SC - shortbread/-cakes & salad

[Decker, Terry D.]

Markham's jumbals recipe uses a pound of sugar to a pound of flour, which is
the only thing similar giving a weight.  

By the end of the 16th Century, sugar was a moderately expensive staple of
English cooking.  There was a considerable trade in sugar between Egypt and
England from the time Henry VIII turned Protestant until the English began
refining sugar in Barbados in the 17th Century with Dutch financing.

I don't recall seeing anything definitive on the Elizabethan sugar trade,
but the references I've seen suggest it might make an interesting study, if
one could locate the appropriate manifests.

Bear

> I'm not very familiar with the 16th century sources--does anyone know 
> of a recipe in this same family that has enough information about 
> quantities to tellus whether Cindy's guess or mine is right about the 
> quantity of sugar? My view may in part be biased by the fact that I 
> am more familiar with the earlier period cuisine--at which point 
> sugar was expensive and treated more like a spice than a staple.
> -- 
> David Friedman