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.

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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 <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] spun sugar in subtleties (long)
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

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 <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
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"
	<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Spun Sugar
To: Elise Fleming <alysk at ix.netcom.com>,	Cooks within the SCA
	<sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

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 <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Spun Sugar
To: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
	<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>,	Cooks within the SCA
	<sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

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 <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Spun Sugar
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

"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 <rdownie at mb.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Spun Sugar
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

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 <johnnae at mac.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes was SCA 50th Anniversary
	Challenge
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

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" <rcarrollmann at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes was SCA 50th Anniversary
	Challenge
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

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 <lilinah at earthlink.net>
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 <jo_foster81 at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

<<< 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" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes was SCA 50th Anniversary
	Challenge
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

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 <selene at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes was SCA 50th Anniversary
	Challenge
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

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 <lilinah at earthlink.net>
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 <johnnae at mac.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes was SCA 50th Anniversary
	Challenge
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

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 <johnnae at mac.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

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

<the end>