marmalades-msg - 4/30/07
Period marmalades and fruit jellies and jams.
NOTE: See also the files: fruits-msg, apples-msg, fruit-citrus-msg, fruit-quinces-msg, fruit-pears-msg, plums-msg, berries-msg, cherries-msg, suckets-msg, candied-peels-msg.
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From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 10:16:45 -0400
Subject: Re: SC - An Introduction and a question.
DdreMacNam at aol.com wrote:
> What I need to know is how
> period are preserves and jelly? Also what types of fruit would have been
> used? One last thing does anyone have recepies or redactions?
Fruits preserved in various sugar and/or honey preparations are
exceedingly period. They range from fruit in spiced syrup, through
myriad varieties of stamped, sliceable, fruit "marmalades" (kind of like
a stack of fruit leather), to, in late period, the jams and jellies we
know today.
Ellinor Fettiplace's receipt book (AGAIN!) has quite a few recipes for
all of these, and they are late enough in period style to be used as
working recipes by relatively novice cooks.
Tops on the list of fruits would be those known to medieval/renaissance
Europeans (obviously), especially those that are high in pectin. Quinces
are quite common for this reason. Apples and pears only slightly less
so. Raspberries, strawberries, barberries, and gooseberries all appear
in several sources. Oranges and lemons appear, but generally as candied
peel or some kind of suckets.
Apart from the use of honey substituted for part or all of the sugar in
some recipes, particularly the early ones, the technology for making
pectin set by combining it with sugar and acid hasn't changed over the
years, so most of the period recipes are quite straightforward and
easily interpreted by modern cooks with some experience with making jams
and jellies. Generally you won't find, for instance, that much less
sugar being used to make a sweet fruit jelly than is used today, just
because sugar was expensive. If you don't use enough, you run the risk
of the fruit not setting until it is cooked to death and devoid of color
and flavor. So, most of the recipes are pretty similar to modern ones,
although you'll find a somewhat greater variety of styles than is
generally practiced today.
Adamantius
From: Philip E Cutone <flip+ at andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 12:27:43 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: SC - An Introduction and a question.
The domestroi mentions various ways fruits are preserved/cooked.
It mentions that Jellies may be given to the servents on sundays. (51)
preserve apples, pears, cherries, and berries in brine (63)
(66)it talks also of watermelons, melons, Kuzmin apples (seeming to be the
origin of candied apples, pour honey syrup over whole apples),
quinces and appls (fermented in a bucket with honey syrup), Mozhaisk
cream (not mashed. soak apples and pears in a blended syrup, without
water. (not sure what they mean))
berry candy (66)(bilberries, rasberries, currants, strawberries,
cranberries, "or any other kind of berry". here is a quick rundown of
the instructions:
Boil and strain through a fine sieve add honey and then steam
the mixture till VERY thick, stiring so as not to burn. pour
onto a board. smear the board repeatedly with honey. as
mixture sets, add a second and third layer and twirl it around
a tube. dry it opposite the stove.
my quick interpretation:
cook the berries (use minimal water, or reserve the juice for
mead/drinking later) Puree them and strain to remove
seeds.(opt) add honey to your taste. simmer on very low heat
till thick. then pour onto a honeyed marble pastry board.
let dry a bit (perhaps in oven, not sure if this is good for
marble) then add a second and third layer, letting set up some
between layers. dry in oven on lowest setting. cut as is or
roll it and then cut it. die of sugar shock.
apple candy(66): about the same as berry candy, but it appears to be left
"softer" (don't dry out in oven)
the parenthesized numbers are chapters, for the interested.
please note this was from a very quick browse through.... and typed
rather quickly as well...
BTW it also mentions that pears and apples may be preserved in syrup
or kvass. (45)
In Service to never letting the kvass thread die :)
Filip of the Marche
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 07:41:15 -0400
From: Margo Lynn Hablutzel <Hablutzel at compuserve.com>
To: A&S List <sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject: Period Jellies
I have a cookbook dated 1604 which has a number of Jelly recipes, mostly as
a prelude to candy (suckets) but some really jelly, or you simply
undercook and stop when they are spreading consistency. It is called "Mrs.
Fettiplace's Recipe Book" and I got it at Bargain Books last year.
--- Morgan
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 20:26:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: ALBAN at delphi.com
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Period Jellies
Morgan said
>It is called "Mrs. Fettiplace's Recipe Book"
Er, ah, not exactly, if your book's the same as mine. It is called, I believe,
Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book. Author is Hilary Fettiplace.
Alban
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 09:47:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at MATH.HARVARD.EDU>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Concord Grapes
I _think_ it's a sort of jelly, since he mentions that in the same sentence,
but I'm not sure. Tibor? What's a quiddony?
Alban, as near as I could figure, it was a jelly, but not quite made in the
usual way. I haven't made it in years, and my notes aren't here, but you
cut and boil the fruit in water, squeeze out the juice and pulp through a
cloth, and then boil with sugar, and set. It came out halfway between jelly
and fruit leather.
It was a method of preserving fruit through the winter months. I kept it
out on the shelf for about 4 years, until it was gone from occassional
tastes. It was quite nice.
My notes, and my books, are packed away until the kitchen rennovations are
completed. Sorry.
Tibor
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 10:59:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at MATH.HARVARD.EDU>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Period Jellies
Morgan said
>It is called "Mrs. Fettiplace's Recipe Book"
Er, ah, not exactly, if your book's the same as mine. It is called, I believe,
Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book. Author is Hilary Fettiplace.
Alban
Author Hilary Spurling.
Tibor
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 14:01:12 -0600
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - Apricot recipes?(was Byzantine Cooking)
Since I have Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery in front of me, here
are some recipe's from it.
Bear
TO MAKE APRICOCK CAKES
<see fruits-msg>
TO CANDY GREEN APRICOCK CHIPS
<see fruits-msg>
TO PRESERUE DAMSONS OTHER PLUMS OR APRICOCKS TO KEEP ALL Ye YEAR IN A
QUACKEING JELLY
Take a pinte of apple water & boyle 2 pound of sugar in it, till it is
thoroughly dissolved & is in a perfect sirrup. then take 2 pound of yr
fairest & ripest plums, & put into it, & let them boil very leasurely
till they are very tender, then set them aside to coole, & let them
stand in ye sirrup 3 days. then take them out & boyle ye sirrup by it
selfe, & as it riseth, scum it of very clean, & put to it yr plums, or
yr plums to it, & they will keep all ye year very well, & ye sirrup will
be A quacking Jelly.
Note: Apple water is that water in which apples have been poached. To
prepare it, pare and core green apples, cover them with water and scald
(cook just below a boil) them for 3 hours. Remove the apples and use
the water.
TO MAKE OF PLUMS PEARS OR APRICOCKS A PASTE Yt SHALL LOOK CLEAR AS AMBER
Take white pear plums of faire yellow Apricock[s]. pare & stone them,
then boyle them on a chafing dish of coles till they be tender. then
streyne them and dry the pulpe in a dish. then take as much sugar as ye
pulp dos weigh & boyle it to a candy height, with as much rose water as
will wet it. then put your apricocks or pear plums in ye sugar, & let
them boyle together & keep it stirring. then fashion it upon A leaf of
glass into halfe apricocks, & put ye stone into ye syde. then put them
into a stove or warme oven, & ye next day turn them & close 2 of them
together, & then put ye stones into them betwixt ye hollows. soe dry
them out, & box them.
TO MAKE A QUIDONY OF APRICOCKS OR PEAR PLUMS
Take 2 pound of apricocks or pear plums & put them into a deep dish
withe a pinte of fair water, in which boyle them tender. yn wring ye
liquor from them thorough a fine cloth into A basin, & put into it a
pound of sugar well clarified, & let it boyle in a [posnet] till it
comes to its full thickness, then [put it in yr] moulds, and soe box it.
Date: 30 Apr 1998 10:32:13 -0700
From: "Marisa Herzog" <marisa_herzog at macmail.ucsc.edu>
Subject: Re: SC - Dried currents
<snip>Are they the same fruit currant jelly is made from, or is that real
currants?
Renata
Currant jelly is from real currants- the red ones are beautiful tiny red
berries that are really tart. We had a couple bushes when I was little.
Usually between me and the birds my mom did not get enough to make anything
out of! "Creme de Cassis" liquer is made from the black currants, and I think
goose-berries are related, but I am not sure...
So... if currants in period recipes are the little grape raisins, were *real*
currants (red or black) used in period? and if so how were they refered to?
- -brid
Date: Thu, 04 Jun 1998 19:11:17 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Jams not period??? (was SC - Mulberry question)
From: kat <kat at kagan.com>
> So then, what is the accepted general belief on the use of preserves in reenacting period cooking?
>
> I have been happily placing my father's prizewinning apricot, berry and plum preserves on my breakfast buffets and have never heard any objection...
>
> ... I have always felt that his were "more period" than storebought; if only for the fact that he often grows the produce himself and uses less sugar than commercial jams...
>
> so... should I cease serving preserves, break my heart though it would?
Hey! Do you really think I would tell you to do something like that?
Okay. Here's the deal. You can either
a) cook your preserves (beyond the normal point where they seem done,
that is) quickly, in a wide pan like a deep skillet, until you can draw
a spoon through it and it forms clean walls -- thick enough to hold
stiff peaks, more or less. Watch out for burning, and for burns: this
stuff is hotter than boiling water, and could splash. Kinda like napalm.
When it's done (you don't need no steenking saucer pectin test) pour
into oiled molds for a marmalade or fruit cheese, which is eaten in
slices, or in wide flat drops on wax paper, for cakes or pastilles.
Pastilles are eaten drier and firmer. Serve either with bread or
biscuits (as in biscotti, not "cat-heads") and cheese. Earlier period
versions of this type of fruit paste were often made with honey.
b) serve your fruit poached in a spiced wine syrup, a reasonably similar
approach to what often was done with fruits like pears.
c) serve the preserves as you have been doing, and if anyone asks if
they are period, tell them the truth, and say, but hey, this is good
stuff, isn't it?
Adamantius
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 22:03:45 EDT
From: RuddR at aol.com
Subject: Re: Jams not period??? (was SC - Mulberry question)
I find in _The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened_ (1669) receipts for "Jelly
of Currants" and "Marmulate of Cherries" at least (This is only a quick
glance). These seem to be straight-up fruit preserves, little different from
your father's prizewinning varieties.
Rudd Rayfield
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 21:36:48 -0500
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - Jellies vs. aspics
> I would find it very hard to believe that fruit
> jellies in the since that we think of them were known during the Middle
> Ages.
>
> Ras
If you are thinking about the clear strained jellies we have now, you're
probably right. If you are referring to fruit preserves in general, there
is at least one Elizabethan marmalade recipe in A Closet for Ladies and
Gentlewomen, 1608.
Bear
Date: Sat, 06 Jun 1998 09:52:48 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: SC - Re: Jams not period???
> > so... should I cease serving preserves, break my heart though it would?
>
> I find in _The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened_ (1669) receipts for "Jelly
> of Currants" and "Marmulate of Cherries" at least (This is only a quick
> glance). These seem to be straight-up fruit preserves, little different from
> your father's prizewinning varieties.
I guess the real issue here is the efficacy of the preservative process.
