[Sca-cooks] candied almonds

[a5foil]

And Stefan, with furrowed brow, replied.

> Thomas Longshanks replied to me with:
(snip)
> > intend to. It's hard to believe that period confectioners could figure
out
> > about sugar coating fennel seeds and not see sugar coating almonds...
>
> I'm not as confident about this as you are. There's always the old
> cliche mentioning the fact that they had ground meat and sliced
> meats and they had bread, but no where do we have evidence of
> hamburgers or even sandwiches.

That wasn't my rationale for their existence. It's just hard for me to
imagine a confectioner not thinking of combining sugar and nuts they way we
know they were combining sugar and spices. I haven't poured over my copy of
Libre de totes maneres de confits, yet, and there are some confit recipes in
MS 2112 that I have yet to transcribe, so I may yet find the documentation
I'm looking for.

>
> I would be much more confident about they having candied almonds
> if there was some evidence of any other candied nuts, not necessarily
> almonds.

True. That's why I'm hoping one of these other two mss makes mention of
almonds or other nut confits.

> I'm not sure almonds and spices can be see as equivalent in this
> example. While this is late in period, and both spices and sugar
> have become cheaper, I'm not sure that sugar has completely lost

This ms covers 1324-1450. Sugar is still pricey, based on the wording of the
recipes that call for it.

> it's being thought of as the 'perfect food'. Spices, especially
> the exotic imported kinds would, I think, be more likely to be
> thought of as something appropriate to go along with this still
> exotic 'perfect food', as opposed to more common nuts. Even almonds
> were common enough to be ground up and used to make almond milk.

But that didn't stop them from making prized turron with almonds, and I do
have recipes for turron in the Sent Sovi and MS 2112. But turron isn't
candied almonds.

> I was hoping you had some direct evidence for the candied almonds.
> I like candied nuts. It may even be possible that we've discussed
> this before and I've forgotten it. Perhaps some of the information
> or referances in the comfits-msg file in the Florilegium might
> prove fruitful for your research.

Sorry, not yet. I find the Florilegium very helpful and consult it
frequently. Thanks.

> Stefan li Rous

Regards,
Thomas