[Sca-cooks] Meringues?

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach a5foil:
>You know you're in the SCA when ... your 15-year-old daughter decides to
>translate and redact recipes from Taillevent for her French II final
>project.
>
>She just asked me if meringues are period. She has lots of egg whites left
>over from making Tostees Dorrees and is looking for a way to use them. This
>is out of my area of expertise, so I thought I'd ask.
>
>Cynara

I think La Chapelle (I'm working off the top of my head here, be 
warned) is "officially" credited with their invention in the early 
18th century (IOW, it's probably culinary fakelore like the 
"official" inventions of potato chips and Lobster Newburgh), but 
Elinor Fettiplace has a similar recipe for white bisket bread in the 
early 17th century.

The primary difference between white bisket bread and meringue is the 
inclusion of a very small amount of wheat flour (think if it as a 
stabilizer) to the egg whites and sugar in the bisket bread, which, 
IIRC, also contains anise seeds.

Adamantius