comfits-msg - 2/16/08
Period candied spices and seeds.
NOTE: See also the files: candy-msg, suckets-msg, Candying-art, sugar-msg, honey-msg, spices-msg, Sugarplums-art, Roses-a-Sugar-art, sugar-paste-msg, sotelties-msg, candied-peels-msg.
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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.
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Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous
Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Sun, 2 Nov 1997 07:51:11 -0600 (CST)
From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming )
Subject: SC - Re: Candied Ginger
Stefan li Rous asked:
>So, how was candied ginger used in the Middle Ages? As a candy? In
>particular foods? I'm not sure how to categorize candied ginger as a
>food item. I have used it in mead, but I don't know that it was used
>that way then.
Thomas Dawson (1596) has it as part of the banquet (dessert) course. My
assumption is that the candied version was used as a confection just as
candied cubebs, cinnamon, nutmeg, anise and coriander seeds, etc. were
used. Petits Propos Culinaires, a number of years ago, had an article
that included some information on the amount of sweets that were taken
on campaign by various warriors (dukes, counts, bishops). The figure
is quite high. A number of specific confections were mentioned; ginger
was not one, but neither were a number of other confections.
Comfits (comfets) were also used as garnishes to several dishes besides
being eaten by themselves as a candy. One might suspect that candied
ginger was used that way in very late period.
All this got me to wanting some candied ginger... Just bought three
races of it. Now I have to stay off the computer and make it into a
confection!
Alys Katharine
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 1997 19:06:23 -0600 (CST)
From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming )
Subject: SC - Re: Candied Ginger
I wrote:
> Thomas Dawson (1596) has it as part of the banquet (dessert) course.
>My assumption is that the candied version was used as a confection
>just as candied cubebs, cinnamon, nutmeg, anise and coriander seeds,
>etc. were used.
Stefan li Rous responded:
>I can see candied ginger. I've had that. A bit sharp but reasonable.
>Cinnamon, I can also see. Cinnamon and sugar go together. Are we
>talking about the powder scraped off the bark or the bark itself?
>I'm not sure what anise tastes like.
>But coriander seeds??? And cubebs???? I thought someone here had
>described cubebs as tasting similar to pepper. Blech.
>But perhaps you end up with something closer to modern rock candy
>with a slight tinge of color and flavor from the spices.
>Anybody here ever candied any of these spices?
The cinnamon should be the cinnamon sticks. There are, I believe,
paintings of them (longish, knobby, white things) in some of Clara
Peeters paintings in the early 1600s.
One source I've read indicates that the larger spices (like cubebs)
should be soaked in vinegar (or wine), presumably to soften them.
Anise seeds Stefan, are usually in the middle of those modern candies
(comfits) that come at the end of an Indian (India, not American)
dinner. Cloves were also chewed upon to "sweeten" the breath.
I've candied caraway seeds and have a stock of other seeds I keep
meaning to candy, but the process is long and tedious. I always seem
to find "something else to do" with my free days!
Alys K.
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 11:58:49 -0500 (EST)
From: DianaFiona at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Re: Candied Ginger
<<
One source I've read indicates that the larger spices (like cubebs)
should be soaked in vinegar (or wine), presumably to soften them.
Anise seeds Stefan, are usually in the middle of those modern candies
(comfits) that come at the end of an Indian (India, not American)
dinner. Cloves were also chewed upon to "sweeten" the breath.
>>
Actually, the ones I've had (comfits) were made with fennel seeds, not
anise, which are a bit larger, and would I think, be a triffle easier to
handle. I keep meaning to make some........... Be a great tidbit to end a
feast with if you could take the time to make enough.
Ldy Diana
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 13:27:08 -0600
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - Re: Candied Ginger
> Actually, the ones I've had (comfits) were made with fennel seeds, not
>anise, which are a bit larger, and would I think, be a triffle easier to
>handle. I keep meaning to make some........... Be a great tidbit to end a
>feast with if you could take the time to make enough.
>
> Ldy Diana
Coriander seed is also used in comfits.
Bear
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 1997 12:08:54 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: Candied Ginger
DianaFiona at aol.com wrote:
> Separately. At the local Indian restaurant they have a bowl of
> candied--and colored! ;-)--fennel seeds by the cash register. They look to me
> like the sugar coating was mixed with egg white or something else frothy
> (Perhaps one of the gums, disolved and beaten?) and they were rolled in that.