Jams, jellies, and what we call preserves today, are usually sealed up
in preserving jars of some kind, or cans, or what have you. This is
necessary to avoid molds and other decay. One possible solution that
seems to have been employed in later period (and after) is some kind of
vessel (maybe a ceramic jar) topped with a brandy-soaked disk of
parchment, and covered with melted lard or beeswax. More commonly, in
period, fruits were preserved in sweet, spiced syrups of wine and sugar
or honey, or in the form of solid marmalades. The former method is found
in sources from Apicius on up, and the latter is found in, at the very
least, several of the 14th-century sources. The problem with accepting
Digby as a source typical of even late period for SCA purposes is his
date, even when you take into account the fact that his book was
published posthumously, and shave as many as ten years off 1669. Also, I
don't recall there's much reason to assume Digby's recipes are for
anything other than the slicing jellies and marmalades. I just think
Digby is assuming his reader will place the current, prevailing
definition of a fruit jelly or marmalade on the recipe, which is exactly
what his 20th-century readers often do, too.
> Surely this culinary process did not just appear full-blown in the seventeenth
> century. There must be antecedants, even if unrecorded. Are there earlier
> sources? What's the earliest date that can be put on a recipe for sweet fruit
> preserves?
As I say, I think there's one or more recipes for fruit preserved in
wine, honey, and spices, in Apicius, roughly 1st - 3rd century CE
(there's some question as to the identity, and therefore the date, of M.
Gavius Apicius). The next time they seem to crop up, in the sources I'm
familiar with, is in the 14th century.
Based on the availability of recipes (which isn't always the best
benchmark, but currently most of what we have to go on) the jams,
jellies, and marmalades we know today don't _seem_ to have been common
until the late 18th - early 19th century, which, coincidentally, seems
to be when canning technology made significant leaps.
Adamantius
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 09:24:02 EDT
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - jam vs. jelly
stefan at texas.net writes:
<< What is the differance between a jam and a jelly? >>
Jam is produced from crushed whole fruit . Jelly is produced from the juice
strained off of whole crushed fruit. For all intent and purposes, Jam is
thickened fruit. Jelly is thickened fruit juice. The thickening and sweetening
in both are the same or similar.
Ras
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 23:11:47 -0500
From: allilyn at juno.com (LYN M PARKINSON)
Subject: Re: SC - jam vs. jelly
Stefan,
The adding of sugar, to preserve, and to make palatable, is common, and
the cooking, to destroy microorganisms--even before they knew about
those, they figured out that if you cooked food well and sealed it, it
didn't spoil. Here are the differances:
whole or half or large chunks in the finished product=preserves
crushed fruit left in the spread=jam
fruit juice strained thru fabric (linen or cotton 'jelly bags') so that
resulting jelly is clear=jelly.
Now, just to confuse you, ;-) things can be added to a jelly, as chunks
of cooked meat and vegetables can be added to a meat jelly for a
galentine.
Allison
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 19:29:20 -0500
From: vjarmstrong at aristotle.net (Valoise Armstrong)
Subject: Latwerge (Was Re: SC - Jellies vs. aspics)
Adamantius asked:
>Latwerge, huh? This wouldn't be made from plums, would it? There is a
>thick plum butter found in Poland, I believe, called lekvar. I wonder if
>there's some etymological cognate voodoo going on here...
Well, I don't know Polish or Polish cooking, but Latwerge refers to the
conserve/fruit paste in general. I guess you could make it from plums, but
the only recipes I could find at the spur of the moment were for quinces
and pears. And I swear I thought I saw a cherry recipe somewhere, but I
can't find it now that I want it.
Valoise
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 19:14:22 EDT
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: SC - Will's- more recipes
Here are the few recipes my co-feastocrat at Will's Revenge, His Lordship
Thorstein, was willing to share. :-) Sorry for the lack of documentation but
this isn't my work. Enjoy. They are wonderful. :-)
Rdgrd med Flde
1 1/2 pounds of fresh raspberries or strawberries, or a combination of the two
(or substitute 2 ten-ounce packages of frozen berries)
2 tablespoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of arrowroot powder
1/2 cup cold water
slivered almonds
1/2 cup light cream
Remove any hulls from the fresh berries, then wash the berries quickly in a
sieve, drain and spread them out on paper towels, and pat them dry. After
cutting the larger berries into quarters, place in the container of an electric
blender. Blend at high speed for 2 or 3 minutes until they are pured. If you
are using frozen berries, defrost them thoroughly, then pure them in the
blender - juices and all
To make rdgrd by hand, rub the contents of the packages or the fresh
berries through a fine sieve that is set over a large mixing bowl. Place the
berry pure (which should measure about 22 cups) in a 1 to 1* quart
enameled or stainless-steel saucepan and stir in the sugar. Bring to a boil,
stirring constantly. Mix the 2 tablespoons of arrowroot and the cold water to
a smooth paste, and stir it into the pan. Let the mixture come to a simmer
to thicken the jelly (do not let it boil), then remove the pan from the heat.
Pour into individual dessert bowls or a large serving bowl. Chill for at least 2 hours. Before serving the rdgrd, decorate the top with a few slivers of
almonds and pass a pitcher of light cream separately.
<snip of other recipes>
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1998 15:23:00 -0500
From: allilyn at juno.com (LYN M PARKINSON)
Subject: SC - Re: gooseberries + jelly
>>Gooseberries. Find me a period recipe (primary source only please)
that uses them.<<
I was looking through some of my books for your sauce, as I did not
remember seeing one when I did my sauce research. Still did not find any
gooseberry sauce, (Yes! See below) but have come across 'gelee of
gooseberries' in _The French Cook_, Francis deLaVarenne, 1653. This is
out of our period, but as we recently had a thread on jellies, I thought
it interesting. In period, the clear jellies are meat and fish based and
just 50 years later, the clear fruit jellies that we know are being
published. Raspberry jelly is made the same way. OOP, but not to be a
'spoon tease', here it is:
How to make gelee of gooseberries. Take some gooseberries, press them,
and strain them through a napkin; measure your juice, and put near upon
three quarters of sugar to one quart of juice; seeth it before you mixe
it, and seeth again together; after they are mixed, try them on a plate,
and you shall know that it is enough, when it riseth off. That of
Rasberries is made the same way.
As for other gooseberries, aside from a late period paste, and a
gooseberry verjuice, everybody seems to have preserved them and nobody
ate them! When the Brit museum continues excavating London, they will
surely find many, many pots of preserved gooseberries! Could it be that
someone tried to make paste in a rainy summer, and it wouldn't dry out?
"Here, eat this anyhow" "I can't pick it up!" "Well, put it on some
bread, then" "Oh, boy!"
As an antecedent to the mackeral/gooseberry combo, some fish sauces are
definately tart: they contain sorrell, lemon and other piquant tastes, so
your combo in in line with prevailing tastes, just not currently
documentable. Fruit jellies are so popular with meats in Europe, that
tart jellies may sometimes have taken the place of tart sauces.
Jeff says that European gooseberries are prickly. Do the prickles wash
off? Do they cook down to be non-prickly? Our landlord grew them, but I
never handled them. Would the prickles make them more or less likely to
appear in sauces, jellies, etc.?
Whoa!!! Hold!!! Just found something else in LaVarenne!
62. Fresh mackerells rosted. Rost them with fennell, after they are
rosted, open them, and take off the bone; then make a good sauce with
butter, parsley, and gooseberries, all well seasoned; stove a very little
your mackerells with your sauce, then serve.
Have just glanced at a number of her fish sauces; none seem to have cream
or milk added, yet. Is 'short broth' a reduced cooking liquid, do you
think?
Allison
Date: Tue, 07 Jul 1998 09:33:50 +1000
From: Robyn Probert <robyn.probert at lawpoint.com.au>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: gooseberries + jelly
Adamantius wrote
>I understood "jelly" in British English usage to mean a hand-held sweet.
>Do all you Americans recall Chuckles? Something along those lines...
Jelly has 3 meanings for "British English" speakers:
1. A dessert also made with fruit juice and gelatine which you set in the
fridge. Cheap variety is made with "jelly crystals" - basically gelatine,
flavour and colour. Common child dessert (aka sweet, pudding).
2. Sweets (candies), usually fruit flavoured and transluscent. The good
quality ones are made with real fruit juice and gelatine - these are soft
(about like a ripe persimmon) and usually covered in sugar (aka fruit
pastilles). The cheap variety are artificially coloured and flavoured and
are very chewy. You can buy jelly snakes, frogs, rats etc.
3. The clear type of jam previously described on the list.
Rowan
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 09:34:12 -0400
From: "LHG, JRG" <liontamr at ptd.net>
Subject: SC - Jam
Are jams/jellies or anything
like this period? I would love to hear any information anyone could share
with me in this area. Thanks again.
Lady Gwyneth Blackrose
Greywood
Gwyneth---try the Good Huswife's Jewel for recipes for marmalet, etc. Yes,
it's period. In Slavic countries I understand it was a custom to offer a
spoon of jam either alone or in a glass of cold water as the ultimate in
instant hospitality (much like the irish would offer buttermilk, and not to
offer would be insulting). Jam also found it's way into wine for the
Italians, IIRC, when the result desired was dessert-like wine on the cheap
OR the drinker preferred sweet wine and none was available.
Aoife
Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 17:39:35 -0400
From: capriest at cs.vassar.edu (Carolyn Priest-Dorman)
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: marmalade question
Renna asked:
>Does anyone know if 1. Marmalade is period? and 2. doc. on the same 3.
period recipes.
There are recipes for marmalade of citrus in Plat and (I think) Markham,
which both date to right around the turn of 1600. Digby also has several
related recipes, but he's later still.
Before that period citrus fruits seem typically to have been peeled and the
peels candied. Earlier recipes for things called marmalade involve honey,
not sugar, cooked with a paste of some pre-cooked fruit (usually quince).
Neither is much like the thin slices of citrus rind in clear jelly that we
associate with the term "marmalade."
I once judged a cooking category at a pentathlon where a lady entered Red
Quince Marmalade and Yellow Quince Marmalade from Hugh Plat's recipes. They
were both delicious, and there was a very marked difference in color based
on the different methods of cooking!
Carolyn Priest-Dorman =DE=F3ra Sharptooth
capriest at cs. vassar. edu Frostahlid, Austmork
http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/thora.html
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 08:04:28 -0500 (CDT)
From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming)
Subject: SC - Re: Fruit Conserves
Karin wrote:
>Basically, the fruit seems to have been saturated with sugar, until
>it attains an almost tough jelly like state ( jelly bean rather than
>jello ), sometimes it is then shaped into small fruit shapes, other
>times it still seems to be the basic fruit. The texture is still quite
>'solid' which seems to me that the fruit hasn't been pureed and
>reformed, but that it is done by a similiar method to candying peel.
I'm not sure about the not-pureeing and then being boiled up like candy
peel. However, there are a number of fruit pastes which give a "tough
jelly" or a nice paste, depending on one's skill, etc. Here are two
I've used successfully (sometimes tough, sometimes nice paste,
sometimes it didn't set). Also, it seems that one can't really
substitute different fruits in certain recipes. I don't recall the
fruits now (it was a few years back) but the substituted fruit didn't
set up into the paste as the original fruit did.
Sir Kenelm Digby, The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened, 3rd edition,
1677
Sweet-Meats of my Lady Windebanks
She maketh a past of Apricocks (which is both very beautiful and clear,
and tasteth most quick of the fruit) thus. Take six pound of pared and
sliced Apricocks, put them in a high pot, which stop close, and set it
in a kettle of boiling water, till you perceive the flesh is all become
a uniform pulp; then put it out into your preserving pan or possenet,
and boil it gently till it be grown thick, stirring it carefully all
the while. Then put two pound of pure Sugar to it, and mingle it well,
and let it boil gently, till you see the matter come to such a
thickness and solidity, that it will not stick to a plate. Then make
it up into what form you will. The like you may do with Raspes or
Currants.
