[Sca-cooks] Two candy questions.....
Johnna Holloway
johnnae at mac.com
Fri Dec 3 08:50:23 PST 2010
Caramel?
I am tempted to say what do you exactly mean by caramel?
The sugar stage? The candy?
OED says: Etymology: < French caramel, < Spanish caramelo (Italian
caramello, Portuguese caramelo) , of uncertain origin.
Scheler suggests that the Spanish represents Latin calamellus little
tube, in reference to its tubular form; Mahn thinks it from medieval
Latin cannamella sugar-cane: an Arabic source is conjectured by Littré.
a. A black or brown porous substance obtained by heating sugar to
about 210° C., by which it loses two equivalents of water; burnt
sugar. It is used for colouring spirits, etc.
b. A kind of ‘candy’ or sweet.
Seems to be 18th century.
1725 R. Bradley Chomel's Dict. Œcon. (at cited word), Sugar, When
it is boiled to Caramel, it breaks and cracks.
caramelised, 18– caramelized. meaning
That has been turned into caramel; covered or glazed with
caramel; heated or cooked until brown in colour and sweet in taste.
19th century.
1846 Debow's Rev. Nov. 343 The syrup is becoming more and more
heated, that which is on the edges of the surface next to the metal
becomes burnt or caramelized.
---
Here's another:
"caramel Caramel is sugar which has been cooked until it turns
brown. The word caramel is a comparatively late introduction into
English: it is first recorded in 1725. It came via French from Spanish
caramelo, but its previous history is speculative; its most likely
source is perhaps late Latin calamellus, a diminutive form of Latin
calamus, ‘reed, cane’ (the implied reference being to
‘sugarcane’). The sweets caramels, a soft form of toffee, are made
with sugar and milk, butter, or cream."
How to cite this entry:
"caramel" An A-Z of Food and Drink. Ed. John Ayto. Oxford university
Press, 2002. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.
---
Countess Alys has done an article on sugar temperatures which was
published in TI.
You might like that.
Boiled candy- we've discussed this before. See the Pulled Sugar file
in the Florilegium
Back in 2005 I wrote:
I had an injection in my knee today so I can't really sit and tidy
this all up.
(And as luck would have it--- I just had my end of year injection
today!)
I am pulling this from my sugarworks file from earlier postings that
I have made on this topic... If you check Sugar-Plums and Sherbet by
Laura Mason. Also see her PPC 69 article which has the early English
mss. candy recipes in it. Early sugar work dates from the 15th century.
In Sugar-Plums and Sherbet she dates pulled sugar to the year 1500
where in the York manuscript there is a recipe "To make Penydes" where
hot sugar syrup is worked with the hands. See page 84.
The manuscript "Goud Kokery" which is section V in Curye on Inglysch
has the following: 13. To make suger plate; 14. To mak penydes; 15. To
make ymages in suger. This mss. is dated late 1300's. The penydes
recipe is interesting because penydes is actually pulled and drawn out
with the hands over a hook. It was then cut with shears. See Laura
Mason for description.
---
Brighid ni Chiarain reminded us later that there were these earlier
recipes: Johnnae, you probably know about this already -- there are
pulled sugar recipes in the 13th c. Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook.
Then later we came across "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
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.
Hope this helps Johnnae
On Dec 3, 2010, at 9:45 AM, rattkitten at bellsouth.net wrote:
> Ok I think the answer is yes but I can't remember..... is caramel
> period? And is hard candy ie boiled sugar to hard crack stage
> period? Thanks folks I am sitting in a tire place getting brakes
> fixed so can't look it up very well
> Nichola
>
>
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