Manus Christi -- was, Re: [Sca-cooks] Selene's Files

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Sep 29, 2005, at 9:03 AM, Johnna Holloway wrote:

> Karen Hess goes onto it and provides recipes
> in MWBof Cookery
>
> Dawson has this recipe--
>
> To make Manus Christi
>
>  <>Take five spoonefull of Rosewater, and graines of Ambergreece,  
> and 4
>
> grains of Pearle beaten very fine, put these three together in a  
> Saucer
>
> and cover it close, and let it stande covered one houre, then take  
> foure
>
> ounces of very fine Suger, and beate it small, and search it through a
>
> fine search, then take a little earthen pot glased, and put into it a
>
> spoonefull of Suger, and a quarter of a spoonefull of Rosewater,  
> and let
>
> the Suger and the Rosewater boyle together softelye, till it doe rise
>
> and fall againe three times.  Then take fine Rie flower, and sifte  
> on a
>
> smooth borde, and with a spoone take of the Suger, and the Rosewater,
>
> and first make it all into a roundcake and then after into little  
> Cakes,
>
> and when they be halfe colde, wet them over with the same  
> Rosewater, and
>
> then laye on your golde, and so shall you make very good Manus  
> Christi.
>
> from the Florilegium file Gd-Huswfs-Jwl-msg - 7/29/02
>
> Johnnae

Thank you! So, if I'm reading this correctly, you're making a sort of  
medicated rosewater with the ambergris and pearls, then boiling a  
heavy syrup from it and the pounded and sieved sugar for three  
"walms", then pouring a pool of the stuff out onto some sieved flour  
(I suspect Rice, and not Rye, but I could be wrong). This is then  
worked into a paste as it cools, and then cut and flattened into  
smaller cakes, which are then moistened with more of the same  
rosewater to make the cakes sticky again, and gilded with gold  
leaf... presumably, then dried. And somehow, the specific gravity of  
the syrup produced this way, using specific measurements for sugar  
and rosewater, brought to a boil, allowed to cool from a boiling  
state, then boiled and cooled twice more, and probably after  
absorbing as much flour as it'll "soak up", approximates a fairly  
consistent candy density, a.k.a. reproducible results. So, "Manus  
Christi height" is a meaningful term.

We just need to make Manus Christi to figure out what it is ;-)

Adamantius




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04