Bacon substitute (was Re: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #258)

[marilyn traber]

Elise Fleming wrote:

> Curye on Inglysch, Book V: Goud Kokery, #13, has "To make suger plate."
>  Sugar is melted to a specific temperature and removed from the fire
> and stirred until it turns from its brown color to yellow. (The sugar
> must not have been pure white to start with...probably "cooking" sugar
> would have been of a less-fine quality than what would have been served
> "upstairs". 

Quite possibly true, also since one of the complaints against sugar
clarified with egg white is the charge of "clamminess", interesting in
itself since there seems to be no recipe evidence that period Europeans
ate clams very often...But I digress...

Another possibility is that since the line between hard crack syrup and
caramel is a fine one, especially in non-shiny pots and the uneven light
some period kitchens had, the sugar may have become partially
caramelized by the time the cook realized it had reached the correct
stage.

More likely a combination of the two, I suspect.

Adamantius
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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