a recipe to try... >From _Candy_, Time-Life Books, 1981: "Turkish Halva", p. 128. "Makes about 1 1/4 pounds (600g.) 1 1/4 cups sugar (300ml.) 5 egg whites, stiffly beaten 1/3 cup honey, warmed (75 ml.) 1 cup almonds, blanched, peeled and coarsely chopped (1/4 liter) 3 1/2 oz. (100 g.) mixed candied fruit, finely chopped (about 3/4 cup/175 ml.) edible rice paper "Beat the sugar into the egg whites, and continue to beat unti the sugar has dissolved. Add the honey and put the mixture in a saucepan of hot water. Cook for 25 minutes, stirring constantly. When the mixture thickens to a paste, stir in the almonds and candied fruit. "Use a wet knife to spread the mixture on rice paper. Cover the mixture with another piece of rice paper and press it down evenly with a heavy weight. Let it sit in a cool place for a day. Remove the weight and cut the halvah into bars." There is also a recipe for "Macedonian Halvah" from the Balkans but it incorporates vanilla and cocoa powder... Tasty without a doubt, but further afield. Alys Katharine Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 23:52:52 -0400 From: John and Barbara Enloe <jbenloe at mindspring.com> Subject: Re: SC - horehound candy >Anyone have a recipe??? I would prefer period, if it exists, but if not, >I need one to make some for a friend. > >Bogdan I made some horehound candy earlier this year by steeping the horehound in hot water to make a tea, then using this in place of the water in a regular hard sugar candy recipe. I had several people use it as cough drops and others just ate it like candy. Jon [sent to the Florilegium by: "Philippa Alderton" <phlip at bright.net>] From: Gaylin Walli <g.walli at infoengine.com> To: heilveil at uiuc.edu <heilveil at uiuc.edu>; sca-cooks at Ansteorra.ORG <sca-cooks at Ansteorra.ORG> Date: Saturday, September 12, 1998 10:12 PM Subject: RE: SC - horehound candy >Dear Bogdan, >You wrote: >>Anyone have a recipe??? I would prefer period, if it exists, but if not, >>I need one to make some for a friend. > >The closest I can get to references for you now are these, per your >request for period Horehound candy. I thought for sure Le Menagier >has something, but it's nearly 11 pm in Michigan, I'm still at >work on a Saturday night (egads), and all my good references are at >home. > >Nicholas Culpepper's 1652 book "The English physitian: or an >astrologo-physical discourse of the vulgar herbs of this nation" has this >reference to horehound syrup: > > "There is a Syrup made of Horehound to be had at the Apothecaries, > very good for old Coughs, to rid the tough Flegm, as also to > avoid cold Rhewm from the Lungs of old Folks, and for those that > are Asmatick or short winded." > >And the way to make the syrup hasn't changed much since then, >as far as I've been able to track it. My research hasn't been >all that extensive, though, so... > >Here's my take on how to make it. For what it's worth, I seem to >remember Stefan's Flore..florig...flora...gemitxta pickles >recipe files, contains similar recipes for "stained glass candy" >but you'll have to check those yourself. > >My Horehound Candy recipe is something like this (from memory): > >To one cup of water, place two cups packed of fresh-picked, bruised leaves >and stems of horehound. Place this in a non-reactive saucepan, cover, >and simmer on low (with little bubbles coming up the sides of the >pan, but no big bubbles rolling around), for 1/2 hour. > >Remove from heat and cool with cover on. When cool, uncover and >strain out the solid matter. Measure the liquid you have left. >For ever two cups of horehound liquid, add three cups of sugar >(trust me on this one, the stuff is nasty without tons of sugar). > >Boil the sugar and horehound liquid together with about 4 tablespoons >of butter (I've only eyeballed this amount personally, it's >about enough butter to equal the size of an egg). Continue >boiling the mixture until a small drop in cold water turn into >a hard ball (or use a candy thermometer and boil until it >reads "hard ball stage"). > >Pour the mixture into a wide buttered pan and when the mixture >cools enough to hold a mark, mark even sized pieces, large enough >to suck on comfortably. Or, if you prefer, simply pour the mixture >into a buttered pan and break apart into random pieces when cooled. > >Cautions: THIS STUFF STICKS LIKE BURNING TAR if you get it on >you skin. Be caref careful careful when you handle it and when >you're near it boiling. It spits like crazy if you get anything >that has water on it near the sugar mix. For that matter, it >spits like