[Sca-cooks] Quince Query

[Johnna Holloway]

I always find when working with Dawson that it pays to look at other  
recipes for
better instructions or explanations of methods.
In this case for example there's this one:

Faire core your Quinces and seethe Licour upon the fire, and put in  
the cores, and seeth them very well with two or three peeces of  
Quinces, and then put in your Quinces, and let them boyle very softlye  
till they be tender, then take up your quinces, and set them faire  
upon a cloth, and let your Licour seethe a great while till it be  
somewhat high coloured of the Quinces, and then when the licour is  
colde, and the Quinces be colde, then put in your Quinces againe and  
so faire cover them. These wil serve to bake or make tartes all the  
yere.
This is an excerpt from A Book of Cookrye
(England, 1591)

Plat would be another place to look of course.
30 - To make paste of Genua of Quinces. Take Quinces, and pare them, and
cut them in slices, and bake them in an oven dry in an earthen pot,
without any other juyce than their owne: then take one pound thereof;
strain it, and put it into a stone-mortar with halfe a pound of sugar;
and when you have beaten it up to a paste, print it in your moulds, and
dry it three or foure times in an oven after you have drawne bread: and
when it is thorowly dry and hardned, you may box it, and it will keep
all the yeere. / * Delights for Ladies* by Hugh Plat.

There are quince confections in Nostradamus.

And there's an excellent selection of recipes
in the manuscript A Booke of Sweetmeats as found in MWBofC as edited  
by Karen Hess.
Plus there are Ivan Day's beautiful photos and recipes on his website  
as already mentioned.

Johnnae