[Sca-cooks] Anneys in Counfyte: The Recipe Was Right

[David Friedman]

>One consideration might be that seeds, containing by some design a 
>certain amount of air space, don't really transmit heat the same as 
>an equal volume of hot water or oil. As I recall the 15th century 
>recipe His Grace is working with,

14th c.

>you heat the seeds, remove them from the pan to another  container, 
>heat the sugar in the pan, then return the somewhat cooled seeds to 
>the sugar in the pan.


I don't think that's quite right. At least as I read it, you heat the 
seeds in your pan, remove them to another container, melt the sugar 
in the ladle, combine sugar and seeds in the pan. That matters, 
because you are adding additional layers of sugar, and the sugar is 
being melted in something other than the pan you are working in. And 
it explains the reference to the ladle, which otherwise doesn't make 
much sense--you are using a ladle that holds an ounce of sugar, 
because you are going to be repeatedly melting an ounce of sugar in 
the ladle and adding it.

...

>One of the beauties of the 15th century "rough and ragged" confit is 
>the omission of water and the basic absence of certain 
>considerations like sugar height. It's hard crack by default as soon 
>as it is melted -- assuming you don't let it brown, at which point 
>it is becoming caramel.

Yes--the latter was a problem.

So you read it as I do and as Alys Katherine I gather does not, as 
straight sugar.

But the recipe explicitly warns against letting them come out rough and ragged.

...

>Quite possibly, but when Chiquart calls for a red confit garniture 
>he may be referring to the earlier "rough and ragged" confits rather 
>than the dipped-in-syrup type, since the former are basically 
>contemporary for him. I STR different shades being achieved by 
>storing, or allowing them to cool, in different ways, so I assume 
>it's connected with oxidation.

Indeed, the recipe seems to be saying that you have to let them cool 
before you box them in order to get the color right--but doesn't 
specify what color that is.
...

So we basically have two interpretations. Mine and Adamantius', with 
straight sugar, Alys Katherine's and the expert she cites in her 
article, with sugar syrup. The question is whether the latter is a 
later version, as Adamantius suggests, or if we are merely misreading 
the 14th c. recipe and sugar is implied by "decoction."
-- 
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com
daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/