Redaction from 'Banquetting Stuffe' edited by C. Anne Wilson, chapter
4, Rare Conceits and Strange Delightes by Peter Brears. (Edinburgh
University Press, Edinburgh, 1986, ISBN 0 7486 0103 1)
8 oz (225 g) (when prepared) peeled and stoned apricots
3 oz (75 g) sugar (Alys: 1/2 cup; 1 lb. apricots to 1/3 lb. sugar)
Place the apricots in a heatproof jar, seal the top with a piece of
cooking foil, and stand in a covered saucepan of boiling water for an
hour. Pour the apricots into a small saucepan and gently boil,
stirring continuously until the paste is extremely thick, then add the
sugar and continue stirring. When it is so thick that it has to be
spread across the bottom of the pan with a spoon, it may be turned on
to a lightly greased plate, worked into a shallow square block, and
allowed to cool. It has a deep orange colour, and is every bit as good
today as Sir Kenelm found it three centuries ago.
Alys Katharine's revision: (1 lb. apricots to 1/3 lb. sugar. Ten
apricots (2-2 1/2") are slightly under one pound when peeled and
stoned.)
Slice the apricots, place in cooking container (Corningware 1 3/4 quart
pan holds a little over 2 lbs. of apricots). Seal with foil and rubber
band for extra security. Place in large pot, or larger Corningware
container. If you put a lid on the outer container you needn't top it
off with boiling water as quickly. Add boiling water and set on burner
at simmer for a good two hours. The apricots should have fallen into a
mush by then.
To peel apricots easily, place them in boiling water for about two
minutes and then remove them. The skins should peel off easily with a
knife or your fingers. If you let them stay in the boiling water too
long they begin to cook and get mushy under the skin. You can also
just slice the apricots without peeling them. After they have cooked
for two or more hours, puree them in a blender. It is best to use a
thick pan for cooking the pureed apricots and sugar. If you simmer
them on a low heat you need not stir them continuously until the
mixture begins to thicken and erupt into "burps." This "cooking down"
process can take 4 hours or so depending on the amount of apricots you
use and the temperature of the heat. You will need to stir the mixture
more and more as it gets thicker. The apricots are done when you can
drag your spoon through the mixture and it leaves a trail. It should
also be pulling away from the sides of the pan at this time.
While this recipe doesn't call for a sugar syrup, you can make one by
taking an amount of sugar, wetting it enough to dissolve the sugar, and
heating it to hard crack stage. Add it to the apricots, stirring as
you add it. Then cook the mixture down over low heat until you can
make a trail with your spoon. Pour into shallow, buttered pans and
allow to cool. You can cut them into squares or into shapes using
small cookie or canape cutters. Store between waxed paper or parchment
paper. With proper storage they will keep for a year or so.
TO MAKE A PASTE OF PEACHES, #S112, A Booke of SweetmeatsMartha
Washington's Booke of Cookery, transcribed by Karen Hess, Columbia
University Press, New York, 1981, ISBN 0-231-04930-7Take peaches &
boyle them tender, as you did your apricocks, & strayne them. then
take as much sugar as they weigh & boyle it to candy height. mix ym
together, & make it up into paste as you doe yr other fruit. soe dry
them and use it at your pleasure.Peel and slice peaches. Bring them to
a boil over medium heat in a thick pan. Cover pan, stirring
occasionally. Add a little rosewater if desired. (The previous recipe
for apricots includes rosewater.) Cook for approximately two or two
and a half hours until they are fully soft and "tender." I have pureed
them in a blender but that leaves a good deal of water to cook off.
Try pouring off the excess liquid through a sieve or strainer. Puree
the remaining pulp. (Save the liquid for other uses.) Weigh the pulp
and take the same amount in sugar. (Approximately 2 1/4 cups
granulated sugar equal one pound.) Gently boil down the pulp until it
is thick. When the pulp is as thick as it can get and not burn, boil
up the sugar with a small amount of water. Hess identifies candy
height as soft ball or 220 F. A modern recipe for fruit paste says to
boil to hard ball or 260 F. I have found that hard ball or even to
almost hard crack works best. Pour the sugar syrup into the cooked
pulp and stir until thoroughly mixed. Continue cooking the paste until
it leaves the side of the pan and you can draw a line in it with the
spoon. Be careful that it doesn't burn at the final stages, nor that
you burn yourself with splatters of boiling pulp. Pour it onto a
buttered cookie sheet with sides and let it cool. If it doesn't
solidify to a paste that you can cut try one of the following. Let it
sit for several days to dry out. Put it into a warm oven to dry out.
Scrape it all back into a pan and re-boil to drive off more water. You
can also make up more sugar syrup, but be sure to go to the hard crack
stage before adding it to the paste.
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1999 20:25:58 -0700
From: "Robert C. Lightfoot" <celtcat at almatel.net>
Subject: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #1455
> The recipes, yes, please.
> Raoghnailt
>
> > Have you thought of fruit butters and cheeses? --snip--
> > This comes out like the commercial applets and cotlets.
> >
> > I can look up my recipes if anyone's interestes.
> > Siobhan
Here goes. These are from various cooking/preserving cookbooks I've collected over the years.
_Your Country Kitchen_ by Jocasta Innes
Damson Plum Cheese
4 lbs. plums
1 & 1/4 c. water
Sugar
Rinse the plums, place in a kettle with the water and simmer gently until quite soft. mashing occasionally. Strain/sieve pulp. Weigh the pulp, and measuring oput 1 & 1/2 c. sugar to every pound of pulp -- DO NOT COMBINE YET. Put the sugar where it will stay warm. Return the pulp to the kettle and cook very gently until thick, with no visible liquid. Pour in the warmed sugar, stirring hard to dissolve it, then turn upop the heat a little and continue cooking and sturring until pressing the spoon down on top of the mixture leaves a mark. This gives a cheese a firm enough texture to be turned out of a mold.. For a very firm, almost jellied consistency, go on cooking until a spoon drawn across the kettle parts the mixture and the bottom shows. Turn into oiled molds and seal/cover with a peice of wax paper pressed over the hot preserve. Cover with palstic wrap and close. This should keep in a cool place for several months.
Cranberry Cheese
2 lb cranberries
1 quart water
4 c. sugar.
Pick over the cranberries then rinse the. Simmer the berries in a kettle with the water until quite sift. Cook as for the Damson cheese, but stop at the first sppon stage. Pot and seal.
Siobhan
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1999 21:12:13 -0000
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is>
Subject: Re: SC - SC: Re: Marmalade
Elysant wrote:
>I'd learned as a child that the word "Marmalade" originally came from "Marie
>malade" (sick Mary) because Marmalade was regularly made for Mary Queen of
>Scots by her nurse (or cook possibly?) to keep her healthy (she was always
>sickly apparently). I'm wondering if anyone knows if this tale is true or
>not?
Marmalade originally meant "quince jam" and comes via French from Portuguese
marmelada (marmelo = quince). The earliest English reference to marmalade is
from 1524 (18 years before the birth of Queen Mary), when one box of
marmalade was presented to the king by "Hull of Exeter". The term seems
mainly to refer to quince jam throughout the 16th century.
Nanna
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 21:59:33 -0600
From: "RANDALL DIAMOND" <ringofkings at mindspring.com>
Subject: SC - Marmalade
As I have not been privy to previous topics,
being newly arrived, I would like to ask whether
marmalades are of interest. Since the seasonal
availabilty of affordable quinces is upon us all,
I would entertain discussion of period marmalades.
Personally, I have made several batches over the
past few years of Condoignac and Chardequynce
according to recipies circa 1394 and circa 1444.
The problem of making this excellent food is mainly
its expense. For no small reason was this a favoured
gift to nobles; the honey and red wine was prohibatively
costly. A real jewel of a book on this subject is
THE BOOK OF MARMALADE, C. Anne Wilson, St.
Martins, NY, 1985.
<snip of quince info. - see fruit-quinces-msg>
Akim Yaroslavich
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1999 07:41:35 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Marmalade
Stefan li Rous wrote:
> While we have discussed marmalades here before, I don't
> remember any mention of them being this early or using
> honey instead of sugar so this is interesting.
See Le Menagier de Paris, and I think also some of the 14th-century
English sources, for early cotignac recipes using honey. The reason you
probably don't think of marmalade being that early might be that the
word marmalade doesn't seem to turn up in the usual French, English and
Italian sources until late period. As far as I know, offhand, anyway.
But there are several cotignac recipes, under phonetically similar but
variously spelled names, in some of the more mainstream "medieval"
sources. And there's a lovely picture of a wheel of cotignac, a
specialty of the town of Orleans, complete with an embossed picture of
the Maid of Orleans, in the Lang/American edition of the Larousse
Gastronomique.
<snip of description of a quince. See fruit-quinces-msg >
Adamantius
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1999 08:36:49 -0600
From: "RANDALL DIAMOND" <ringofkings at mindspring.com>
Subject: SC - RE: Marmalade
Lord Stefan li Rous in a private sending kindly brought me
up to date on recent discussions of this subject. He wrote:
> snip
>Thank you for mentioning this book. Although I have several
>other of C. Anne Wilson's books, and have been quite
>happy with them, I had not heard of this book.
>While we have discussed marmalades here before, I don't
>remember any mention of them being this early or using
>honey instead of sugar so this is interesting.
C.Anne Wilson has an extensive and exhaustive study
of marmalade in her book. Indeed the full title is
THE BOOK OF MARMALADE: Its Antecedents, Its
History and Its Role in the World Today. Actually, the
Condoignac and Chardequynce I mentioned are not
technically marmalade as we know it today, but are among
its antecedents. Indeed they descended from the 'cidonitum'
of Palladius circa 4th c.. In medieval parley, Greek
"melomeli" had become "malomellus" (Isidore of Seville, c.570
- -636 AD) a term both for the fruit quince and for the conserve.
The modern Portugese for the fruit is still "marmelo".
Ms. Wilson in her extensive history brings up the reasons why
the soft fruits other than quinces and citris did not show up as
marmalades in period. In a nutshell, because quinces must
be cooked to be edible, early on being boiled in honey, the
huge store of pectin was released to make marmalade or what
the Brits call "jams". It was not until Tudor times that other
fruits were boiled with pectin rich fruits in combination to
make other fruit marmalades. Of course, by then, sugar had
largely replaced honey as the sweetener of choice. Ms.
Wilson, as an adjunct to the marmalade history, perforce had
to include a very nice brief discourse on sugar and its Arabic
connections.
John Partidge, in his "The Treasures of Commodiious Conceites
and Hidden Secrets" c.1584, states "This wise you may make
marmalade of wardens, pears, apple and medlars, services,
checkers or strawberries, every one by himself, or mix it together,
as you think good."
I personally have only tried out the recipes for Condoignac,
Chardequynce and Palladius' cidonitum'. The results were
incredibly well received, with many sampling and commenting
how insipid modern marmalades are by comparison. Some
gentles ventured to say I could make a great deal of money
preparing these recipies commercially. But boy, Howdie, would
these be costly, I estimate $12 or more for a pint jar!