Probably one of the gums, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find
carnauba wax in them, these days. Textural differences notwithstanding,
they look and, to some extent, taste, like tiny Good-n-Plenty candy...
> My problem is figuring out how to separate the tiny things afterwards without
> dislodging the coating............
> I'm pretty sure I've seen similar references in late period, but haven't
> had time to check. Anyone know where to look off the top of their heads?
Harleian MS 2378, which can be found in the "Goud Kokery" volume of
"Curye on Inglysche", has a recipe for anneys in counfyte. It's kind of
long; I may have time to post it later.
Adamantius
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 15:08:08 -0600 (CST)
From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming )
Subject: SC - Re: Comfits
Greetings! A recipe for comfits was asked for. Dawson (I believe it
is) has one which I tried, and made comments on, but it is terribly
long. I can post it if people don't mind the length, or I can send it
privately if you send me your address.
Regarding the comment about making them: It is a lengthy process,
time-consuming and tedious. No, it isn't as simple as making a sugar
syrup and dropping them in. (Rumor has it that the modern comfits made
commercially take more than a day to make, but I can't verify that.)
Basically, one makes a sugar syrup to a specific "density" and then
ladles small amounts onto small amounts of the seeds. You then use
your hand (! Yes, you really can!) to move the seeds around in the pan
which "sets" the sugar. You continue to add small amounts of syrup,
drying the seeds in between. Small comfits take some 12 or more coats.
The problem I've found is that not all the syrup goes onto the seeds.
You end up with some coated seeds and a bunch of sugar globs which
continue to grow and attract more syrup! The idea is to coat the
seeds, not the globs! The small batch that I did, less than a cup,
took over three hours for some twelve coats. If you can buy some from
Indian stores, they are really cheaper! :-)
Alys K.
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 11:41:44 -0600 (CST)
From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming )
Subject: SC - Re: Candied Cinnamon
Stefan li Rous wrote:
>Can someone quote me the period recipe and perhaps a redaction for
>doing candied cinnamon? While a referance to a period recipe would
>be good, I don't have many of the books often quoted here, yet. Has
>anyone tried this?
I haven't seen any recipes for it. That may be due to the fact that
most cooks didn't prepare any comfits. The confectioners did. They
were a different group of people. There is a French confectionary book
somewhere but to my knowledge it is in French. I would guess that if
you could find instructions on doing the "harder" (in the sense of not
being soft) seeds you might be able to "fake" it. As I mentioned
earlier, I read a reference to soaking the cubebs in vinegar and then
another time saw a reference to soaking them in wine. My impression
was that this was a several-day process. The paintings that I have
seen show a white, bumpy coating on the comfit which would be the sugar
coating the outside.
Wouldn't you guess that somehow the stick or piece of bark needed to be
softened for eventual chewing???
Alys K.
Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 12:38:56 SAST-2
From: "Ian van Tets" <ivantets at botzoo.uct.ac.za>
Subject: SC - Comfits, recipe diagrams and foiles
Hi, Cairistiona here.
1. Comfits: here is a recipe from T. Newton. Lennie's Touchstone,
1581. (A leechbook, not a cookery book, hence the health note)
A few graynes of Coriander first stieped in veneiger wherin Maioram
hath bin decocted, & then thinly crusted or couered ouer with Sugar.
It is scarrce credible what a special commoditye this bringeth to the
memory.
<snip of pasta dish>
Thanks
Cairistiona
Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 20:46:45 -0400
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Subject: Re: SC - Re: comfits
Hello! There are several illustrations of a confectioner's shop in
Diderot's Encyclopedia (ISBN 0-486-27429-2). They apply a coating of gum
arabic & then successive coats of sugar syrup & gum arabic. The coating is
done on a large flat pan hung by chains from the ceiling so it can be moved
back & forth freely (over a pot of coals). A cone/funnel full of sugar
syrup hangs above the pan & drips into the pan. Each coating is allowed to
harden before the next is applied.
Yours in haste
Cindy/Sincgiefu
Date: Sun, 09 Nov 1997 22:51:21 -0500
From: Woeller D <alaric05 at erols.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: comfits
Just a quick note on an earlier strand of this thread- the sugar/candy
coated seeds that are offered at Indian Restaurants are fennel. You can
get them (should you want them) for about $3 per pound at the
ever-present middle-eastern store.