crazy even when you least expect it. I wear rubber gloves, >a long sleeve shirt, and safety glasses when I make it. Mostly >cause I'm accident prone in the kitchen. > >It's late, I've written enough, and I should probably go home >and have some of that vegetable wine I made. I've toyed briefly >with finishing the tomato butter I started before being called in, >but gawd I'm tired. I'd probably kill myself in the kitchen. > >Jasmine de Cordoba, Midrealm (Metro-Detroit area of Michigan) >jasmine at infoengine.com or g.walli at infoengine.com Date: Sat, 19 Sep 1998 20:09:55 +0930 From: "David & Sue Carter" <drcarter at bigpond.com> Subject: Re: SC - A Question about thriddendele. the Cheshire Cat asked for an interpretation of a mystery word: According to Hiett and Butler, in the glossary of Curye on Inglysch, thriddendele means the third part, so: for every two parts of honey, add one part of pine nuts, and add powdered ginger thereafter. Reference: Hieatt, Constance and Butler, Sharon (ed) Curye on Inglysch Eary English Text Society, 1985 ISBN 0-19-722409-1 Esla and Osgot >Payne Ragoun. >(Curye on Inglysch) > >Take hony and sugur cipre and clarifie it togydre, and boile it with esy >fyre, and kepe it wel fro brenyng. And whan it hath yboiled a while, take >up a drope therof with thy fyngur and do it in a litel water, and loke if >it hong togydre; and take it fro the fyre and do therto pynes the >thriddendele & powdour gyngeuer, and stere it togyder til it bigynne to >thik, and cast it on a wete table; lesh it and serue it forth with fryed >mete, on flessh dayes or on fisshe dayes. Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 21:12:06 -0800 From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: SC - Pine Nut Candy (Was: A Question about thriddendele) Sianon quotes a recipe for Payn Ragoun and asked what "thriddendele" meant. That question having been answered by several people (1/3 part), I thought you might like to see a related recipe we have worked out. Ours calls itself a pynade but actually uses almonds; and it is spiced with radishes (presumably a cheap way of getting things spicy, since radishes don't have to be imported). This version is actually Cariadoc's work, not mine--he is the one who does candy. >Payne Ragoun. >(Curye on Inglysch) > >Take hony and sugur cipre and clarifie it togydre, and boile it with esy >fyre, and kepe it wel fro brenyng. And whan it hath yboiled a while, take >up a drope therof with thy fyngur and do it in a litel water, and loke if >it hong togydre; and take it fro the fyre and do therto pynes the >thriddendele & powdour gyngeuer, and stere it togyder til it bigynne to >thik, and cast it on a wete table; lesh it and serue it forth with fryed >mete, on flessh dayes or on fisshe dayes. > >Thanks for any suggestions >-A stumped Sianan > Pynade Curye on Inglysch p. 79 (Diuersa Servicia no. 91) For to make a pynade, tak hony and rotys of radich & grynd yt smal in a morter, & do to (th)at hony a quantite of broun sugur. Tak powder of peper & safroun & almandys, & do al togedere. Boyl hem long & held yt on a wet bord & let yt kele, & messe yt & do yt forth. 1/2 c honey 1/2 c brown sugar 10 threads saffron 4 radishes = 2 1/2 oz 1/2 t pepper 1 c slivered almonds Cut radish up small, put it in the spice grinder (a miniature blender) with 1/4 c honey or in a mortar and grind small. Slightly crush the almonds. Mix all ingredients in a small pot. Simmer, stirring, until candy thermometer reaches between 250 and 270. Dump out in spoonfuls onto a greased marble slab or a wet cutting board--the latter works if you have gotten up to 270 but sticks at 250. Let it cool. I got it to 270 without serious scorching by stirring continuously near the end. When it cools fully, the 250 is firm but chewable, the 270 between chewable and crunchy. Elizabeth/Betty Cook Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 16:51:22 -0500 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Three Questions (one of them oop) melc2newton at juno.com wrote: > Going through my cookbooks lately, I found a recipe for Vinegar Taffy > which was fairly simple and which I thought would make a good children's > activity during an inside event. (Although if the weather keeps behaving > this nicely, we may not have any indoor events in Calontir this year: ) ) > Does anyone know when taffy was first (documentable) made? Not documentable taffy in name, but here's something that seems to come very close indeed, even down to the pulling. See Curye on Inglysch, Book V (Goud Kokery), #14, To mak penydes. I'm