Going back to John Partidge's book, he mentions a fair number
of period fruits that are difficult to obtain today. Among them, he
mentions medlars, services and wardens. Well, in a few years they
may not be so difficult to obtain and we can try out some of these
recipes. Part of the orchard program of the Glaedenfeld Centre
includes planting a minimum of 25 each of these and other rare
European fruits. I have grown medlars before in my period
Elizabethean garden in which I grew them and about 600 other
period plant varieties. Unfortunately. the single tree nerver produced
enough fruit at once to experiment with them in marmalades rather
being eaten just to taste ordinary medlars. Another fruit I will be
growing in quanity is the Kornel or cornellian cherry, a dogwood
species. Regretably, we will have to wait close to a decade until
plantings achieve maturity and allow sufficient harvests to
experience these tastes.
At any rate, C. Anne Wilson's book is first rate imo. Her references
and bibliography are scholarly and, best of all, her historic recipes
are all translated from well documented Greek, Latin and French
sources. I have not been sufficiently familiar with this list to
know what kind of information formating you all normally share.
So if I am tantalizing you all by not quoting the actual recipes, you
must let me know. Incidentally, I do hope that the OOP banter
about "lime jello molds" and "watergate salad" are Thanksgiving
lapses into mundane cookery. It would be most disappointing
if such modern banality intrudes regularly into what should be
a period discourse.
Akim Yaroslavich
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1999 13:34:29 -0600
From: "RANDALL DIAMOND" <ringofkings at mindspring.com>
Subject: SC - Marmalade
As I have had requests, here are a couple
of the recipes from C. Anne Wilson's book.
Chardequynce c.1444
"Chardecoynes that is good for the stomach is
thus made: take a quart of clarified honey and
2 ounces of powder of pepper and meddle them
together, and take 20 quinces and 10 wardens
(large pears) and pare them and take out the
kernels with the cores and seeth them in clean
(ale-)wort till they be tender and then stamp them in a mortar as small as
thou mayest and then strain them through a strainer and that will not (go)
well through, put in again and stamp it oft, and oft drive it through a
cloth or strainer, and if it be too dry put in half a saucerful or a little
more (of wort?) for to get out the other the better, and then put it to the
honey and set it on the fire and make it to seeth well and stir fast with a
great staff, and if there be 2 stirrers, it is the better for both (for) if
it be (not) strongly stirred, it will set (stick) to the vessel and then it
is lost; and seeth it till it (be) sodden thick and then take it down off
the fire and when it is well
nigh cold put in 1/4 ounce of ginger and as much of canell (cinnamon)
powdered, and mettle them well together with a slice (spatula) and then let
it cool and put it in a box; this manner of making is good and if it (is)
thus made it will be black; if thou wilt make more at once, take more of
each one after the proportions, as much as thou list."
This is the basic recipe which I used, though I cut back by half on the
pepper as modern tastes are not used to odd Tudor spicing. I balanced out
by increasing the ginger and cinnamon so that there would still be a strong
spicing but more acceptable modern taste. For lack of alewort, I boiled the
prepared fruit in the cheapest light English type ale I could find, not beer
as the hop flavour would not be an improvement. When I had gotten it down
to about 1/3 its volume, I ran the fruit and liquid alike through a blender
and continued to cook it until it had the consistancy of applesauce. I also
used the finest white pepper and powdered it first. I presume a great deal
of the original recipe process filtered out the larger pepper fragments in
the straining process anyway. Stir, stir, stir, and stir some more (for
several hours after adding the honey).
It actually does turn very, very dark, though black is not exactly the shade
(it was darker than dark fudge however) I got. I think you have to let the
end product cool in a wax paper lined pan to successfully cut it up and put
it in a box. I put
most of mine in jars as I did not achieve the full
consistancy of old linoleum that the recipe tends
to expect. More experienced candymakers will probably have better results
than I did. The taste however, was excellent.
C. Anne Wilson goes further in this recipe:
"another manner of making and is better than the first: for to put in 2
parts honey and 3 parts of sugar and shall this be better than the other,
and in all things do as thou did before, for thou mayest well enough seeth
thy quinces in water, and it is good enough though thou put no wort thereto,
and if thou wilt, thou make it without wardens, but it is the better with
wardens."
Been there, done that... with quinces alone. I agree with Ms Wilsons last
part of this recipe:
"The third manner of making is this, and this is the best of all, and that
is for to take sugar and quinces alike much by weight, and no honey nor
pears and in all other things do as thou didst before, and this shall be
whiter than the other, inasmuch as the sugar is white (so) shall the
chardequyence be"
(from A LEECHBOOK, Royal Medical Society MS 136, ed W.R. Dawson (1934),
62-4 , Nos. 156-8.)
Well, white is not exactly what you get with this method, but sugar then was
not white as we get it now either, The colour is about the shade of
Malt-o-meal cooked cereal. By far, this has the taste most acceptable to
modern palates, though I personally perfer the stronger flavours of the
first method. But I also eat snails, love Roman liquamen and picked eggs
too. The all quince
version tastes very good to us because, I think, that the novelty of the
quince flavour, being new and different, adds greatly to its appeal.
As I mentioned, I put up most of what I made in
ball jars and the lidded ceramic cheese pots with the rubber gasket and the
wire closure on top. As my batch was about 2 gallons each, I have been
giving away a lot of it. It seems that it will keep indefinitely and if the
open jars are refrigerated, they last forever. I still have a good bit in
the pantry, so if anyone is in the close neighborhood of Glaedenfeld Centre,
come by and we will make some fresh hot french bread and try out these
proto-marmalades.
My real favorite of Ms. Wilson's recipes is the French, wine based
Condoignac c.1394:
"Take the quinces and peel them. Then divide into quarters, and discard the
eye and the pips. Then cook them in a good red wine and then they are to be
straine through a sieve. then take honey, and boil it for a long time and
remove the scum, and afterwards put your quinces (wine/quince mash) into it
and stir very well, and lrt it boil until the honey is reduced to at least
to half. Then throw in hippocras powder (powdered cinnamon, nutmeg and
ginger) and stir until it is quite cold. Then cut into pieces and store
them.
(LE MENAGIER DE PARIS, ed. G. E. Brereton & J, M, Ferrier, Oxford, 1981,
p.269.)
Remember that a good red wine of this period is nothing like modern bordeux
or burgundy because they were not aged in the bottle as today. I have
assumed that wine with more grape musts and sugar of a period "good red" was
more fruity tasting, so I used 10 liters of Franzia "Chillable Red" for cost
and flavour reasons both. It also helped make the interminable stirring
more tolerable sipping the excess wine. Again to save time and prevent
burning, I pulped the reduced wine and quinces in a blender and reduced this
further till it thickened. Then I added the honey to it. Don't do it the
other way around as the very hot clarified honey will explosively boil over
the instant the first dollup of paste hits its surface. Do you know how
hard it is to get burnt honey out from under your burner pans? You DO NOT
want to know! In this recipe, the quantity of spicing is not given, so I
did it to taste but probably heavier than modern tastes as the period foods
all seem more heavily spiced to us. I also used the c.1444 as a guide
somewhat to the corrrect spicing per quart of honey (about 1/4 ounce of
each spice) and quince paste volume. I reduced it down to a very dark paste
with the consistancy of soft taffy. Again candymakers probably will have
more slicable results. The flavour imo is quite good and I prefer it to the
other recipes, though my opinion on this is not shared by others.
I hope this information will be of interest and use to
many of you. By all means possible, get your hands on a copy of this book;
it is a prize!
Akim Yaroslavich
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1999 01:25:36 +0100From: Thomas Gloning <Thomas.Gloning at germanistik.uni-giessen.de>Subject: SC - marmalade & research libraryLet me mention two additional titles, that might be pertinent to the(pre-)history of marmalade. They show, that these preparations could beboth medical and culinary:- -- Liliane Plouvier: Le letuaire, une confiture du Bas Moyen Age. In:Lambert, C. (d): Du manuscrit la table. Montral/ Paris 1992,243-256.- -- Walther Ryff (Gualtherus Ryffius): Confect Buechlin/ vnd HauApoteck. (...) Frankfurt a.M. 1544. Reprint Leipzig/ Mnchen 1983. (onquinces see fol. 22b_ss.; fol. 72a_ss.; fol. 104b_ss.).Some of the German "Latwergen" described by Ryff might also belong tothe _antecedents_ of marmelade. Ryff has several recipes with vinegar,honey and spices (fol. 22b-26a). According to Ryff, he is relying onancient recipes ("... haben die alten genommen ..."). Thus, we must beprepared to find (versions of) ancient recipes in early modern recipecollections.Akim Yaroslavich wrote:<<< Indeed they descended from the 'cidonitum' of Palladius circa 4th c.>>>Do you mean the two recipes for "cydonites" in Palladius lib. 11.20 (ed.Rodgers p. 213), or is there yet another passage pertinent to thehistory of marmalade?Regarding Palladius 11.20, I wonder what the honey, Palladius mentions,was like: "dehinc in melle decoques, donec ad mensuram mediamreuertatur"? Does that mean- -- (a) that one has to boil the pieces of quinces until they are half oftheir original size or- -- (b) does that mean that the whole fluid must boil down to half of itsoriginal measure?Columella, in a recipe for the preservation of quinces, says that oneshould fill the vessel with the quinces "optimo et liquidissimo melle"'with the best and the most liquid honey'.<<< Of course, by then, sugar had largely replaced honey as thesweetener of choice. >>>The main function of the honey seems to be preservative. Columella saysin the passage about the preserving of quinces: "nam ea mellis estnatura, ut coerceat vitia nec serpere ea patiatur. qua ex causa etiamexanimum corpus hominis per annos plurimos innoxium conservat" (Col.XII, 47.4). Roughly: 'It is the nature of the honey to stop defects andnot to allow that the defects develop any further. This is the reasonwhy honey conserves even a dead human body for several years withoutdefect'. Thomas
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1999 02:23:21 -0600
From: "RANDALL DIAMOND" <ringofkings at mindspring.com>
Subject: SC - Replies to Centre, marmalde and russian recipe queries
Thomas asked on 28 Nov 1999 01:25:
<Akim Yaroslavich wrote:
<<< Indeed they descended from the 'cidonitum' of Palladius circa 4th c.>>>
>Do you mean the two recipes for "cydonites" in Palladius lib. 11.20 (ed.
>Rodgers p. 213), or is there yet another passage pertinent to the history of
>marmalade?
Yes, the two from Opus Agriculturae, II.20.
>Palladius mentions, was like: "dehinc in melle >decoques, donec ad mensuram
>mediam reuertatur"? Does that mean
>- -- (a) that one has to boil the pieces of quinces until they are half of
their >original size or
>- -- (b) does that mean that the whole fluid must boil down to half of its
original measure?
I say (b) since my experience with boiling the fruit has shown me it does
not shrink noticably no matter how long you boil the pieces.
>Roughly:'It is the nature of the honey to stop defects and not to allow that
>the defects develop any further. This is the reason why honey conserves even a
>dead human body for several years without defect'.
A lovely image there Thomas, even though likely true.
Akim Yaroslavich
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 18:11:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: alysk at ix.netcom.com
Subject: SC - Orange Marmelade Period?
Greetings. The best (and most definitive?) book on the
topic of marmelades is by C. Anne Wilson, _The Book of
Marmalade_, Prospect Books, 1999, ISBN 1 903018 03 X. (It
should be on Prospect Book's website.) Chapter III deals
with orange marmelade, and the short of it is (if I read
correctly) that what we know as orange marmalade was developed
around the reign of Charles II, out of period.
