SC - butter

[Stephen Bloch]

> Now for the question .I'm getting married in September and would like to make
> preserves or a jelly of some kind as favors. 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? 

Quince Pastes (_Le Mesnagier de Paris_)

<<313.  Pour Faire condoignac.  Prenez les coings et les pelez.  Puis
fendez par quartiers et ostez l'ueil et les pepins.  Puis cuisier en
bon vin rouge et puis soient coulez parmi une estamine.  Puis prenez du
miel et le faictes longuement boulir et escumer, et apres mectez vos
coings dedens et remuez tresbien, et le faictes tant boulir que le miel
se reviengne a moins la moictie.  Puis gectez dedens pouldre d'ypocras
et remuez tant qu'il soit tout froit.  Puis tailliez par morceaulx et
les gardez.>> (l. 3213-3221)

"To make quince pastes.  Take quinces and peel them.  Then cut them in
quarters and remove the eyes and the seeds.  Then cook them in good red
wine and then run them through a strainer.  Then take honey and boil it
a long time and skim off the scum, and afterwards put your quinces in
it and stir it very well, and boil it until the honey reduces by half.
Then add hypocras powder stir it again until it cools.  Then cut it
into pieces and store it."

I'm not sure whose translation this is.  Again, I'll have to ask my
wife's permission to post her redaction, which depending on exactly how
you cook it produces something ranging from jam to chewy candy to fruit
leather.  We have two Zip-loc bags of them in the freezer right now
(they're very hygroscopic, i.e. if they're out in a humid place they
absorb water from the air and get REALLY STICKY).

					mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib
                                                 Stephen Bloch
                                           sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu
					 http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/
                                        Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University