[Sca-cooks] Pulled Sugar Penydes was SCA 50th Anniversary Challenge

[Johnna Holloway]

Also mentioned in this collection's glossary is another candy without a
true recipe.
That's "sukkar Sulaymani" which is described as "hard sugar candy made from
white cane sugar. Sulaymani and tabarzad are sometimes referred to as
al-sukkaran 'the two sugars'
as in the Istanbul MS (fol. 22v)."
Nasrallah goes on to say that it was made from white sugar boiled into a
thick syrup, then beaten
until it clouded and crystallized. This would have aerated it. While
still hot (or warm) and malleable,
it was formed into discs, rings, fingers, and otherwise shaped. page 601
This was eaten as candy or was crushed and used as a garnish or crushed
for use in recipes. page 602

If one takes a look at the recipe for "Dry lawzinaj (almond brittle)
cooked on a fire on pages 411-412,
there is a note included in that recipe that one stirs the mixtures as
one does when one makes sukkar Sulaymani.
Nasrallah notes in a footnote on page 412 that she thinks sukkar
Sulaymani was stirred in such a fashion.

So was it pulled while being shaped-- that would be the question. One
might think so.

This is from Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens.Ibn Sayya-r al-Warra-q's
Tenth-Century Baghdadi Cookbook.
English Translation with Introduction and Glossary by Nawal Nasrallah
Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007 xii, 876 pp., 32 pp of color plates.

Johnnae


Lilinah wrote: snipped to reduce length
>
> First
> A type of pulled sugar candy called fanidh is mentioned a number of 
> times in "al-Kitab al-Tabikh" by ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, the 10th C. 
> collection of 9th and 10th c. recipes (and in other books). In her 
> expansive Glossary, Nasrallah mentions that these candies are usually 
> in rounds and there are a number of different kinds, from both white 
> and red sugar. Unfortunately, there's no recipe for fanidh in 
> al-Warraq and i didn't find a recipe last night in a couple other books.
> snipped
> Third
> A more detailed recipe was inserted in the marginalia of al-Baghdadi's 
> book next to the above recipe. It was taken from ibn Jazla's book 
> "Minhaj al-Bayan", an 11th century medical dictionary:
> Halwa Uabisa Sukkariyya. It has many varieties. snippedPerry's trans., 
> pp. 98-99
> Finally
> In her Glossary to al-Warraq, Nasrallah mentions that there's a recipe 
> for a pulled honey candy in "al-Fadalat al-Khiwan fi Tayybat al-Ta'am 
> wa'l-Alwan" by ibn Razin al-Tujibi, dated 1230, from al-Andalus, 
> although i think we don't yet have that particular recipe in 
> translation. Nawal Nasrallah told me she intends to translate it, so 
> we may have the whole book in someday.
> ---
> I haven't noticed any spun or blown sugar in Arabic-language sources. 
> But i don't always read the sweet recipes as carefully as i read meat 
> and vegetable recipes.