pulled-sugar-msg - 11/10/08 The case for and against pulled/spun sugar being period. NOTE: See also the files: sugar-msg, sugar-paste-msg, Sugar-Icing-art, Sugarplums-art, Roses-a-Sugar-art, sotelties-msg, honey-msg, candy-msg, Candying-art. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 20:57:37 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] spun sugar in subtleties (long) To: Cooks within the SCA Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise wrote: > Hey, does anyone have any information handy about spun sugar being used > or not used in period subtleties? I had an injection in my knee today so I can't really sit and tidy this all up. I am pulling this from my sugarworks file from earlier postings that I have made on this topic... Hope it all helps. I am tempted to say welllll it all depends on your definition of what spun sugar is.... Johnnae ------------------------- There was a Venetian collation given in honor of Henri III of France where everything on the table had been made of spun sugar: the bread, the plates, the knives, even including and this is what the author found interesting the forks... It was created by Nicolo delle Cavalliera. This is described in Toussaint-Samat's History of Food on page 567. Back in 2002, I really thought this was probably a good source to go with. Unfortunately, Toussant-Samat got it wrong and these items were sugarpaste and not "spun sugar." I wrote some time back to Claudio Benporat in Italy and he went through the entire mistranslation deal with me. I would now have to in all honesty say that Henri was treated to various items of sugarpaste and cast sugar items and NOT spun sugar. I would guess that the Medici Weddings of both 1589 and 1600 are probably also sugarpaste and cast sugar. As for what they served Christina in Rome in the 1650's, the prints survive and can be viewed in various works. For pulled sugar, one has to remember that in order to have pulled sugar, they must have made the transition from honey to sugar and figured out how to work with boiling a sugar syrup. In any case you should start with one of the best books on confections and sweets which is Sugar-Plums and Sherbet by Laura Mason. Also see her PPC 69 article which has the early English mss. candy recipes in it. They date from the 15th century. In Sugar-Plums and Sherbet she dates pulled sugar to the year 1500 where in the York manuscript there is a recipe "To make Penydes" where hot sugar syrup is worked with the hands. See page 84. The manuscript "Goud Kokery" which is section V in Curye on Inglysch has the following: 13. To make suger plate 14. To mak penydes 15. To make ymages in suger. This mss. is dated late 1300's. The penydes recipe is interesting because penydes is actually pulled and drawn out with the hands over a hook. It was then cut with shears. See Laura Mason for description. (Yes, this is the beginning of pulled candies.) Johnnae Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 18:34:57 -0500 (GMT-05:00) From: Elise Fleming Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Spun Sugar To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Greetings. There are documented, period recipes for items made from a boiled sugar syrup which is then poured into a mold (usually in two or three parts). This is then rolled around in the hand or swung overhead to coat the mold and leave the center hollow. I wouldn't call this spun sugar, but it does produce a hollow sugar item which can be colored (in the initial syrup) or painted afterwards. The thin strings that one might call "spun" don't seem to be in period, and to my knowledge, blown sugar item are OOP, unfortunately. If they were to be in period, one might find them in Italian references. Alys Katharine Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 20:47:48 -0400 From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Spun Sugar To: Elise Fleming , Cooks within the SCA On Jul 13, 2005, at 7:34 PM, Elise Fleming wrote: > Greetings. There are documented, period recipes for items made > from a boiled sugar syrup which is then poured into a mold > (usually in two or three parts). This is then rolled around in the > hand or swung overhead to coat the mold and leave the center > hollow. I wouldn't call this spun sugar, but it does produce a > hollow sugar item which can be colored (in the initial syrup) or > painted afterwards. The thin strings that one might call "spun" > don't seem to be in period, and to my knowledge, blown sugar item > are OOP, unfortunately. If they were to be in period, one might > find them in Italian references. I'm pretty sure the thread-spinning technique was used to determine sugar-boiling temperature / candy state in some 15th-century English recipes, but whether that was used in period as a construction material, I don't know. Adamantius Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 06:17:27 -0500 (GMT-05:00) From: Elise Fleming Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Spun Sugar To: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" , Cooks within the SCA Adamantius wrote: > I'm pretty sure the thread-spinning technique was used to determine > sugar-boiling temperature / candy state in some 15th-century English > recipes, but whether that was used in period as a construction > material, I don't know. I would agree that it was used to determine sugar temperature in period. I suppose some folk might say that if they could dip their finger into hot syrup and make a