in a bit of a rush at the moment, so I'm not able to type it in just now, unless someone else has it on disk already, but it involves boiling sugar (whether dry or as a syrup isn't really clear because it discusses clarification sort of at the same time) to either a hard ball or one of the crack stages (my best guess), and then poured on an oiled marble slab, cooled slightly, kneaded into a mass, and pulled just like taffy on an iron hook, until "fair and white", then formed into sticks and cut into portions. I suspect hard ball stage would give you a more viable taffy texture when done. The vinegar, BTW, in your modern recipe, is probably there to create some invert sugar or glucose molecules, which should help keep the taffy from becoming a rock-hard crystallized mass, either immediately on cooling or upon storage. Adamantius stgardr, East Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 19:26:41 -0500 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Candied Spices??? Jennifer Conrad wrote: > I am doing an Italian theamed feast in April and I was wondering, would > anyone out there know of a source of candied spices? Or are these > relatively easy to make? Also, what types of spices would be candied, > besides coriander. (The only one I've come across so far) > > Luveday If you have until April, you have a bit of time to experiment. There's a good period recipe in Goud Kokery, which is volume 5 of Curye on Inglysch. The trick on which everything else hangs is that no water is added to make a sugar syrup, you just melt the sugar in small quantities, slowly, being careful not to burn, and coat your seeds, nuts, or what have you. Coriander seeds, anise, fennel, caraway, cumin, peppercorns, chips of cinnamon (albeit hard on the teeth) and little ginger cubes, are all suitable for candying. Adamantius stgardr, East Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 20:15:07 -0500 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Candied Spices??? Robyn Probert wrote: > At 18:38 02/12/1998 -0500, Luveday wrote: > >I am doing an Italian theamed feast in April and I was wondering, would > >anyone out there know of a source of candied spices? Or are these > >relatively easy to make? Also, what types of spices would be candied, > >besides coriander. (The only one I've come across so far) > > You can buy a candied spice mix in Indian stores here which might be > suitable - certainly all the spices are period ones. I used to think that, too, until I bought some, made some, and saw how different they really are. The Indian ones I've seen are candied, usually, using various gums and artificial colors along with the sugar, so the look and texture are quite different. They seem to be primarily fennel, which could have been done, but doesn't seem all that high on the list of seeds to be confyted. Anise, on the other hand, is, and many people have trouble distinguishing the flavor of anise from fennel from liquorice. Certainly you could buy the Indian candied spices, and most people would neither know nor care, and would have a good time anyway. But, the fact is that they're not the same as a period European product. Adamantius Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 21:44:00 EST From: LrdRas at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Three Questions (one of them oop) melc2newton at juno.com writes: << Does anyone know when taffy was first (documentable) made? >> There are recipes for pulled honey 'taffy' as well as rolled and cut candy in al-Baghdadi written in 1226 C.E. The translation of this cookbook can be found in Cariadoc's Collection of Medieval and Renaissance Cookbooks, Vol. I. Ras Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 22:21:07 EST From: Mordonna22 at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Candied Spices??? CONRAD3 at prodigy.net writes: > Also, what types of spices would be candied, > besides coriander. (The only one I've come across so far) Crystallized Ginger is not only delicious, it is also soothing to an upset tummy, and is invaluable as a source of electrolytes to a body nearing dehydration from the flux. Boil cubed ginger root in a simple sugar syrup made with 2 cups sugar, 1 cup water and about 1 tsp salt until crispy tender, then dry on a cookie tin and store in an air tight container indefinitely. My daughter has gall bladder disease, and is scheduled for surgery on Friday. At this point in her disease she cannot keep solid foods down at all, but the crystallized ginger not only stays down, it helps relieve the nausea and helps ease the