Her first sentence reads, "Quince marmalade was the basic form
of the conserve, the one that the Tudor and Stuart preserving
books simply designated as 'marmalade', often without further
qualification. However, _The Secrets of Alexis of Piedmont_
(1562 into English) has a quince recipe which concludes, "In
the like manner may you dress and trim peaches, pears, and other
kinds of fruits." These marmalades, however, were fairly stiff
and were stored in boxes, not glass jars.
On page 49 Ms. Wilson says, "The idea of cutting orange-peel into
the shreds or chips which were later to characterise British
can be traced back to this period, and in particular to the pippin
jellies and marmalades invented by the members of the circle of the
Court of King Charles II." La Varenne (definitely OOP) had a recipe
for a soft jelly which could be/was stored in pots or glasses, and
was (if I read correctly) called a marmelade. "A true orange
marmelade had now emerged, made from Seville oranges set by their
pectin without any assistance from pippins, and this too was potted,
not boxed...one very early maker of true marmelade was the mother
of Rebecca Price...(who)...copied the instructions for 'marmelett
of oringes: my mother's receipt' into her own recipe book in 1681."
So, no. Orange marmelade can't really be considered period unless
one makes a thick, solid marmelade that contains apples to help it
set, and has no real shreds of peel in it.
Wilson's book has recipes in it, arranged in chronological order.
The first is from the 1st century AD and is made from quinces and
honey. Also included are selected recipes for meat cookery which
incorporate marmelade, as well as sauces, puddings and desserts,
cakes, and sandwiches. These do not appear to be "historical"
since no dates are attached, or if they are, they are from recent
times. I'm hungry...
Alys Katharine
From: "Elise Fleming" <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 17:33:13 -0500
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Online Glossary
Cindy queried about Quodiniack. It's the same as quiddony,
condiniak, and other spelling permutations. It's a quince paste.
Alys Katharine
Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2001 17:54:02 -0400
From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jams & Preserves (Redaction)
Lady Johnnae llyn Lewis sends greetings.
If you want to do work with marmalades, you should
probably spring for a copy of C. Anne Wilson's
The Book of Marmalade. It's now in a revised second
edition published in paperback by the the University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. ISBN: 0-8122-1727-6.
http://www.acanthus-books.com has it for 17.00 dollars.
It's still one of the best single food reference volumes
ever written. History, traditions, and recipes both
historical and modern with reminders as to how to proceed
when converting older recipes for today. Wilson mentions
one thing that people swear by is to use cane sugar and
not beet sugar. It contains 13 pre-1700 historic recipes,
so that would give you a range of choices and allow for
more experimentation.
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: lavender sugar
From: "Christina L Biles" <bilescl at okstate.edu>
Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001 08:27:03 -0600
I said:
> If you accidentally forget to add pectin, it makes a great syrup for
> waffles. ;>
Stefan said:
>>>I assume from this, that this little tidbit was learned from practical
experience. Is there some reason you can't heat this syrup back up and
then mix the pectin in at that point?<<<
If you try to add pectin after the sugar, you get a really strange texture
and it doesn't jell well, if at all. The end result still tastes good,
and can be incorporated into banana bread and muffins or other baked
goods, but isn't something I'd want to spread on toast.
-Magdalena d.C.
From: "Barbara Benson" <vox8 at mindspring.com>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Honey Butter? No! No!
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 21:28:14 -0500
> And are you going to share the recipe with us? Pretty please?
> - Beathog
Not a problem. Unfortunately I have misplaced my copy of Banqueting Stuff so
I cannot provide the original recepit. Maybe some other kind gentle could
provide the original.
The red marmalade was made by adding red food coloring to the marmalade. I
did this because I served the marmalade cut into triangles and then arranged
into diamonds. I decided the diamonds would look nice particolored, so I
added red food coloring (it was also 2 am and was really sick of looking at
orange marmalade).
Serena da Riva
Orange Marmalade
From Banquetting Stuff, taken from Hugh Platt's Delights for Ladies
5 Oranges (we used Temple, you should make sure not to get Naval)
5 Apples (we used Gala, but need to find one with more pectin)
150 ml water
A large amount of sugar
Wash the Oranges very well in hot water. Commercial orange growers wax their
oranges for protection and to make them look shiny & lovely, if you leave
the wax on the oranges it will ruin your marmalade. Peel, core and seed
apples, then place in large stainless pot. Place a large strainer over the
pot and quarter the oranges over the strainer. Remove the seeds and then
squeeze into pot. Place all of the orange, except the seeds, in with the
apples. Add 150 ml of water to the pot and then bring it all to a gentle
simmer. Cover and simmer for 1 hour (or until the apples are squishy and the
orange peel is very soft), stirring to prevent sticking.
Pick out the orange peels and remove the pulp from the peel. Pick out the
apples and leave the juice in the pot. Place the apple and orange pulp into
a blender and blend until smooth. Pour blended mixture through a strainer
into a bowl, then pour juice out of pot into bowl, stir well. Weigh the pulp
mixture and return it to the cooking pot. Add an equal weight of sugar and
stir over low heat. Stir until all of the sugar has been dissolved (if you
run your spoon along the bottom or sides of the pot and feel graininess -
keep stirring).
Theoretically the marmalade will set up into a very stiff paste that can be
turned out onto a surface and then formed into a block. Our apples did not
have enough pectin to set up, so we added Sure-Jell=AE. We used =BD a packet of
Sure-Jell=AE per batch, stir it in until dissolved and then bring the
marmalade to a vigorous boil. Boil for exactly one minute and then take off
of heat. Pour marmalade into greased pans to create freestanding blocks. For
good, non-period, storage this can also be poured into canning jars.
From: "Olwen the Odd" <olwentheodd at hotmail.com>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: RE: [SCA-cooks] Fruit Paste Question
Date: Tue, 06 May 2003 18:51:01 +0000
Bring it to room temperature and from there slowly heat it back up. If you
shock it it will burn the sugar. It should finish nicely from there. I
used to make fruit leather and it can be finicky but if you don't rush it
you end up with a quite nice result. I trust you are using a heavy pan,
preferrably an enamaled one or corningware/visionware.
Olwen
> I have a technical question for the food scientists here:
>
> This past Sunday I was messing around with one of the fruit paste recipes
> from Granado. This one calls for five pounds of pears, one and a half
> pounds of quince, and five pounds of sugar. The fruit gets cooked and
> mashed through a strainer, then the sugar gets added and the whole business
> gets cooked down until a spoon leaves a clear path across the bottom of the
> pan. I cooked the stuff for several hours, but I had to leave the house
> before it was to the recommended point. I put the stuff in the fridge to
> cool down. It's a lovely deep rose-red from the quince, and has the
> consistency of jam, but it's not as stiff as I'd like. I was thinking it
> would be more along the lines of a cotignac.
>
> Anyway, can I keep cooking it down after cooling it, or should I just put it
> in jars and eat it on toast?
>
> It's actually quite yummy...
>
> Vicente
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 08:58:40 -0500
From: "Elaine Koogler" <ekoogler1 at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Citron?
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
I didn't order seville oranges per se. I ordered Mamade orange marmalade
preparation, which was the oranges all cut up and ready for making into
marmalade. I got cans of the stuff from Penny HaPenny
(www.pennyhapenny.com).
Kiri
Date: 16 Feb 2004 17:38:4 -0800
From: Colleen L McDonald <Colleen.McDonald at comcast.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Codigniato recipe?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
I've come acrss a reference in C. Anne Wilson's _The Book of Marmelade_
to a 15th century Venetian recipe for codigniato, which is supposed to
be similar to the condoignac recipe in _Le Menager_.
The source that is cited is: E. Faccioli, Arte della Cuisine (Milan,
166) also labelled as _Liber per cuoco_.
Has anyone seen this book/manuscript/recipe? Is there a copy anywhere
on line?
Cainder
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:58:24 -0800 (PST)
From: Louise Smthson <helewyse at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: codogniato
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Actually the Italian and my rough translation of this
are available on the web.
The Italian transcription of Libro di cucina/ Libro
per cuoco is available here
http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/%7Egloning/frati.htm
Courtesy of Thomas Gloning.
And a rough translation was available here:
http://www.geocities.com/hlewyse/libro.html
However, I have polished it and the recipe now looks
something like this:
CXXXIII. A ffare codogniato bono vantagiato.
Toy le codogne e mondale e lessale in aqua tanto chote
che se desfazeno; piglia uno bacino forado o la
gratachasa, e ratali tanto fina che tu tragi tuto el
buono, e guarda ch' el non ge vada le granelle dentro
el gratato. Salva per 3 iorni al aiere questo gratato
inanzi che tu li meti in lo mele, poi per ogni libra
de codogni gratati vol essere libre 3 de mele. Fa
bolir tanto inseme quanto ch' el mele sia cocto e
spezie fine e se tu la vole per li amaladi, metili a
bolire un pocho de zucharo, per libre 3 de chodognato
vol essere onze vj de zucharo in cambio de specie.
Quando sia choto distendilo suso una tavola bagnata
hon l' aqua frescha, e fala a modo de foie de pasta
grosi mancho de mezo dido, e fane a modo de schachi e
mitili in uno albarello con spezie e con aloro: zo
quella che non per i malati vole bolire duo hore
presso fino ch' cocto sempre menando. Questochodogniato vole coxendolo senpre esser ben menato con
uno baston spachato, etc.
Expliciunt.
CXXXIII To make a good and fantastic marmalade of
quinces.
Take the quinces, peel them and then boil them in
water, enough so that they soften. Take colander or
rater and grate the quinces very finely all the good
(flesh). Watch that you dont get seeds into the
grated (mixture). Keep the grated quinces in the air
for three days before you put them into the honey (dry
them). Then for every pound of grated quinces one
wants three pounds of honey. Put these two things to
boil together until the honey is cooked, add fine
spices (to the mixture) if you want and put to boil a
little bit of sugar. For 3 pounds of quince marmalade
you will have 6 ounces of sugar instead of the spices.
When it is cooked spread it over a table, which has
been bathed with cold water. And make in the way that
one makes a sheet of pasta, as thick as a little less
than half a finger. And make them in the way of
rolled wafers (form tube I am assuming) and put them
in a ceramic pot (albarello) with spices and laurel
leaves. To prevent spoilage you should always boil
for two hours before it finishes cooking, mixing
constantly. This quince marmalade should always be
cooked while mixing wlll with a flat wooden stirrer.
It is finished.
Date: 16 May 2004 08:03:24 -0000
From: "Volker Bach" <bachv at paganet.de>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jams and Jellies in period
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
On Sat, 15 May 2004 21:53:34 EDT, Varju at aol.com wrote :
> A question came up on a message board I'm on about if there was anything
> similar to modern jam or jelly in the Middle Ages. I wasn't able to find any
> in the small group of cookbooks I have, so I was wondering if you fine people
> could give me a more definitive answer than that.
In German cookbooks, there are 'Mus' recipes that come somewhat close -
basically boiled or baked and mashed fruit that are sweetened and thickened
for storage. There is also one recipe that calls for boiling fruit juice
with sugar until it thickens and sets. The result can be used in 'pieces
the size of a walnut', so I assume something like an old-style jelly. It's
in an untranslated source, though.
