[Sca-cooks] Re:Zest was Citrus Question

[johnna holloway]

According to OED online--

Zest as a word is of obscure origin...
 "also orange or lemon peel; of obscure origin.
 Cf. Walloon zess, Pg. zeste."

1. Orange or lemon peel used as a flavouring
 or for preserving; also, the oil squeezed
 from such peel to flavour liquor, etc. Also
in Fr. form zeste (see etym.).
The earliest quote is:
1674 Blount Glossogr. (ed. 4), Zest (Fr.) the
 pill of an Orange, or such like, squeesed
 into a glass of wine, to give it a
     relish.

as a verb--
2. after F. zester. (See quot.) Obs.
1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), To Zest an Orange
 or Lemon, (among Confectioners) is to cut the
 Peel from top to bottom into small Slips, as
 thin as it can possibly be done.

My edition of John Nott's Cooks Dictionary from
1726 has an entry for zest and includes a full
description of how one makes zest. He notes that
it's "a Term of Art us'd by Confectioners."
This leads me to believe that it can be found
in 17th century confectioner's recipes and possibly
earlier in the French confectionery literature.

Johnna Holloway  Johnnae
-------------------

> On 25 Mar 2002, at 11:20, Barbara Benson wrote:>
> > The question I have is: When did the
> > technique of "zesting" citrus and adding it to a dish to up the citrus
> > quotient come about?
> Robin Carroll-Mann wrote:
> I don't know for sure, but I've never seen it in any period cookbook.