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

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Sep 19, 2009, at 1:28 PM, David Friedman wrote:

>> 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.

Hieatt suggests it's late 14th, early 15th century. I had understood  
most of the contents of Book V of Curye on Inglysch (which I believe  
has our source recipe) to be 15th century.
>
>> 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.

Or, because it's a convenient measuring device that prevents you from  
attempting to add too much sugar at once. I'm not sure how wise or  
effective it is to try stirring a full one-ounce ladle of sugar, as it  
melts, with a wooden spatula. The recipe clearly has us measuring the  
sugar in the ladle and then putting it on the fire in an unspecified  
vessel. But then a few steps later on, you're adding the seeds to the  
sugar in the pan, right? You might be adding both at the same time, or  
the sugar may have been there already. I'm leaning towards that one,  
again, due to the difficulties of melting a full ladle and stirring it  
without having it overflow. And I have certainly made confits  
successfully (apparently) without melting the sugar in the ladle.
>
> ...
>
>> 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.

For years I read it as straight sugar. Now I look at the immediately  
preceding recipe, note that it comes from the same original MS, and  
note that what that first recipe, which is for clarified sugar,  
produces is a syrup, which the recipe then says you may use to make  
any kind of confection -- and refers to throughout not as syrup (which  
is what it is) but as sugar. Followed by recipes for anise in confit,  
images in sugar, sugar plate, and penydes (pulled sugar candy).

I now suspect there's at least a possibility that the confit recipe is  
made with the clarified syrup in the first recipe -- the other candy  
recipes in that section either contain their own instructions for  
clarifying, or in one case, specifies that the sugar not be clarified.

Clearly the results can be achieved with straight sugar. I've done it  
several times. I would like to try clarifying something like turbinado  
and see what using that resulting syrup does to achieve confits. It  
might make a difference, it might not.

> 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."

I think Dame Alys is using something like Hugh Plat's recipe, which is  
definitely later. I agree that the Harleian recipe calls for sugar and  
does not directly instruct us to make a syrup, and it's clear that the  
job can be done that way. I would like to look at the possibility that  
the Harleian recipe is referring to the clarified syrup from the  
previous recipe.

[Maybe I'll write a note to the OED committee and get them to revise  
their definition of "decoction". Worked pretty well for "pomace",  
after all... ;-) ]

Are we sure there isn't an illustration for me to ignore?

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter