[Sca-cooks] Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 93, Issue 43
Thea Harvey-Barratt
thealou42 at gmail.com
Fri Jan 31 13:06:47 PST 2014
Thanks everyone. I was assuming that pre-cornstarch they would have used
gelatin as a gelling agent. I didn't think of other powdered starches.
:) Thea
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Today's Topics:
1. Confections was Cut-Off Date for Cookery Books? (Johnna Holloway)
2. Turksih delight (Thea Harvey-Barratt)
3. Re: Confections was Cut-Off Date for Cookery Books? (Terry Decker)
4. Re: Turksih delight (Terry Decker)
5. Re: Turksih delight (Gretchen R Beck)
6. Re: Turksih delight (Johnna Holloway)
7. Re: Confections was Cut-Off Date for Cookery Books?
(James Prescott)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 12:04:23 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>,
"SCA_Subtleties at yahoogroups.com" <SCA_Subtleties at yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Confections was Cut-Off Date for Cookery Books?
Message-ID: <6C2F6DA3-4AE7-414A-ACDF-E7B15BC19A16 at mac.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
By way of explanation, for all those who think I was dissing their sweets
literature?.
Let me repeat and make clearer in that in my post of January 29, 2014 I was
primarily talking about English printed sources because Countess Alys on
1/29 asked specifically about "recipes for confections and banqueting items
(aka "desserts")." She then named, "John Murrell, "A delightful daily
exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen" (1621); Gervase Markham, "The English
Housewife" (1615); Kenelm Digby, "The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby" (1669);
Robert May, "The Accomplisht Cook" (1660/1685)."
She didn't list but she might have listed also Hugh Plat's Delightes and A
Closet for Ladies and Gentlewomen from 1608.
These are all English printed cookery or confectionery books.
The question was -- what can we do about the 1600 official cut-off?
And I wrote in reply, "I think in practical purposes the SCA boundary of
1600 doesn't work very well with confections, especially in terms of English
language materials. For a number of languages there are very few recipes at
all. A manuscript here, a manuscript there, containing a few items. Alessio
of course has a dozen recipes on confections, including the sugar paste
recipe and he is printed and reprinted all over Europe in a wide number of
languages starting in the 1550s. But we want more recipes for sweets than
just those included in Alessio."
I mentioned Alessio, properly, The secretes of the reuerende Maister Alexis
of Piemount, 1558, because in England Alessio contains this recipe:
To make a paste of sugre, whereof a man maye make all maner of fruites, and
other fyne thynges, with theyr forme, as platters, dishes, glasses, cuppes,
and such like thinges, wherwith you may furnish a table: and when you haue
doen, eate them vp. A pleasant thing for them that sit at the table."
There are also recipes for confections of melons, peaches, conserves of
quinces, orange peels, walnuts, gourds, cherries, and little morsels as they
use in Naples. So tucked away in this book of secrets we have this chapter
on confections. It's overlooked, but it's the source recipe for sugar paste
in England.
[See also my article "Alessio and the Secretes of Cookery" Tournaments
Illuminated Issue #147, Summer 2003.]
The question is -- where do we go after Alessio and which books are most
valuable in terms of recipes for when we want to recreate a sideboard of
sweets and confections? It turns out that most of those recipes are found in
books published after 1600.
Johnnae
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 12:22:06 -0500
From: "Thea Harvey-Barratt" <thealou42 at gmail.com>
To: <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Turksih delight
Message-ID: <0b3b01cf1ea8$f8508800$e8f19800$@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Does anyone have a recipe for Turkish delight that is not based on
cornstarch? Assuming that cornstarch was not available before 1492.
Thanks,
Thea
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 11:28:05 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Confections was Cut-Off Date for Cookery
Books?
Message-ID: <F4FBB877C80D4BA0B9ACCD538D4F7C4B at TerryPC>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=response
The "Gebackens" chapter is really interesting translating because of the
multiple definitions and context dependencies. I've been toying with it on
and off for a couple of years with indifferent success.
You wouldn't happen to have a definition for the noun "Feuwer" would you.
The context suggests it's a vegetable to be thinly coated in batter.
Bear
> I've pointed most of them out to you before but Rumpolt's Ein New
> Kochbuch has a number of resources for sweets and subtleties. Long
> lists of things made of sugar and thickened fruit juice (but no
> directions), recipes for "almond cheese" and preserves, and a chapter on
baked or fried items.