thread between thumb and finger that they could have extrapolated that to using an instrument to wave sugar threads around into a pattern, but one thing doesn't necessarily follow another - or we'd have had lots more inventions earlier on. I haven't seen any evidence in English books, nor references to things made like that. The "faulty translation" reference that Johanna gave was the only one I'd seen for "proof". Alys Katharine Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 12:32:45 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Spun Sugar To: Cooks within the SCA "Italian cooks were also farther ahead of their English counterparts in the use of sugar paste and other confections. They had developed "spun sugar" prior to the 1600s. and even had an academy prior to 1615 dedicated to the art of freezing and making sugary ices.(9)" Source : 9. David, Elizabeth. "The Harvest of Cold Months, Petits Propos Culinaires, #3 as cited in "Of Sugar and Confections" by Alys Katharine, O.L., O.P. (Elise Fleming). in the Florilegium I think we can document the ices, but the "spun sugar"? Was the source here that same Venetian banquet served to Henri III? Johnnae Elise Fleming wrote: > I would agree that it was used to determine sugar temperature in > period. I suppose some folk might say that if they could dip their > finger into hot syrup and make a thread between thumb and finger that > they could have extrapolated that to using an instrument to wave sugar > threads around into a pattern, but one thing doesn't necessarily > follow another - or we'd have had lots more inventions earlier on. I > haven't seen any evidence in English books, nor references to things > made like that. The "faulty translation" reference that Johanna gave > was the only one I'd seen for "proof". Alys Katharine Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 21:01:29 -0500 From: Robert Downie Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Spun Sugar To: Cooks within the SCA Carole Smith wrote: > I have a vivid memory of getting some hot sugar syrup on my fingers > once. It held a lot of heat and was hard to wash off quickly because > of its viscosity. No way would I voluntarily make a sugar thread this > way. > > Cordelia Toser Hot sugar can be nasty stuff. One of my co-workers got 2nd degree burns on her arms between where the oven mitts ended and her sleeves started while flipping over a large tray of pecan buns (if she hadn't run straight to the sink and kept the cold water running over the burn area, it would have been even worse). That being said, the tips of your fingers, when repeatedly subjected to large doses of heat for short periods at a time, will eventually develop a resistance to it. Just ask anyone who has hand turned comfits in a frying pan for any length of time :-) When you are dealing with a very small amount of hot sugar between the pads of your fingertips, it's a much more controlled circumstance than accidentally spilling a big glob of the stuff on a more sensitive part of your hand or anywhere else on your body. Of course, common sense and caution should always be exercised when dealing with hot sugar syrup. Faerisa Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:22:26 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes was SCA 50th Anniversary Challenge To: Cooks within the SCA Stefan li Rous wrote: Adamantius suggested: <<< Penydes (pulled sugar hard candies)>>> We've discussed pulled sugar here before, but I thought the discussion had been inconclusive on whether pulled sugar was done in period. Are you basing this on a period recipe? Stefan ========= Yes penydes is a sugar candy that is pulled. If you go back and read your own Pulled Sugar file you'll see that I cited the source back in July 2005 as being from The manuscript "Goud Kokery" which is section V in Curye on Inglysch :14. To mak penydes This mss. is dated late 1300's. The penydes recipe is interesting because penydes is actually pulled and drawn out with the hands over a hook. It was then cut with shears. See Laura Mason for description. (Yes, this is the beginning of pulled candies.) I have since found some others. Johnnae Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:34:56 -0400 From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes was SCA 50th Anniversary Challenge To: "Cooks within the SCA" Johnnae, you probably know about this already -- there are pulled sugar recipes in the 13th c. Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook. -- Robin Carroll-Mann Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:48:53 -0700 From: Lilinah Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes was SCA 50th Anniversary Challenge To: SCA-Cooks at Ansteorra.org Stefan wrote: <<< Brighid ni Chiarain said: Johnnae, you probably know about this already -- there are pulled sugar recipes in the 13th c. Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook. Thank you for posting this. I will add this to my pulled-sugar-msg file. This is the earliest date I have for this. >>> First A type of pulled sugar candy called fanidh is mentioned a number of times in "al-Kitab al-Tabikh" by ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, the 10th C. collection of 9th and 10th c. recipes (and in other books). In her expansive Glossary, Nasrallah mentions that these candies are usually in rounds and there are a number of different kinds, from both white and red sugar. Unfortunately, there's no recipe for fanidh in al-Warraq and i didn't find a recipe last night in a couple other books. Second "al-Kitab al-Tabikh" of al-Baghdadi, date 1226, which i think is earlier than the anonymous Andalusian cookbook, has a recipe for Halwa Yabisa, in Chapter 9, p. 98, in Charles Perry's recent new translation. Halwa Yabisa. The way to make it is to take sugar, dissolve it with water, and boil it until it thickens. Then take it out of the dist* and put it on a smooth floor tile* until its heat subsides. Then pound an iron peg with a smooth head (into the wall), and throw (the candy) on it, and stretch it with the hand unceasingly. Return it to the peg like that until it turns white. Then throw it on the tile and knead pistachios with it, and cut it into strips and triangles. If you want, color it with saffron or cinnabar*. Some of it may be rolled (or kneaded) with peeled almonds, sesame seeds, or poppy seeds. My Notes: - A dist is a copper pot that is wider than it is high. - Tiles are useful - i think the sugar is being put not directly on the *floor*, but on a clean tile, reserved for culinary purposes. - Cinnabar is red mercury - do NOT use it to color your food. Third A more detailed recipe was inserted in the marginalia of al-Baghdadi's book next to the above recipe. It was taken from ibn Jazla's book "Minhaj al-Bayan", an 11th century medical dictionary: Halwa Uabisa Sukkariyya. It has many varieties. It is that you take sugar and put a quarter of a pound of water on a mann (two pounds) of it. Dissolve it and put it on a quiet fire until it becomes thick. When you take some of it and put it in the mouth or in mater, it will be chewy. If it does not become chewy, leave it (on the fire) a little more. Then take it up, throw it on a stone, and knead it with clipped crushed peeled almonds, about two ounces. Roll it out and leave it to dry, and take it up. If you want to put some saffron in it, let it be before it comes down from the fire. You might pound almonds fine and mix them with it. --- Perry's trans., pp. 98-99 Finally In her Glossary to al-Warraq, Nasrallah mentions that there's a recipe for a pulled honey candy in "al-Fadalat al-Khiwan fi Tayybat al-Ta'am wa'l-Alwan" by ibn Razin al-Tujibi, dated 1230, from al-Andalus, although i think we don't yet have that particular recipe in translation. Nawal Nasrallah told me she intends to translate it, so we may have the whole book in someday. --- I haven't noticed any spun or blown sugar in Arabic-language sources. But i don't always read the sweet recipes as carefully as i read meat and vegetable recipes. -- Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM) the persona formerly known as Anahita Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:40:31 -0600 From: Georgia Foster Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes To: Cooks within the SCA <<< The manuscript "Goud Kokery" which is section V in Curye on Inglysch :14. To mak penydesThis mss. is dated late 1300's. The penydes recipe is interesting because penydes isactually pulled and drawn out with the hands over a hook. It was then cut with shears. See Laura Mason for description. (Yes, this is the beginning of pulled candies.) >>> Does anyone have either quantities or methods for this? I have a recipe from "The Wyoming Homestead Cookbood" that I would like to compare. Thanks Malkin Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:58:52 -0400 From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes was SCA 50th Anniversary Challenge To: Cooks within the SCA On Jul 22, 2008, at 8:53 PM, Georgia Foster wrote: <<< Here is the source I am comparing Taffy 2 cups sugar small piece butter 1/2 teacup vinegar 1/2 teacup water Boil until it will harden in water. Pour into a butter tin. When cool enough to pull add 1 teaspoonful of lemon or any desired flavor. The longer it is pulled the better it will be. attributed to Grandma Huston, Daniel, (WY) >>> from BL MS Harl. 2378: "To make penydes. Tak a lb. suger (th) is noght clarefyed but euen colde wth water wythowten (th) whyte of a egge for if it were clarefyed wyth (the) white of a egg it would be clammy. And (th)an put it in a panne and sette it on (th)e fyre and gar it boyle, and whan it is sothen inow asay betwyx (th)i fyngers and (th)i thombe and if it wax styfe and perte lightly fro (th)i fynger (th)an it is enow: but loke (th)ou stere it but lityl wyth (th)i spatur in hys decoccioun, for it will benyme hys drawyng. And whan it is so sothen loke (th)ou haue redy a marbyll stone. Anoynte it wyth swetemete oyle as thyne as it may be anoynted and (th)an pour (th)i suger (th)eron euen as it comes fro (th)e fyre sethyng. Cast it on (th)e stone wythouten any sterynge, and whan it is a litel colde medel hem togedyr wyth bothe (y)oure handes and draw it on a hoke of eren til it be faire and white. And (th)an haue redy a faire clothe on a borde, and cast on (th)e clothe a litell floure of ryse, and (th)an throw owte (th)i penydes in (th)e thyknes of a thombe with (th)i handes as longe as (th)ei will reche, and (th)an kut (th)em wyth a pere scherys on (th)e clothe, ilk a pese as mychell as a smale ynche, and (th)an put (th)em in a cofyn and put (th)em in a warme place, and (th)an (th)e warmnesse schall put away away (th)e towghnesse: but loke (y)e mak (th)em no(y)t in no moyste weder nor in no reyne." Rough translation for those as needs: To make penydes. Take a pound of sugar that is not clarified, but just cold with water, without the white of an egg, for if it were clarified it would be clammy. And