Angelique
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 14:56:20 -0500 (EST)
From: DianaFiona at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - re: candied cinnamon
Both ideas sound great to me, but I actually ran across a reference to
candied cinnamon sticks in Culpeper's Herbal while looking for something
else. It's brief, and none too clear, but says:
"Lastly, amongst the Barks, Cinnamon, amongst the Flowers, Roses, and
Marigolds, amongst the fruits, Almonds, Cloves, Pinenuts, and Fistick-nuts,
are said to be preserved but with this difference, they are encrusted with
dry sugar, and are more called confects than preserves."
This is written at the end of a short chapter on "Preserved Roots,
Stalks, Barks, Flowers, Fruits." However, most other items in the chapter
*are* boiled in a sugar syrup, sometimes after being steeped in several
changes of water. (Roots--including ginger, which started the thread, and
citrus peels) So I don't think it would be unreasonable to conclude that the
cinnamon sticks were boiled in syrup before coating with sugar, as we've all
asumed would be best! Of course, the other items listed with the cinnamon,
either *could* or, in the case of the flowers, probably *should* only be
coated with the sugar, so who knows? Oh, well, at least we have a reference
to go by now.................... ;-)
Ldy Diana
Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 20:51:48 -0500
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
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)
Hello! There are detailed directions for candying comfits in Sir Hugh
Plat's Delights for Ladies, pp 32-39. He recommends small bits of cinnamon
sticks, aniseed, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, caraway seeds, orange
rinds, ginger, cloves, almonds, and balls of flavored breadcrumbs
I've seen boxes of candied aniseeds at a local Dutch bakery. The seeds
were coated in white or purple sugar.
Mistress Alys has posted an article about her comfit-making exploits.
Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
renfrow at skylands.net
Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1999 11:26:31 CEST
From: "Christina van Tets" <cjvt at hotmail.com>
Subject: SC - mustard
<snip of mustard info>
Cairistiona
P.S. There is a French company which still makes comfits - I think it's
based in an abbey somewhere - apparently the anise comfits are the most
well-known, but they have about fourteen different flavours, including
lavender and cinnamon (though not mustard), and they are the size of peas.
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 09:27:35 EDT
From: Seton1355 at aol.com
Subject: SC - Kissing Comfits or Muscadines.
This comes from my Tudor list
Phillipa
<< This recipe comes from "Dining with William Shakespeare" by Madge Lorwin. The author has adapted Tudor recipes to modern measurements. The original was published in 1621 by John Murrell in "Delightfull daily exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen."
3 tablespoons rose water
1 teaspoon gum arabic powder
3 eyedropper drops essence of ambergris
2 eyedropper drops essence of musk
4 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon powered orris root
2 drops yellow food color (optional)
2 drops blue food color (optional)
Pour rose water into a saucer, add gum arabic and stir until the gum is dissolved. Add the ambergris and musk, set aside until needed. Sift two cups of the sugar and the orris root into a bowl, Add the gum arabic mixture, a tablespoonful at a time and work into the sugar until the paste is smooth.
For white pastilles, sprinkle the third cup of sugar on a large plate and, with your fingers, work the paste into the sugar until it is smooth. For colored pastilles, divide the white paste into two equal parts, add a drop of food color to each part. Blend in each of the colors and set one aside covered (they dry out very quickly) while you work with the other.
Sprinkle half the remanning sugar on a clean plate and work in until smooth. Pat the paste into a square and cover it with a piece of wax paper. Roll it out gently to a sheet about 3/8 inch thick. Mark and cut off small squares, triangles and rectangles with a knife. Sprinkle a cookie sheet with the remanning sugar and place the pastilles on it about an inch apart.
When the pastilles have hardened, loosen them gently with a spatula (they break easily) and store them in an airtight container. You should be able to get about four dozen pastilles from this recipe. They will keep for six to eight weeks. >>
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 13:34:47 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Making Comfits
Bethany Public Library wrote:
> I recall someone else making comfits and sharing their process (involved a
> marble slab), and I think it was the hugh plat recipe. Adamantius, maybe?
> Anybody remember?
I don't remember a marble slab being involved. I worked with a sort of
synthesis of the MS Royal (I think; the book is not handy just now)
found in the Goud Kokery volume of Curye On Ingslysche, with the Hugh
Plat recipe to fill in the gaps in detail.
> At any rate, I found that I *could* mingle them with my hand quite
> successfully, if the syrup cooled a slight bit, the ladle was small-ish, the
> syrup was poured sparingly, and was poured from a great height as the recipe
> advises. But my comfits are fairly "rough" and uneven in size. I'm going to
> make more tonight or tomorrow, and try the colored varieties.
