[Sca-cooks] Rosewater

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Philippa Alderton:
>Today, Margali and I went to her favorite ME grocery,
>and we got to discussing some of the ME sweets we'd
>tried last time. (It was wonderful baklava today,
>nyah, nyah ;-P )One of the things we'd noticed, is
>that the rosewater flavored things we'd tried all gave
>us the rose flavor as an after taste, rather than an
>up-front, in-your-face type of flavor, and we were
>wondering, if there's anything in the literature that
>indicates the usual amounts and usage of rosewater?
>We're thinking that the amount used in most of the
>redactions we've seen might be more than perhaps
>actually used, both modernly, and in period. Does
>anyone have any evidence either way?

Circumstantial. I made some marzipan the other day (actually it was
festicade, the pistachio equivalent, mentioned in some French and
Italian sources), and quite a number of marzipan recipes call for
rosewater to be the only liquid added, except perhaps for any liquid
needed to grind the almonds (or pistachios) to keep them from
de-emulsifying and leaking oil. The product made entirely with
rosewater is almost unpleasantly overpowering (it was good rosewater
from an unopened bottle; it wasn't bad or anything). This leads me to
suspect that either A) medieval confectioners used moister almonds
than we use, or B) they used more water to grind them properly in a
mortar, or C) they diluted their distilled rosewater, or D) their
rosewater was weaker, possibly because it was not distilled in the
same way as most modern commercial rosewater is. I know there's a
rosewater recipe in Le Menagier de Paris that is more of an infusion
(or is it a decoction?) than a distillation.

Adamantius