SC - Marmalade

[RANDALL DIAMOND]

As I have had requests, here are a couple
of the recipes from C. Anne Wilson's book.

Chardequynce c.1444

"Chardecoynes that is good for the stomach is
thus made: take a quart of clarified honey  and
2 ounces of powder of pepper and meddle them
together, and take 20 quinces and 10 wardens
(large pears) and pare them and take out the
kernels with the cores and seeth them in clean
(ale-)wort till they be tender and then stamp them in a mortar as small as
thou mayest and then strain them through a strainer and that will not (go)
well through, put in again and stamp it oft, and oft drive it through a
cloth or strainer, and if it be too dry put in half a saucerful or a little
more (of wort?) for to get out the other the better, and then put it to the
honey and set it on the fire and make it to seeth well and stir fast with a
great staff, and if there be 2 stirrers, it is the better for both (for) if
it be (not) strongly stirred, it will set (stick) to the vessel and then it
is lost; and seeth it till it (be) sodden thick and then take it down off
the fire and when it is well
nigh cold put in 1/4 ounce of ginger and as much of canell (cinnamon)
powdered, and mettle them well together with a slice (spatula) and then let
it cool and put it in a box; this manner of making is good and if it (is)
thus made it will be black; if thou wilt make more at once, take more of
each one after the proportions, as much as thou list."

This is the basic recipe which I used, though I cut back by half on the
pepper as modern tastes are not  used to odd Tudor spicing.  I balanced out
by increasing the ginger and cinnamon so that there would still be a strong
spicing but more acceptable modern taste.  For lack of alewort, I boiled the
prepared fruit in the cheapest light English type ale I could find, not beer
as the hop flavour would not be an improvement.   When I had gotten it down
to about 1/3 its volume, I ran the fruit and liquid alike through a blender
and continued to cook it until it had the consistancy of applesauce.  I also
used the finest white pepper and powdered it first.  I presume a great deal
of the original recipe process filtered out the larger pepper fragments in
the straining process anyway.  Stir, stir, stir, and stir some more (for
several hours after adding the honey).

It actually does turn very, very dark, though black is not exactly the shade
(it was darker than dark fudge however) I got.  I think you have to let the
end product cool in a wax paper lined pan to successfully cut it up and put
it in a box.  I put
most of mine in jars as I did not achieve the full
consistancy of old linoleum that the recipe tends
to expect.  More experienced candymakers will probably have better results
than I did.  The taste however, was excellent.

C. Anne Wilson goes further in this recipe:
"another manner of making and is better than the first: for to put in 2
parts honey and 3 parts of sugar and shall this be better than the other,
and in all things do as thou did before, for thou mayest well enough seeth
thy quinces in water, and it is good enough though thou put no wort thereto,
and if thou wilt, thou make it without wardens, but it is the better with
wardens."

Been there, done that... with quinces alone. I agree with Ms Wilsons last
part of this recipe:
"The third manner of making is this, and this is the best of all, and that
is for to take sugar and quinces alike much by weight, and no honey nor
pears and in all other things do as thou didst before, and this shall be
whiter than the other, inasmuch as the sugar is white (so) shall the
chardequyence be"
(from  A LEECHBOOK, Royal Medical Society MS 136, ed W.R. Dawson (1934),
62-4 , Nos. 156-8.)
Well, white is not exactly what you get with this method, but sugar then was
not white as we get it now either,  The colour is about the shade of
Malt-o-meal cooked cereal.  By far, this has the taste most acceptable to
modern palates, though I personally perfer the stronger flavours of the
first method.  But I also eat snails, love Roman liquamen and picked eggs
too.  The all quince
version tastes very good to us because, I think, that the novelty of the
quince flavour, being new and different, adds greatly to its appeal.

As I mentioned, I put up most of what I made in
ball jars and the lidded ceramic cheese pots with the rubber gasket and the
wire closure on top. As my batch was about 2 gallons each, I have been
giving away a lot of it.  It seems that it will keep indefinitely and if the
open jars are refrigerated, they last forever.  I still have a good bit in
the pantry, so if anyone is in the close neighborhood of Glaedenfeld Centre,
come by and we will make some fresh hot french bread and try out these
proto-marmalades.

My real favorite of Ms. Wilson's recipes is the French, wine based
Condoignac c.1394:
"Take the quinces and peel them.  Then divide into quarters, and discard the
eye and the pips. Then cook them in a good red wine and then they are to be
straine through a sieve.  then take honey, and boil it for a long time and
remove the scum, and afterwards put your quinces (wine/quince mash) into  it
and stir very well, and lrt it boil until the honey is reduced to at least
to half.  Then throw in hippocras powder (powdered cinnamon, nutmeg and
ginger) and stir until it is quite cold.  Then cut into pieces and store
them.
(LE MENAGIER DE PARIS, ed. G. E. Brereton  & J, M, Ferrier, Oxford, 1981,
p.269.)

Remember that a good red wine of this period is nothing like modern bordeux
or burgundy because  they were not aged in the bottle as today.  I have
assumed that wine with more grape musts and sugar of a period "good red" was
more fruity tasting, so I used 10 liters of Franzia "Chillable Red" for cost
and flavour reasons both.  It also helped make the interminable stirring
more tolerable sipping the excess wine.  Again to save time and prevent
burning, I pulped the reduced wine and quinces in a blender and reduced this
further till it thickened.  Then I added the honey to it.  Don't do it the
other way around as the very hot clarified honey will explosively boil over
the instant the first dollup of paste hits its surface.   Do you know how
hard it is to get burnt honey out from under your burner pans?  You DO NOT
want to know!   In this recipe, the quantity of spicing is not given, so I
did it to taste but probably heavier than modern tastes as the period foods
all seem more heavily spiced to us.   I also used the c.1444 as a guide
somewhat  to the corrrect spicing per quart of honey (about 1/4 ounce of
each spice) and quince paste volume. I reduced it down to a very dark paste
with the consistancy of soft taffy.  Again candymakers probably will have
more slicable results.  The flavour imo is quite good and I prefer it to the
other recipes, though my opinion on this is not shared by others.

I hope this information will be of interest and use to
many of you.  By all means possible, get your hands on a copy of this book;
it is a prize!

Akim Yaroslavich
"No glory comes without pain"

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