Renaissance 'Confect' are also somewhat like that - fruit or juices boiled
with sugar, then poured into boxes to cool and set. Sometimes the jam/jelly
is poured over whole fruit. Rumpoldt and de Rontzier both have those, but I
recall similar things from British and French cookbooks, too. They are
pretty international.
A still life by Georg Flegel (1566-1638, probably dates to almost exactly
End-of-Period) shows what they looked like. It really looks like someone
poured jam into a box. Unfortunately I have no electronic medium of this.
It is titled 'Grosses Schauessen' (Great Show Banquet) and may be found at
the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
Giano
Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 02:41:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jams and Jellies in period
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
--- Varju at aol.com wrote:
> A question came up on a message board I'm on
> about if there was anything
> similar to modern jam or jelly in the Middle
> Ages. I wasn't able to find any in
> the small group of cookbooks I have, so I was
> wondering if you fine people
> could give me a more definitive answer than that.
>
> Noemi
This is the book you need:
Wilson, C. Anne.
The book of marmalade : its antecedents, its
history, and its role in the world today,
together with a collection of recipes for
marmalades and marmalade cookery / C. Anne
Wilson. Rev. ed. Philadelphia : University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
184 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.
0812217276 (alk. paper)
Here is a website that has the Queen's Delight,
Or the Art of Preserving, Conserving and Candying.
http://www.bib.ub.es/grewe/showbook.pl?gw020
> From "A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye" [circa
1557-1558]:
. For to make wardens in Conserue.
Fyrste make the syrope in this wyse,
take a quarte of good romney and putte a
pynte of claryfyed honey, and a pounde or a
halfe of suger, and myngle all those
together over the fyre, till tyme they
seeth, and then set it to cole. And thys
is a good sirope for manye thinges, and
wyll be kepte a yere or two. Then take
thy warden and scrape cleane awaye the
barke, but pare them not, and seeth
them in good redde wyne so that they
be wel soked and tender, that the wyne be
nere hande soked into them, then take and
strayne them throughe a cloth or through
a strayner into a vessell, then put to them
of this syrope aforesayde tyll it be almost
fylled, and then caste in the pouders, as
fyne canel, synamon, pouder of gynger
and such other, and put it in a boxes and
kepe it yf thou wylt and make thy
syrope as thou wylt worke in
quantyte, as if thou wylt
worke twenty wardens
or more or lesse as
by experience.
The Good Huswifes Jewell [1596]
To make Marmelat of Quinces
You must take a pottle of Water, and foure pound
of Suger, and so let them boyle together, and
when they boyle, you must skumme them as cleane
as you can, and you must take the whites of two
or three Egges, and beat them to froth, and put
the froth into hte pan for to make the skum to
rise, then skimme it as cleane as you can, and
then take off the Kettle and put in the Quinces,
and let them boyle a good while, and when they
boyle, you must stirre them stil, and when they
be boyled you must bore them up.
Huette
Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 10:01:12 -0400
From: "Daniel Phelps" <phelpsd at gate.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jams and Jellies in period
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Was written:
>> From "A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye" [circa 1557-1558]:
I've translated this line by line as follows:
> . For to make wardens in Conserue.
For to make pears in a conserve
> Fyrste make the syrope in this wyse,
First make a syrup in this wise
> take a quarte of good romney and putte a
take a quart of good romney and put a
> pynte of claryfyed honey, and a pounde or a
a pint of clarified honey and a pound or a
> halfe of suger, and myngle all those
half pound of sugar, and mingle all those
> together over the fyre, till tyme they
togeather over the fire, until they
> seeth, and then set it to cole. And thys
Seeth (boil?) and then set to cool. And this
> is a good sirope for manye thinges, and
is a good syrup for many things, and
> wyll be kepte a yere or two. Then take
will keep a year or two. Then take
> thy warden and scrape cleane awaye the
the pears and scrape away their
> barke, but pare them not, and seeth
peel, but leave them whole and seeth (boil?)
> them in good redde wyne so that they
them in good red wine so that they
> be wel soked and tender, that the wyne be
are well permeated and tender, the wine is
> nere hande soked into them, then take and
permeated in to the pears, then take and
> strayne them throughe a cloth or through
strain the pears through a cloth or through
> a strayner into a vessell, then put to them
a strainer into a vessel, then put over them
> of this syrope aforesayde tyll it be almost
the syrup previously mentioned until the almost
> fylled, and then caste in the pouders, as
full and then put in as powders
> fyne canel, synamon, pouder of gynger
fine canel, cinnamon, powder of ginger
> and such other, and put it in a boxes and
and such other, and put it in boxes and
> kepe it yf thou wylt and make thy
keep it if as you will and make the
> syrope as thou wylt worke in
syrup as you would to work in
> quantyte, as if thou wylt
in quantity so that if you would
> worke twenty wardens
work 20 pears
> or more or lesse as
or more or less
> by experience.
by experience
I've a few questions:
It does not seem as if the syrup is reduced very much but just brought
to a boil?
"good romney"
I think that this is a wine but is it red or white, sweet or dry? What
would be a good modern reasonable substitution?
"fyne canel, synamon, pouder of gynger and such other"
I thought that canel and cinamon were essentially the same spice? What
other spices might be added? I can think of clove, nutmeg and/or mace
and cardamon but I'm not sure if cardamon is period.
Daniel
Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 10:48:39 -0400
From: "franiccolo" <franiccolo at mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jams and Jellies in period
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
It is fairly widely held among these parts that canel is basically 'cassia'
(Cassia cinnamomum) of modern spice. Americans use it as their powdered
'Cinnamon' in grocery stores around the country. (It's all about
English/Dutch trade around the time of the Revolution).
Synamon would probably been closer to Zeylanicum cinnamomum, or Ceylon
Cinnamon. It is almost papery, sweeter, a little spicier in its qualities.
English recipes often use Cassia and cinnamon together in the 13th to 15th
centuries from what I have cooked from sources. I do the same thing myself
since I have learned the differences some years back. Cinnamon rolls aren't
the same anymore :o)
maestro niccolo difrancesco
Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 17:57:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Huette on Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jams and Jellies in period
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
--- Danel Phelps <phelpsd at gate.net> wrote:
> I've a few questions:
>
> It does not seem as if the syrup is reduced
> very much but just brought to a boil?
True. But the honey is already thick. I think
the boiling is just to break down the sugar
so it would ot be so grainy. It really doesn't
need more thickening, IMHO.
> "good romney"
> I think that this is a wine but is it red or
> white, sweet or dry? What would be a good
> modern reasonable substitution?
According to Cindy Renfrows glossary:
Rompney, Romenay, Rumney, Romney, etc. = a sweet
wine
In another glossary they equate Romney wine with
Rhenish wine or Rhine wine. Since the Rhine
wines I know of are white and sweet or semi-sweet
I would say that a reasonably modern substitute
would be a GermanAuslese or another sweet white
wine.
> "fyne canel, synamon, pouder of gynger and such other"
> I thought that canel and cinamon were
> essentially the same spice? What other spices
> might be added? I can think of clove, nutmeg
> and/or mace and crdamon but I'm not sure if
> cardamon is period.
Cardamom is period. Its origins are from Sri
Lanka and India. It is allspice that is New
World.
Huette
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 21:38:53 -0400
From: Elaine Koogler <ekoogler1 at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Kiri's feast
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
> Wow Kiri,
> Your menu sounds totally delicious!! Can ou please share the recipe
> for the Alaju, in particular.... it sounds just wonderful!!!
>
> Phillipa
Thanks for your kind words.
Here is the recipe for the Alaju:
Manual de mugeres translated by Meistrine Karen Larsdatter (a 16th C.
Spanish manuscript)
Recipe for making a conserve of alaj (a delicacy of Arabic origin,
basically a paste made of almonds, walnuts, or pine nuts, toasted
breadcrumbs, spices, and honey).
Knead together well-sifted flour with oil and water. And leave the dough
somewhat hard and knead it well. And make thin cakes and cook them well,
so they can be ground; and grind them and sift them. And then take a
celemn of ground cleaned walnuts, and two pounds of ground toasted
almonds. And while you crush the walnuts and almonds, mix them. Put a
well-measured azumbre of honey to the fire, and the best that you can
find, skim it and return it to the fire. And when the honey rises, add
the walnuts and almonds in it. And cook it until he honey is cooked.
And when it is, remove it from the fire and put with it a half a celemn
of the grated flour cakes, and mix it well. And then add a half-ounce of
cloves and another half (ounce) of cinnamon, and two nutmegs, all
ground-up. And then repeat the stirring a lot. And then make it into
cakes or put it in boxes, whichever you desire more.
My redaction (with the assistance of Mistress Rose of Black Diamond):
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 cup Walnuts, ground
1 cup almonds, toasted and ground
1cup honey
/8 tsp. cloves, ground
1/2 tsp. cinnamon, ground
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
Toast almonds. Grind almonds and walnuts together.
Heat honey until it boils up. Add the almond/walnut mixture and
continue cooking until 250 on a candy thermometer.
Add the breadcrumbs, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix together well.
Press into molds or a pan, and turn out to finish drying.
Made 3 doz. Small heart cakes.
Hope you enjoy it!
Kiri
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 14:09:52 -0700
From: Ruth Frey <ruthf at uidaho.edu>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Mustard, wine issues, fruit sweets.
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Finally, as for fruit sweets, I had very good luck once with an
apple jelly candy recipe from _The Medieval Kitchen_ (don't remember
which original source it was in, though) made from equal weights pureed
fresh apples and honey, with spices added. It took *forever* to cook
down to the point where it would "gel" when it cooled (the mix has to
be really coming away from the sides and bottom of the pan, and it has
to be on high-medium heat and stirred constantly to keep it from
burning, for, oh, a couple hours), but it was very, very good. I bet
one could do the same thing with pears. (Not necessarily in the same
line as the other pear sweets being discussed, but the comment jogged
my memory about the apple jellies, so I thought I'd share . . .). :)
-- Ruth
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 10:56:32 -0500
From: "Elise Fleming" <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Quinces and Marmalade
To: "sca-cooks at ansteorra.org" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Etain wrote:
> The recipes for quince paste that I have read
> (late English sources) refer to rolling and "stamping" the
> paste...or rolling it on a mold. This sounded more like a candy to me.
From what I remember, the original marmalades were like a fruit paste. You
can see paintings of some marmalades in Dutch paintings, particularly.
They sit in oval or round boxes made from thin wood, very like the
Amish-made boxes and boxes available in hobby stores like Michael's. Etain
is correct that the paste was more like a candy than what we know today as
marmalade.
Alys Katharine
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 17:07:57 +0100
From: agora at algonet.se
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Quinces and Marmalade
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
In Spain and South America, Mexico included, quince jam is a solid jam.
The jam is dark red and can be eaten [like] cheese.
[There is] a quince marmalade as well, but is not so common.
In Spanish quinces are called "membrillos".
In Brasil the same solid jam is made of guava fruits and its called
"guayabada".
They are sold in boxes or wrapped. They are not liquid at all.
An
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 12:25:11 -0800 (PST)
From: Chris Stanifer <jugglethis at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-coks] Quinces and Marmalade
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
--- Mark Hendershott <crimlaw at jeffnet.org> wrote:
> That's the stuf. I made some which is drying right now. Basically make
> "quince sauce" in the same way a applesauce then add an equal weight of
> sugar and cook a while longer. pour out onto parchment paper lined sheet
> pans and let cool. Let it dry, flipping occasionally. I think it will
> take a month or so. We tested it with some cheese. This is the stuff I
> like so much on a visit to Spain.
