[MR] period sweets (Fwd: Aoife-Links Digest, Vol 14, Issue 1)

[SNSpies at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/2/2005 12:03:24 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
aoife-links-request at scatoday.net writes:

Today's  Topics:

1. Sweet! Medieval Candy, Cookies, and Cakes  (Aoife)


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Message:  1
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 21:06:47 -0500
From: "Aoife"  <aoife at scatoday.net>
Subject: [Aoife-Links] Sweet! Medieval Candy,  Cookies, and Cakes
To: <aoife-links at scatoday.net>
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Greetings, my Faithful Readers!

It's that  time of year when some of us begin furiously baking to meet the 
holiday  needs. Between office parties, social club gatherings, caroling, 
open  houses and historical gatherings, it's a wonder we have time breathe. 
And  what should you bring to those gatherings? How can you reconcile your  
Boss's Open house with your shire's 12th night party? Never fear, Aoife is  
here to show you how--medievally!

There are a certain set of dishes  that have been around for 
centuries--sweets, especially cookies and candy.  There is never a situation 
where, when required to bring a gift or a dish  to pass, when attractive, 
unusual, and decorative medieval cookies or  candies won't be welcome. Who 
wouldn't want a beautiful basket of  springerle cookies? And why wouldn't 
your hostess want to hang a few of  these beautiful cookies on the tree, 
especially if you have painted with  edible colors or gilded them? Or how 
about a few to much, complete with a  history card and recipe (in the 
original language, of course :). And  imagine that Christmas buffet with your 
molded gingerbread or marzipan  centerpiece! Or your festive dish of "snow" 
and it's accompanying wafers!  Or if fussing with intricate icings and shapes 
isn't you idea of a good  time, how about a robust (but quick to make) batch 
of medieval  gingerbread, certain to spice things up a bit?

Read on to find cookie,  sweet dish, and candy recipes sure to make you the 
hero of the party hour,  especially in this modern day of 
cookie-dough-in-a-tube. Here's your  excuse to spend a day in the kitchen 
with the family, baking and  decorating delicious cookies and sweets to enjoy 
or to share, in a fashion  that declares your dedication to the history of 
holiday  food.

Cheers!

Aoife

Dame Aoife Finn of Ynos Mon
m/k/a  Lisbeth Herr-Gelatt
Riverouge
Endless Hills
Aethelemarc

Gode  Cookery: Medieval  Gingerbread
http://www.godecookery.com/ginger/ginger.htm
(Site Excerpt)  The gingerbread being discussed in this article comes from 
recipes  originally used in the 14th & 15th centuries, and isn't anything at  
all like our modern cake-like variety. It is in fact more like a candy or  a 
confection; however, it's very good and quite a treat, and I can  recommend 
it to anyone with a bit of a sweet tooth. (Note: Many other good  recipes on 
Gode Cookery, including a link to Master Huen's Gode  Cookies)

Medieval  Cookery--Pynade
http://www.medievalcookery.com/recipes/pynadecandy.html
(Site  Excerpt) Put honey, spices, and pine nuts into a saucepan and bring to 
a  boil. Keep boiling the mixture until it reaches 300°F (what's called "hard 
 
crack stage" in candy making). Pour onto a baking sheet or piece of  aluminum 
foil. Allow to cool and then break it into pieces and  serve.
SEE ALSO:
Sugared  Almonds
http://www.medievalcookery.com/recipes/almonds.html

Food  Timeline History Notes:  Candy
http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodcandy.html
(Site Excerpt) "All of  the peoples of antiquity made sweetmeats of honey 
before they had sugar:  the Chinese, the Indians, the people of the Middle 
East, the Egyptians and  then the Greeks and Romas used it coat fruits, 
flowers, and the seeds or  stems of plants, to preserve them for use as an 
ingredient in the kind of  confectionery still made in those countries 
today."

Stefan's  Florilegium: Sweet or Decorated Foods
http://www.florilegium.org/
(Click  "Sweet or Decorated Foods on the left hand menu, then browse the 
right  hand menu. MANY collected messages and papers to choose  from)

Confections and the Banquet
By Elise  Fleming
http://www.geocities.com/brendoken/BanquetItemsReferencesSources.html
(Site  Excerpt) Gervase Markham (The English Huswife, 1615) wrote ... "...I 
will  now proceed to the ordering or setting forth of a banquet; wherein you  
shall observe that the marchpanes have the first place, the middle place,  
and the last place; your preserved fruits shall be dished up first, your  
pastes next, your wet suckets after them, then your dried suckets, then  your 
marmalades and goodinyakes, then your comfits of all  kinds...