then put it in a pan and set it on the fire and let it boil, and when it is boiled enough test it between your fingers and thumb, and if it grows stiff and parts easily from your fingers it is ready: but be careful not to stir it too much with your spatula while boiling, for it will inhibit the pulling process. When it is boiled enough have ready in advance a marble stone, coated as thinly as possible with confectioner's oil [N.B. other recipes generally call for almond oil here], and then pour your sugar onto it as it comes from the fire boiling. Pour it on the stone without any stirring, and when it has cooled slightly, mix it together with both your hands and hang and pull it from an iron hook [on the wall???] till it is fair and white. and then have ready a clean cloth on a board, and cast on the cloth a little rice flour, and then throw out your penydes in the thickness of your thumb with your hands as long as they will reach, and then cut them with a pair of shears on the cloth, in pieces an inch long, and then put them in a box and put them in a warm place, and the warmth will reduce the toughness, but be sure not to make them in damp or rainy weather. I get the impression this is boiled to not-quite hard crack, so it can easily be pulled fully before it starts to break. The end product would then be less brittle, and more tough and sticky, than it would otherwise be, but you then give it a chance to dry out (in a warm, dry environment) after coating it with rice flour and forming the candies... Adamantius Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:41:25 -0700 From: Susan Fox Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes was SCA 50th Anniversary Challenge To: Cooks within the SCA Sandra Kisner wrote: <<<< I've been going over the YouTube videos of the "dragon hair" candies lately, and darned if this doesn't look much like it. The Chinese seem to roll up chopped peanuts in the candy but surely they have not been doing that for much more than one century. With gratitude, Selene Can you give us a link to one of these? I tried searching on "dragon hair" at YouTube, and nothing they came up with looked edible to me! :-) Sandra >>> My mistake, it's Dragon BEARD Candy. The main difference appears to be the use of dry-cooked starch to coat the strands to keep them separated. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UCRthtq49Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbXj4jte7C8 Selene Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:07:54 -0700 From: Lilinah Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes was SCA 50th Anniversary Challenge To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Actually i'm pretty sure there are some pulled sugar recipes in ibn Sayyar al-Warraq's 10th c. collection of 9th and 10th c. recipes. It's a massive book, so i don't have it all in memory. And since i am unlikely to be making them, i scan sugary recipes and don't always read them thoughtfully. I'll look more carefully this week, and get back to the list. -- Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM) the persona formerly known as Anahita Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:07:34 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes was SCA 50th Anniversary Challenge To: Cooks within the SCA Also mentioned in this collection's glossary is another candy without a true recipe. That's "sukkar Sulaymani" which is described as "hard sugar candy made from white cane sugar. Sulaymani and tabarzad are sometimes referred to as al-sukkaran 'the two sugars' as in the Istanbul MS (fol. 22v)." Nasrallah goes on to say that it was made from white sugar boiled into a thick syrup, then beaten until it clouded and crystallized. This would have aerated it. While still hot (or warm) and malleable, it was formed into discs, rings, fingers, and otherwise shaped. page 601 This was eaten as candy or was crushed and used as a garnish or crushed for use in recipes. page 602 If one takes a look at the recipe for "Dry lawzinaj (almond brittle) cooked on a fire on pages 411-412, there is a note included in that recipe that one stirs the mixtures as one does when one makes sukkar Sulaymani. Nasrallah notes in a footnote on page 412 that she thinks sukkar Sulaymani was stirred in such a fashion. So was it pulled while being shaped-- that would be the question. One might think so. This is from Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens.Ibn Sayya-r al-Warra-q's Tenth-Century Baghdadi Cookbook. English Translation with Introduction and Glossary by Nawal Nasrallah Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007 xii, 876 pp., 32 pp of color plates. Johnnae Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:19:23 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes To: Cooks within the SCA Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote: <<< from BL MS Harl. 2378: "To make penydes... >>> Been looking again at the subject of sugar penides and have found that they are mentioned as a decorative finishing ingredient in the Anglo-Norman Manuscript A [MS. B.L. Additional 321085] . It's dated circa 1290. See recipe 13 for "De amydoun." No recipe. The source would be found here Two Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections Edited from British Library Manuscripts Additional 32085 and Royal 12.C.xii by Constance B. Hieatt and Robin F. Jones. Speculum, Vol. 61, No. 4 (Oct., 1986), pp. 859-882 Johnnae Edited by Mark S. Harris pulled-sugar-msg 10 of 10