I poured my quince paste right onto the countertop, spread it with an offset spatula, and let it cool unti it was cool enough to handle. I then slipped it into my mold, stamped it, and unmolded it immediately. Left on a cookie sheet, it was dry enough to handle without sticking after only a few hours. Slightly chewy, but very nice. I'm assuming the small molded pieces will dry faster than a large slab of it.
William de Grandfort
Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 06:24:41 -0400
From: "Elise Fleming" <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Condoignac by Any Other Name...
To: "sca-cooks at ansteorra.org" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Nichola commented:
> I must look up what the Condoignac is exactly
> but I definitely appreciate the setting the stage
> and documenting.
It's quince paste and is known and spelled by many names: quiddony,
cotignac and a bunch of other variations that sound similar if you read the
word aloud. It's very popular in English cookery books in the 1500s and
1600s.
Alys Katharine
Elise Fleming
Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 07:03:02 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Condoignac by Any Other Name...
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
On May 25, 2005, at 6:24 AM, Elise Fleming wrote:
> Nichola commented:
>> I must look up what the Condoignac is exactly
>> but I definitely appreciate the setting the stage and documenting.
>
> It's quince paste and is known and spelled by many names: quiddony,
> cotignac and a bunch of other variations that sound similar if you read the
> word aloud. It's very popular in English cookery books in the 1500s and
> 1600s.
>
> Alys Katharine
Yup. A.k.a. marmalade (at least in marmalade's likely original form),
and produced and sold commercially in France as coins cotignac, which
is considered a specialty of Orleans, bearing the stamped image of an
equestrian Jeanne d'Arc. Another product largely unchanged from its
medieval form is eaten in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries
as queso de membrillo.
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 08:28:01 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Condoignac by Any Other Name...
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Pretty pictures of quiddany or cotoniack including
a great molded stag at
http://www.historicfood.com/Quinces%20Recipe.htm
Johnnae
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 15:09:46 +1300
From: Adele de Maisieres <ladyadele at paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cranberry sauce (was Re: Report on
Thanksgiving experiments) OOP
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Daniel Myers wrote:
> This leads me to a medieval-relevant question: Are there any lists
> out there of period fruits with high pectin contents? I know that
> quince has quite a lot of pectin, and that gooseberries are also
> supposed to be good for jellies. Any others? Commercial pectin is
> made from apples, yes? Can apples be cooked to a jelly (and not be
> just thick applesauce)? How about plums?
Yes, apples can most definitely be cooked to a jelly, as can red or
black currants, quinces.
More about fruit pectin levels:
http://www.pickyourown.org/pectin.htm
--
Adele de Maisieres
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 11:51:01 +0000
From: "Holly Stockley" <hollyvandenberg at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Cranberry sauce and pectin
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Doc asked:
> This leads me to a medieval-relevant question: Are there any lists
> out there of period fruits with high pectin contents? I know that
> quince has quite a lot of pectin, and that gooseberries are also
> supposed to be good for jellies. Any others? Commercial pectin is
> made from apples, yes? Can apples be cooked to a jelly (and not be
> just thick applesauce)? How about plums?
Martha Washington's cookbook gives a recipe for Damsons in quaking jelly
that instructs you to cook the fruit in apple water (water in which apples
have been cooked). Same principle.
I make my own pectin stock from apples instead of using the powder.
Basically, I chop up apples, peel, core and all, and cook them in just
enought water to cover. Once they're soft through, I dump them in a jelly
bag overnight. Take the resulting juice and boil it down by about half, and
process in whatever size jars are useful for you. It will be stronger in
pectin if you use greener apples. If you've got a local orchard, you might
even ask for the small apples when they thin the fruit in the summer. That
way, they don't go to waste. ;-) I've never tried with plums. Apples are
neutral enough in color and flavor not to interfere with most other fruit
preserves.
In my experience, apples, pears, strawberries, some varieties of plums,
raspberries, and those you mentioned will set up without additional pectin
if you cook them to the jellying point. Sour cherries are iffy, black ones
very frustrating without pectin.
Femke
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2006 18:08:54 +0000
From: "Holly Stockley" <hollyvandenberg at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Cotignac Was: Late SCA-Period Sweets?
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
>> Speaking of cotignac, is there a trick? When I cook down quinces (or
>> Japanese quinces) I get something like applesauce. Is cotignac made from
>> the strained juice? The references I've seen don't seem to say that.
>>
>> Sandra
>
> Yup...pretty much what I got. So what I did was to cook it longer, then
> spread it out in a flat pan...and left it to dry out. Which it seemed
> to do after several days. Surely I've missed something?
>
> Kiri
Hmm, I've never tried it without honey or sugar. The recipe from Menagier
de Paris uses honey. That takes longer. IF you've added extra sugar (or
honey) and IF the quinces aren't too overripe then it's just like making jam
but boiled down a little more. Use the full pulp, not just juice. If you
cook it until a wooden spoon pulled across the bottom of the pan leaves a
track for about 2 seconds, it will usually set up as soon as it's cool. I
use a baking sheet with a light coating of cooking spray, sprinkled with
sugar. Though I'd love to get a more period mold someday.
Femke
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2006 18:23:46 +0200
From: Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cotignac Was: Late SCA-Period Sweets?
To: dailleurs at liripipe.com, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Am Montag, 9. Oktober 2006 20:15 schrieb Anne-Marie Rousseau:
> do we know of any period recipes for doing this with things other than
> quince?
de Rontzier (Western Germany, very late 16th century) describes similar
confections made with pears, apples, cheeries and apricots. The fruit are to
be boiled long, but very carefully, and if possible the whole to remain
chunky.
Giano
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2006 18:28:48 +0200
From: Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cotignac
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Am Montag, 9. Oktober 2006 20:18 schrieb Sandra Kisner:
>> Hmm, I've never tried it without honey or sugar. The recipe from Menagier
>> de Paris uses honey. That takes longer. IF you've added extra sugar (or
>> honey) and IF the quinces aren't too overripe then it's just like making
>> jam but boiled down a little more. Use the full pulp, not just juice.
>> If you cook it until a wooden spoon pulled arcoss the bottom of the pan
>> leaves a track for about 2 seconds, it will usually set up as soon as
>> it's cool. I use a baking sheet with a light coating of cooking spray,
>> sprinkled with sugar. Though I'd love to get a more period mold someday.
>
> I've tried that, but ended up adding so much sugar I felt like I
> was making candy.
Basically, you *are* making candy - well, all but. It is supposed to be very
sweet. I saw a documentary on that a few years ago, and they still make
cotignac in Western France. Modern cotignac is made with the filtered juice
of quinces and refined sugar (they claim their antecedents in the
Renaissance, which I'll believe, but I haven't found the exact reference).
The whole is cooked until it is boiled down to the point of jelling stiff,
then poured into wooden boxes and cooled. The liquid reduces by IIRC more
than two thirds in the process.
Giano
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2006 20:02:48 +0000
From: "Holly Stockley" <hollyvandenberg at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cotignac
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> I've tried that, but ended up adding so much sugar I felt like I was making
> candy. The paste/sauce even looked quite glossy, but still tasted like it
> needed more. If that was because the quinces weren't ripe, how do I know
> when they are? They never soften, and they smelled lovely, so I
> thought they were ready.
>
> Sandra
For a rule of thumb, I tend to end up with equal weights of pulp and sugar
to start with, or nearly so. Ripeness judging in quinces depends on the
variety. Those I have access to locally tend to get more golden in color as
they ripen, and their aroma gets even stronger. You're right, they don't
soften until they've downright gone off. By which point they ripening
process has produced enough pectinase enzymes that getting things to set is
a little more difficult.
It takes quite a while to get them boiled down. Plan on reducing the volume
by half or more, depending on local weather conditions.
I've made it with quinces, plums, apples, pears, gooseberries and
blackberries. Markham's "The English Housewife" has a paste recipe that
lists a variety of fruit that can be used. Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book
has the recipe for gooseberry paste.
The fun thing is that it keeps beatifully in an airtight container. You
could make some now with in season fruits for Twelfth Night gift giving.
Femke
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2006 16:07:24 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cotignac Was: Late SCA-Period Sweets?
To: dailleurs at liripipe.com, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Ivan Day had us make knots with boiled down apples in April because
he was unable to get quinces at that time.
See his pretty quince recipes at
http://www.historicfood.com/Quinces%20Recipe.htm
There are recipes titled for "quyncis or wardouns in paste" in Harl.
279. Pears may
be interchanged with quinces in the perys in confyte recipe 86 in An
Ordinance of Pottage.
Johnnae
Anne-Marie Rousseau wrote:
> snipped do we know of any period recipes for doing this with things
> other than quince?
>
> --Anne-Marie, who can only eat so many pies... and has three apple
> trees and two pear trees, along with the baby quince and three baby fig trees :)
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2006 17:09:45 EDT
From: Devra at aol.com
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] contignac
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
No, there isn't a special trick; you just have to keep cooking it and keep
cooking it and keep cooking it. Stirring occasionally. When we made apple
paste at Ivan Day's it took forever. He kept saying, 'Just five more minutes' and then'Five more minutes'... When we turned it out, it wasn't done enough,
and we had to put it back into the pot again. A crock pot with the lid off for
the last hour or so might be a way to do it.
Devra
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2006 17:27:13 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cotignac
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
There are a number of quidony and pastes recipes
also in A Booke of Sweetmeats from Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery.
S198, S199 call for quinces. S200 calls for pippins,
S201 calls for apricocks or pear plums, S202 plums,
S203 pippins either green or old, S204 gooseberries,
S205 English currans, S206 repas [raspberries], S207 raspas and red roses.
Then there are all the pastes and jellies.
I think there ought to be enough recipes in that manuscript to take
care of your fruit harvest, Anne Marie.
Johnnae
> Anne-Marie, who can only eat so many pies... and has three apple
> trees and two pear
> trees, along with the baby quince and three baby fig trees
>
> I've made it with quinces, plums, apples, pears, gooseberries and
> blackberries. Markham's "The English Housewife" has a paste recipe that
> lists a variety of fruit that can be used. Elinor Fettiplace's
> Receipt Book has the recipe for gooseberry paste.snipped
> Femke
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2006 17:00:17 -0600
From: "Sue Clemenger" <mooncat at in-tch.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] contignac
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Crock pots *totally rock* for this sort of thing. I made the "black" part
of a black and white quince paste (from Fettiplace) quite successfully,
several years ago. Haven't had the chance to repeat it since then, though,
because I haven't had another chance at quinces....
--Maire
> and we had to put it back into the pot again. A crock pot with the
> lid off for the last hour or so might be a way to do it.
> Devra
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2006 18:53:29 -0400
From: "Elise Fleming" <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Apricot Paste: Was Cotignac
To: "sca-cooks at ansteorra.org" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Hi, all. Lots of chat about making fruit pastes, so here is a recipe that
worked pretty well. I found that substituting one fruit for another wasnt
exactly a one-to-one ratio. This recipe worked for apricots but didnt
work well for apples. Maybe I should tryraspes next time??
