[Sca-cooks] Re: Sugar plate sotelties...

[Elise Fleming]

Gianotta wrote: 
>Last night my husband and I went to Pennsbury Manor's Holly Night. (snip)
> There was a sugar-plate reproduction of the manor house in miniature, 
>with sugar gravel and grass (all colored with natural dyes such as spinach
and 
>saffron), marzipan peacocks (peacocks wander the grounds during the 
>clement months), William and Hannah Penn's initials done in sugar rope,
and 
>even more charming, plates and goblets made of sugar. (snip)
>So, how far back does the use of sugar-plate eating and drinking utensils
go? 
>Was this a practice in period?
 
In a brief answer, yes, it was a period practice.  Italian sources record
earlier dates of sugar plate utensils than in England, but both are within
the SCA time frame.  I wonder who made the items??  Susan McClellan
Plaisted is the Director of Foodways at Pennsbury Manor.  She was in Ivan
Day's sugarwork class last May that I attended where we worked on sugar
paste and comfits in particular.  (She's one of the group going to the
Leeds Food History Symposium and Ivan Day's Tudor and early Stuart cookery
class.  Her web site is at http://www.hearttohearthcookery.com/)

In one of the articles on sugar that I wrote (on my web site) I have a
listing of all the items made of sugar paste that I could find in period
English texts.  It includes such things as shoes, gloves, lights...

Alys Katharine

Elise Fleming
alysk at ix.netcom.com
http://home.netcom.com/~alysk/