Kewl! As I recall, I also could mingle them with my hands (kinda like
handling warm gravel), and used a small ladle the mountaynence of an
unce, as the recipe specifies. In other words, I happened to have a
one-fluid-ounce sauce ladle on hand. I also experienced rough and ragged
comfits, and after a certain size was achieved after multiple coatings,
I had the experience of forming sugar lumps without seeds in the middle;
essentially the comfits refused to grow larger (the recipe says they
should be the size of peas) after a certain point, no matter how much
sugar I added.
Also worthy of noting is the fact that I never actually had a real
syrup, so to speak. The fifteenth-century recipe never actually mentions
water in any way, and what I had done was melt the dry sugar, slowly and
gently, so what I had was essentially a hard-crack syrup from the very
start. This may have been the source of my problem.
So mine ended up looking a bit like ground-up concrete pellets, a bit
like Post Grape-Nuts cereal. They tasted like Good-N-Plenty candies.
People enjoyed them; I'm just not sure how close to the genuine article
they were.
Adamantius
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 13:55:30 -0400
From: "Gaylin J. Walli" <gwalli at ptc.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Making Comfits
Mas'A wrote:
>Kewl! As I recall, I also could mingle them with my hands (kinda like
>handling warm gravel), and used a small ladle the mountaynence of an
>unce, as the recipe specifies.
If I recall correctly how we did it, we used about a half cup of
seeds and used small amounts of cooling syrup. Small amounts
were roughly what could be dribbled into the bowls and mixed
with a soup spoon. Hauviette, I'm sure, can clarify here.
>after a certain size was achieved after multiple coatings,
>I had the experience of forming sugar lumps without seeds in the middle;
>essentially the comfits refused to grow larger (the recipe says they
>should be the size of peas) after a certain point, no matter how much
>sugar I added.
We never got them to the size of what I would call a pea. Maybe
more the size of a lentil. But we too hit the refusal point and
just ended up making sugar balls. That was the point at which
we stopped.
>so what I had was essentially a hard-crack syrup from the very
>start. This may have been the source of my problem.
This is what we did too. No water, just a dry pan.
>So mine ended up looking a bit like ground-up concrete pellets, a bit
>like Post Grape-Nuts cereal. They tasted like Good-N-Plenty candies.
And that was essentially what we had too, except for the Good-N-Plenty
part. Can't stand the things. We used coriander.
Iasmin de Cordoba, gwalli at ptc.com or iasmin at home.com
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 12:23:37 -0600
From: Serian <serian at uswest.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Making Comfits
Interestingly enough, I was just looking at a recipe for
candied anise seeds in Pleyn Delit Second Edition. I've
never made it before.
#135 in Pleyn Delit
1 c sugar
1/2 c water
6 oz anise seeds (bits of ginger or other spices would also
work)
Boil water and sugar in heavy fry pan 5 mins. add seeds and
continue to cook until syrup begins to look white. Set
aside 10 mins. Put back over very low (pref diffused) heat &
stir until sugar softens enough to be poured. Pour onto
cookie sheet. Spread with paring knife to separate. As
they harden you can separate but work fast. Each seed
should ideally be separate.
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 10:24:52 -0400
From: "Bethany Public Library" <betpulib at ptdprolog.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Making Comfits
Adamantius wrote:
*Kewl! As I recall, I also could mingle them with my hands (kinda like
*handling warm gravel), and used a small ladle the mountaynence of *an unce,
as the recipe specifies. In other words, I happened to have *a
one-fluid-ounce sauce ladle on hand. I also experienced rough and *ragged
comfits, and after a certain size was achieved after multiple *coatings, I
had the experience of forming sugar lumps without seeds *in the middle;
essentially the comfits refused to grow larger (the *recipe says they should
be the size of peas) after a certain point, no *matter how much sugar I
added.
Well, I found that I could get "very large" comfits, because if I let the
syrup "soak in" a second or two, that's what I got. "Very Large" comfits are
not good, however, due to the flavor intensity. It might be like eating a
tic-tac the size of one of those "dinosaur egg bubble gum" balls. So three
coats was about it for me. After that, we dried the mass in a slightly warm
oven, and then sifted out the gold from the silt, packaging them for later
serving.
We experienced the phenomenon that a light hand makes better comfits by
this method. You don't have to mash the sugar in, you simply lightly toss
the mixture repeatedly, and break up any enormous bits.