>
> Ranvaig
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 11:49:29 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Turksih delight
Message-ID: <AD7830A6C9474AF1BCB9B50F8CD1430C at TerryPC>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original
Turkish delight is generally attributed to the Turkish confectioner, Hadji
Bekir, who introduced the confection in Constatinople in the 18th Century.
Not exactly before 1492 (or 1600) either.
If you are looking for actual period Islamic confections, I would suggest
starting with Cariadoc's Miscellany
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/miscellany_pdf/Miscellany.htm .
If you want to try making Turkish delight with period ingredients, try
replacing the cornstarch with wheat starch.
Bear
> Does anyone have a recipe for Turkish delight that is not based on
> cornstarch? Assuming that cornstarch was not available before 1492.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Thea
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 17:54:08 +0000
From: Gretchen R Beck <cmupythia at cmu.edu>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Turksih delight
Message-ID:
<56DDB644A1AF6E4CB5CF6CB8B50FCDB4023ADFE0 at PGH-MSGMB-04.andrew.ad.cmu.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Haven't tried it but
page 88 of
http://books.google.com/books?id=l0QCAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs
_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Economical Cookery English, French
and Turkish (by LADY STYLE) has a recipe that uses wheat starch.
I don't think Turkish Delight was invented before the 18thC, so I'm not sure
about the concern for pre-1492.
toodles, margaret
________________________________________
From: sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org
[sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org] on behalf of Thea Harvey-Barratt
[thealou42 at gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, January 31, 2014 12:22 PM
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Turksih delight
Does anyone have a recipe for Turkish delight that is not based on
cornstarch? Assuming that cornstarch was not available before 1492.
Thanks,
Thea
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Message: 6
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 13:12:45 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Turksih delight
Message-ID: <0A8067C7-C61D-43A9-BE35-33D6CC953813 at mac.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
I can't get to my copies but Mary Isin's books would be excellent sources on
the history.
Sherbet and Spice: The Complete Story of Turkish Sweets and Desserts,
London: I.B.Tauris, came out last year.
Her earlier book would have be interlibrary loaned. It's pretty expensive.
Friedrich Unger. A King's Confectioner in the Orient, London: Kegan Paul,
2003
""A rare 19th century account of Turkish confectionery by a professional
confectioner who pursued his investigations in Greece and Turkey in the
1830s. Friedrich Unger was chief confectioner to King Otto I, ?
Johnnae
On Jan 31, 2014, at 12:49 PM, Terry Decker <t.d.decker at att.net> wrote:
> Turkish delight is generally attributed to the Turkish confectioner, Hadji
Bekir, who introduced the confection in Constatinople in the 18th Century.
Not exactly before 1492 (or 1600) either.
>
> If you are looking for actual period Islamic confections, I would suggest
starting with Cariadoc's Miscellany
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/miscellany_pdf/Miscellany.htm .
>
> If you want to try making Turkish delight with period ingredients, try
replacing the cornstarch with wheat starch.
>
> Bear
>
>
>
>> Does anyone have a recipe for Turkish delight that is not based on
>> cornstarch? Assuming that cornstarch was not available before 1492.
>> Thanks, Thea
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 11:43:34 -0700
From: James Prescott <prescotj at telusplanet.net>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Confections was Cut-Off Date for Cookery
Books?
Message-ID: <52EBEED6.10208 at telusplanet.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Ouverture (Li?ge 1604) has some sweet recipes, mostly for the base items
without details of what to do with them. Several pastes, quite a number of
coloured jellies, a couple for imitation snow, a couple using a kind of
meringue. A recipe for making a sugar solution that can be used to cast
figures. Slightly more finished, a couple of recipes for imitation bacon,
and one for imitation ice.
There is a brief description of large subtleties carved out of butter.
There are a number of simple sweet pastries, and sweet dessert tarts.
Thorvald
>> On 1/29/14, 6:08 PM, Johnna Holloway wrote:
>>> But we want more recipes for sweets than just those included in Alessio.
>> At a slight tangent, you might want to look at the Islamic sources. Lots
of sweets all the way back to the 10th century.
>>
>> --
>> David/Caridoc
>> www.daviddfriedman.com
>> http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
------------------------------
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