SWEET-MEATS OF MY LADY WINDEBANKS, Sir Kenelm Digby, The Closet of Sir
Kenelm Digby Opened, 3rd edition, 1677
She maketh a past of Apricocks (which is both very beautiful and clear, and
tasteth most quick of the fruit) thus. Take six pound of pared and sliced
Apricocks, put them in a high pot, which stop close, and set it in a kettle
of boiling water, till you perceive the flesh is all become a uniform pulp;
then put it out into your preserving pan or possenet, and boil it gently
till it be grown thick, stirring it carefully all the while. Then put two
pound of pure Sugar to it, and mingle it well, and let it boil gently, till
you see the matter come to such a thickness and solidity, that it will not
stick to a plate. Then make it up into what form you will. The like you
may do with Raspes or Currants.
Modernized recipe from 'Banquetting Stuffe' edited by C. Anne Wilson,
chapter 4, Rare Conceits and Strange Delightes by Peter Brears. (Edinburgh
University Press, Edinburgh, 1986, ISBN 0 7486 0103 1)
8 oz (225 g) (when prepared) peeled and stoned apricots
3 oz (75 g) sugar (Alys: 1/2 cup; 1 lb. apricots to 1/3 lb. sugar)
Place the apricots in a heatproof jar, seal the top with a piece of cooking
foil, and stand in a covered saucepan of boiling water for an hour. Pour
the apricots into a small saucepan and gently boil, stirring continuously
until the paste is extremely thick; then add the sugar and continue
stirring. When it is so thick that it has to be spread across the bottom
of the pan with a spoon, it may be turned on to a lightly greased plate,
worked into a shallow square block, and allowed to cool. It has a deep
orange colour, and is every bit as good today as Sir Kenelm found it three
centuries ago.
Alys's revision: (1 lb. apricots to 1/3 lb. sugar. Ten apricots (2-2
1/2") are slightly under one pound when peeled and stoned.)
Slice the apricots, place in cooking container (Corningware 1 3/4 quart pan
holds a little over 2 lbs. of apricots). Seal with foil and rubber band
for extra security. Place in large pot, or larger Corningware container.
If you put a lid on the outer container you needn't top it off with boiling
water as quickly. Add boiling water and set on burner at simmer for a good
two hours. The apricots should have fallen into a mush by then.
To peel apricots easily, place them in boiling water for about two minutes
and then remove them. The skins should peel off easily with a knife or
your fingers. If you let them stay in the boiling water too long they
begin to cook and get mushy under the skin. You can also just slice the
apricots without peeling them. After they have cooked for two or more
hours, puree them in a blender. It is best to use a thick pan for cooking
the pureed apricots and sugar. If you simmer them on a low heat you need
not stir them continuously until the mixture begins to thicken and erupt
into "burps." This "cooking down" process can take 4 hours or so depending
on the amount of apricots you use and the temperature of the heat. You
will need to stir the mixture more and more as it gets thicker. The
apricots are done when you can drag your spoon through the mixture and it
leaves a trail. It should also be pulling away from the sides of the pan
at this time.
While this recipe doesn't call for a sugar syrup, you can make one by
taking an amount of sugar, wetting it enough to dissolve the sugar, and
heating it to hard crack stage. Add it to the apricots, stirring as you
add it. Then cook the mixture down over low heat until you can make a
trail with your spoon. Pour into shallow, buttered pans and allow to cool.
You can cut them into squares or into shapes using small cookie or canap
cutters. Store between waxed paper or parchment paper. With proper
storage they will keep for a year or so.
Alys Katharine, apricot lover
Elise Fleming
alysk at ix.netcom.com
http://home.netcom.com/~alysk/
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2006 10:08:34 -0700
From: Susan Fox <selene at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Apricot Paste: Was Cotignac
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Cat Dancer wrote:
> Something to do with all those currants I've been collecting!!
>
> I have lots of red currants that I've been picking then stashing in
> the freezer every year until I have "enough to do something with".
> They tend to be fairly small--the big ones are about 1/4" across, and
> they're very seedy. Could I just start cooking them down in a little
> bit of water and then force them through a sieve to take the seeds out?
>
> Margaret
Yes, I would do that with any seedy fruit, currants, raspberries, even
rose hips. I don't much like getting that crunch in my fruit paste,
others may like it? A chaq'un son gout.
Selene
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2006 17:51:50 -0600
From: "Sue Clemenger" <mooncat at in-tch.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] contignac
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
I think I did the *initial* cooking (prepared fruit, some water, the sugar)
on the stove top. When the fruit had gotten soft enough, I put it through a
food mill (I have a china cap one), and put the (sweetened) puree into the
crockpot, and turned it on low. No lid, 'cuz I was trying to get it to
thicken quite a bit. Stirred it once an hour or so. IIRC, I did it over
the course of a weekend (I get the willies thinking of leaving something
like that plugged in when I'm not around.) I think I started it so that it
first went into the crockpot in the evening, but I'm not positive, sorry.
It's been a while.
It started out looking like a sort-of pink-tinged apple sauce, thickened to
an apple butter, and continued to thicken. The longer it cooked, the darker
red/purple it got, until the final product (which was pretty stiff) was such
a dark purple it was almost black.
The "light/white" half of the paste is cooked much more quickly, to minimize
the exposure of the fruit to the heat (to minimize the color change, I
assume). When finished, it had a completely different texture-- almost like
dried, sweetened papaya spears, rather than a flexible, but dry fruit paste.
I'm not sure (since I didn't have a chance to repeat it) if that was an
error on my part with the sugar, or just the nature of the two different
cooking methods.
Lots of fun to play with, though. ;o)
--Maire
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 08:59:28 -0400
From: "Elise Fleming" <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] period fruit pastes (long and whiny and with
To: "sca-cooks at ansteorra.org" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Urtatim wrote:
> Of course there's the beet sugar vs. cane sugar issue. I've got a
> huge sack of pure cane sugar in my kitchen, but i suspect that most
> commercial preserves are made with the cheapest sugar they can get.
> Anybody have any idea if the sugar source will matter for fruit paste?
I wouldn't personally use any with beet sugar. I had purchased 5 pounds of
sugar which, I believe, was mixed cane and beet. It didn't perform the way
the pure cane sugar did. Perhaps someone else might have had different
results and this _was_ quite a while ago when I was still working with
fruit pastes. Didn't like the results _at all_!
Alys Katharine
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 18:10:17 +0000
From: "Holly Stockley" <hollyvandenberg at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] period fruit pastes (long and whiny and with
questions)
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> Additional pectin may not be bad, but i dunno... anyone have any idea
> about that? I don't think i've ever made jam before. Or maybe i have,
> but if, so it was well over 30 years ago. I remember making Indian
> lime pickle and mango chutney in 1967, but i don't recall doing
> anything like it again.
Not a problem. In fact, the recipe for Damsons in Quaking Jelly in Elinor
Fettiplace's receipt book directs the cook to start with "green apple
water." Which is being used her for pectin. I tend to make pectin stock
from green apples this time of year and can it for jam-making next year.
It's just a little insurance, and gives a bit more "snap" than commercial
pectin. It won't do anything but maybe help the pastes set up better.
> Of course there's the beet sugar vs. cane sugar issue. I've got a
> huge sack of pure cane sugar in my kitchen, but i suspect that most
> commercial preserves are made with the cheapest sugar they can get.
> Anybody have any idea if the sugar source will matter for fruit paste?
I've used beet and cane and not had a problem either way. I usually DO use
at least ceylon cinnamon, sometimes other spices, and some rosewater or
orange blossom water. That might make pastes made from commercial preserves
"feel" more period??
Apple paste also goes quite well with cinnamon stick comfits. ;-)
Femke
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 01:15:43 +0000
From: "Holly Stockley" <hollyvandenberg at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] period fruit pastes (long and whiny and
withquestions)
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> Fettiplace specifies "green apple water" and you mention using green
> apples. Do green apples have more pectin in them than red (ripe?)
> apples? Hmmm, does green in this case simply refer to a type of
> apple, or does it mean an unripe apple?
Green as in unripe. Green fruit has more pectin than ripe, whatever the
fruit. The ripening process involves increasing levels of pectinase enzyme,
softening of the fruit, and a concurrent drop in pectin levels. Local
orchards often thin their trees in the heat of the summer. Those apples
work great, or just the earliest apples of a given variety that are often on
the greenish side. I chop them up, seeds, peel, and all, and put them in a
stock pot with enough water to cover. Boil them until they're soft, then
drain them overnight in a jellybag. Return the liquid to the stove, and
reduce by half, then can like jam or jelly. I end up using about 8 oz of
pectin stock per 2-2 1/2 quarts of fruit for jam or jelly. Depends on the
fruit - more for cherries, less for raspberries, etc. Proper set requires
specific ratios of acid, sugar, and pectin. You develop a feel for it with
time. Pastes are a little easier because they're drier, and you're unlikely
to run into a batch that won't set. If you do, just leave them out to dry a
bit more.
> I think of comfits as being candied seeds. This use of cinnamon
> sticks to make comfits sounds interesting, although perhaps a bit
> more difficult to eat because they will have to be sucked on, or
> chewed for awhile. Sounds like an interesting soteltie item.
>
> Stefan
I used ceylon cinnamon, and broke up the sticks somewhat. They're candy.
You can just crunch on the little bits. Actually, I used Mistress
Hauviette's basic instructions, as filed on your site already. ;-) This
time of year, apple paste and a dish of cinnamon comfits tend to go over
pretty well. Or I just dress the plate with the paste up with a sprinkling
of the cinnamon comfits.
Femke
Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2006 00:44:23 +0000
From: "Holly Stockley" <hollyvandenberg at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Fruit Paste...
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
I've done a few different things.
1. Cheap wood boxes, with the interiors rubbed with beeswax. Try to make
sure they're food grade. I had mine made by a handy-dandy woodworker who
was feeling both experimental and helpful.
2. Stoneware "shortbread" molds. Oil these up VERY well. If they're very
detailed, a paste will want to stick.
3. A flat surface like a metal baking sheet or a corian cutting board. If
you've cooked them down properly, you don't really need sides, it will stay
as a mass about 1/4" thick. I usually just dust the sheet with sugar, then
pour the paste, then dust with more sugar. When it hardens, I peel the
whole sheet loose and cut into squares.
Any of these can then be stored in an airtight container. Line it with
aluminum foil or parchment paper if you like. I've had them last at least 9
months with no notable change in flavor or texture. Left out,
they'll get hard as rocks in time.
> OK, this may sound silly, but i don't know what i should be pouring
> my fruit pastes into. I need to keep them about 6 weeks. Most
> "period" recipes say to pour them into boxes, but i don't have a
> handy supply of 16th C. fruit paste boxes around :-)
>
> I haven't made any fruit pastes yet because i haven't answered this
> question.
>
> If it should be the consensus that plastic is the thing, i don't have
> any, so i'll have to buy some - what's good? AND i'd prefer to keep
> the fruit pastes from direct contact with the plastic. What should i
> line the plastic with that will peel off the fruit paste (and,
> please, not plastic wrap :-)
> --
> Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
> the persona formerly known as Anahita
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 18:38:20 -0700
From: "Sue Clemenger" <mooncat at in-tch.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Fruit Paste...
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sorry, but when I did fruit pastes, I poured the fruit sludge/stuff into
plastic-wrap lined cookie sheets that had a good lip on them, almost like a
jelly-roll pan.
I've long wished I had access to some of the boxes and stamps
mentioned in period literature! ;o)
--Maire
> OK, this may sound silly, but i don't know what i should be pouring
> my fruit pastes into. I need to keep them about 6 weeks. Most
> "period" recipes say to pour them into boxes, but i don't have a
> handy supply of 16th C. fruit paste boxes around :-)
> --
> Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
<the end>