pain for her. Mordonna Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 12:48:09 -0800 From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: Re: SC - Three Questions (one of them oop) At 11:48 PM -0600 12/3/98, LYN M PARKINSON wrote: >I think we've discussed taffy, and it is documentable to the Near East. >His Grace or Ras or Stephen will probably say for sure. Ras mentioned a taffy recipe from al-Bagdadi; here is the original recipe. We don't have a satisfactory worked-out version yet. Halwa' Yabisa al Baghdadi p. 210/13 Take sugar, dissolve in water, and boil until set: then remove from the dish, and pour onto a soft surface to cool. Take an iron stake with a soft head and plant it into the mass, then pull up the sugar, stretching it with the hands and drawing it up the stake all the time, until it becomes white: then throw once more onto the surface. Knead in pistachios, and cut into strips and triangles. If desired, it may be colored, either with saffron or with vermilion. Sometimes it is crumbled with a little peeled almonds, sesame, or poppy. Elizabeth/Betty Cook Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 19:22:17 EST From: LrdRas at aol.com Subject: SC - Taffy snowfire at mail.snet.net writes: << Is taffy the same thing as toffee? >> Thought I'd remove the OOP since taffy is period. There are several recipes in both al-Baghdai and The Anonymous Adalusian Cookbook for a confection that is basically honey, etc. boiled, cooled on a stone and pulled with the use of a metal rod repeated until it is done. The finished product virtually indistinguishable from taffy. No, I don't have a redaction. I just followed the original recipe. Anyway toffy is a whole other ball game. Ras Subject: ANST - Candy Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 23:17:00 MST From: Baronman at aol.com To: ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG I believe that it was the Templars that introduced candy into European culture. The Templars found a honey and sugar syrup that was boiled and allowed to harden being enjoyed by the Muslims during one of the early Crusades. Always looking for a profit-UH- contributiuon to social values, the Templars shipped the "Kandish" to Europe where the name became candy. From the ramblings of the old man Baron Bors Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1999 16:49:59 -0700 (PDT) From: H B <nn3_shay at yahoo.com> Subject: Re: SC - candied spices and other stuff - --- "Sharon R. Saroff" <sindara at pobox.com> wrote: > I know I have asked this before, but I can't seem to locate the > information in my files. THere was a discussion on this list a while back > concerning candied spices. I have a recipe I want to use for candied spices > from a middle eastern cookbook but I don't know how period it may be. Any > help would be appreciated. > ... > Sindara According to _The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy_ (Odile Redon et al., Univ of Chicago Press 1998, ISBN 0-226-70684-2), the closing of a meal with "epices de chambre" (parlor spices) or "confetti" (same thing in Italy) was common, a regular part of any feast. They specifically mention candied coriander and ginger root. They also say that from records it appears that these were generally purchased already candied from the spice merchants, and so recipies weren't included in collections. So for France and Italy at least, 12-13-14th c., some candied spices are documented (I don't know which of their extensive list of primary sources). Hope this helps. - -- Harriet Date: Mon, 02 Aug 1999 21:25:20 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - candied spices and other stuff H B wrote: > According to _The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy_ > (Odile Redon et al., Univ of Chicago Press 1998, ISBN 0-226-70684-2), > the closing of a meal with "epices de chambre" (parlor spices) or > "confetti" (same thing in Italy) was common, a regular part of any > feast. They specifically mention candied coriander and ginger root. > They also say that from records it appears that these were generally > purchased already candied from the spice merchants, and so recipies > weren't included in collections. So for France and Italy at least, > 12-13-14th c., some candied spices are documented (I don't know which > of their extensive list of primary sources). Candied spices, under the name dragees and confits, are mentioned frequently in the 14th-century English recipes from the manuscript sources compiled for Curye On Inglysch, as well as Le Menagier de Paris (14th century Fr