[Sca-cooks] Sugarplums

[Johnna Holloway]

Actually I did my search through EEBO-TCP using the terms
sugar near plum*. I was looking for earlier mentions than OED's late  
17th century ones
and EEBO-TCP is the place to look. It's quite useful when one wants  
earlier quotations
than OED.
I trusted that Stefan would chime in with
the Florilegium sources. I'm afraid I never used Google or checked the  
Florilegium this time.

Johnnae

On Dec 11, 2009, at 4:04 PM, silverr0se at aol.com wrote:

>
> Or look at my article "Visions of Sugarplums" in Stefan's  
> Florillegium.
>
> Renata
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Johnna
>
> I did a quick search tonight.
> Sugar and plums turns up a bit earlier as a phrase.
>
> Come on, I pray eat some plums, they be sugar, / Heres good drinke  
> by Ladie, why do you not eate?
>
> A most pleasant and merie nevv comedie, intituled, A knacke to knowe  
> a knaue. 1594
>
> And here is the term from 1607.
>
> like to round SugarPlummes, and Salte in taste, whereof not-with- 
> standing none of them did eate, nor knew not from whence they came.
>
> Admirable and memorable histories containing the wonders of our  
> time. 1607
>
> snipped
> Johnnae
>
> On Dec 6, 2009, at 6:22 PM, Terry Decker wrote:
>
>> Sugarplum, as a word, appears to have a Late 17th Century origin,  
>> so > while some of the ingredients would need to be imported, they  
>> would > likely have been available, thus the recipe can not be  
>> directly > attributed to a Middle Eastern source. The earliest  
>> European > variant I've located is from Apicius, although I think  
>> it is made as > a small cake rather than a ball.
>>
>> Bear