[Sca-cooks] Eastern Medicinal Sweet

[Sue Clemenger]

Nope, but I might have to, just for the heck of it.  (I managed to score
quinces this year--very rare in our part of the Known World.)
Since the apple, pomegranite, and quince juices would all be tart, would
that lend credence to the idea that the others (pear and gourd) would tend
to tartness, as well?
--Maire

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sydney Walker Freedman" <freedmas at stolaf.edu>
To: <SCA-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 11, 2006 5:26 PM
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Eastern Medicinal Sweet


> Greetings!
>
>      I found this recipe in An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the
> Thirteenth Century.  Has anyone experimented with it?  (I'm currently
> collecting medicinal foods from the 12th-14th centuries.)
>
> This is given to feverish people as a food and takes the place of
> medicine. Take sweet, peeled almonds and pound them fine. Then extract
> their milk with a sieve or clean cloth, until it becomes like milk. Add
> pomegranate and tart apple juice, pear juice, juice of quince and of
> roasted gourd, whatever may be available of these. Prepare them like the
> juice squeezed from the almonds and like the mixture of white sugar. Put
> in a glazed earthenware tinjir and light a gentle fire under it. After
> boiling, add some dissolved starch paste and when it thickens, put
> together rose oil and fresh oil and light under it a gentle fire until it
> thickens. Then take off the fire and take it out. If the stomach is weak,
> add rosewater mixed with camphor.