Sweets and Treats of the 14thC by Lady Hauviette  D'Anjou
http://home.comcast.net/~iasmin/mkcc/MKCCfiles/SweetTreats.html
(Site  Excerpt) Le Menagier makes mention of candied spices numerous times. 
These  treats are discussed as "chamber spices" including candied orange 
peel,  candied citron, red anise, rose sugar and white sugared almonds (red  
sugared almonds are also mentioned frequently). Le Menagier describes  menus 
that include spices served along with "Tartlets and other things,  hippocras 
and wafers, wine and spices".

Kateryne Develyn: Third  Course (See Payne Ragoun and Cryfpes  recipes)
http://www.kateryndedevelyn.org/eng1men3.htm
(Site Excerpt)  Take hony and sugur cipre and clarifie it togydre, and boile 
it withesy  fyre, and kepe it wel fro brennyng. And wha it hath yboiled a 
while, take  up a drope perof wip py fyngur and do in a litel water, and loke 
it if  hong togydre; and take it fro the fyre and do perto pynes the 
thriddendele  & powdour gyngever, and stere it togyder til it bygynne to 
thik, and  cast it on a wete table; lesh it and serve forth with fryed mete, 
on  flessh dayes or on fyssshe dayes.

Cariadoc and Elizabeth's  Miscellany:
Desserts, Appetisers,  Etc.
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/desserts.html#34
(Site  Excerpt) Hais: "Take fine dry bread, or biscuit, and grind up well. 
Take a  ratl of this, and three quarters of a ratl of fresh or preserved 
dates  with the stones removed, together with three uqiya of ground almonds 
and  pistachios. Knead all together very well with the hands. Refine two 
uqiya  of sesame-oil, and pour over, working with the hand until it is mixed 
in.  Make into cabobs, and dust with fine-ground sugar. If desired, instead 
of  sesame-oil use butter. This is excellent for travellers."

Mistress  Kiriel's "A Basket of  Biskets"
http://www.kiriel.net/cooking/laurelprize.html
(Site Excerpt)  To make Iombils a hundred: Take twenty Egges and put them 
into a pot both  the yolks & the white, beat them wel, then take a pound of 
beaten  suger and put to them, and stirre them wel together, then put to it a 
 
quarter of a peck of flower, and make a hard paste thereof, and then with  
Anniseeds moulde it well, and make it in little rowles beeing long, and  tye 
them in knots, and wet the ends in Rosewater, then put them in a pan  of 
seething water...

Medieval/Renaissance Cookies and small sweets  (A past Links List on the  
subject)
http://lists.gallowglass.org/pipermail/artssciences/2003-December/000261.html
19  links on the subject

Medieval wafers with "snow" (whipped  cream)
http://www.coquinaria.nl/english/recipes/05.4histrecept.htm
(Site  Excerpt) Wafres aren't baked in an oven, but in a waffle iron. This  
kitchen aid was "invented" in the thirteenth century. Those early wafers  
weren't always of the sweet variety, there are also many recipes for  cheese 
wafers. (Aoife's Note: I like Wafers with whipped cream and chilled  spiced 
strawberries in port-wine in the summer :)

Delights from the  Garden of Eden:
A cookbook and a History of Iraqi cuisine (Cookies  section)
http://www.iraqicookbook.com/contents/cookies2.html
(Site  Excerpt) In the tenth-century Baghdadi cookbook, in measuring flour 
for  making cookies al-Warraq used a dry measure called keilacha, a variant 
on  keil, which was approximately 4 pounds (36). The keil or keilacha were  
also the names of the articles themselves used to measure. As to how this  is 
connected to the naming of the cookies, here is my argument: The  kleicha 
cookies were not made year round as we do today in our  well-equipped modern 
kitchens. Up until the sixties or so, they were made  twice a year to 
celebrate the two religious holidays, at the end of  Ramadhan and the 
performance of the hajj.

House on the  Hill
Recipes of old-fashioned  cookies
http://www.houseonthehill.net/recipes.php
(Site Excerpt)  Perfection Springerle: These whisked-egg holiday cookies date 
back to at  least the 1600's and are made in Bavaria, Switzerland and the 
Alsace area  of France. For eating quality, ease and quality of prints this 
recipe is  just perfection! (Note: See the rest of their site for replicas of 
histric  cookie molds--many that date to the Medieval and Renaissance time  
period).


Enjoy.
Ingvild