A&S

Qurabiya

46.

It's easiest to roll it in your hands to make the balls

Her Ladyship Kayleigh rolling the cookies

Qurabiya (sometimes spelled Ghorabiye) is a type of almond cookie, likely originating in Persia, which had spread to the Ottoman court by at least the 15th century. I haven’t been able to find any remaining period Qurabiya recipes, so instead this is being built on a lot of conjecture and various “traditional” and modern recipes. From what I can tell from a few different sources it was a cookie made from egg white, almond, sugar, and rosewater. Modernly different fats and oils as well as other nuts are added to the recipe. Every recipe is different and all have various flavourings. A modern version that seems quite similar to the references I’ve found is this one for Iranian Almond Cookies. The cookie spread west early and several types of cookie (such as in Greece) have names that are very similar. But what is interesting is to compare early French macarons:

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Early Tudor Rapier

I wrote this article for Tournaments Illuminated and it was recently published in Issue 200, Fourth Quarter 2016 p.15-19. Early Tudor Rapier: The teaching of the rapier in London before 1580 by the Masters of Defence examines the history of the rapier in Tudor England and how early it was accepted by the Read more…

By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Sugar Paste

45.

After getting feedback at the Unfinished Projects at Bitter End’s Harvest Feast, I made a new attempt and entered it in the Apprentices Competition at Samhain. As I am not an apprentice I asked Mistress Maiosara to sponsor me and she graciously did. Because this post is so long, there’s also a short version.

There’s quite a history of sugar paste (modernly called gum paste), with recipes in English going back to at least 1558 when Alessio’s Secreti (1555) was translated into English. Recipes originating in English start appearing in 1567.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Sourdough Fritters

44.

I made a fast recreation because I wanted to make fried bread and had the ingredients, they were underwhelming. But not every recreation is successful.

From Libro B from “Due Libri di Cucina” we get a few fritter recipe, but the simplest one is this:

LVII
Chi voI e fare frictelle levetate, tolli lu leveto del pane overo formento, se non petisci avere suco de bono herbolato, et frigile in olio tanto che non vaga tucto socto.

He who wants to make leavened fritters, take the leaven of the bread or else corn, if you cannot have juice of good herbs, and fry them in oil so much that they do not go all beneath.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Candy and Art

I submitted some of my sugar paste research the other week to an “Unfinished Projects” display and got some great feedback. One of the more common questions was: what would 16th century sweetmeats look like? Most of what I do is about recreating a flavour rather than shape of an object so I thought I’d look into it. There are, of course some descriptions of what you can make in the cookery books but they are mostly suggestions of things you can counterfeit such as plates, dishes, cups, glasses and platters, but they also mention walnuts and small loaves of bread or buns.

I didn’t think that was enough to answer the question so I decided to look for some artwork depicting them (I’ll leave my discussion of ephemeral arts in the SCA for another time). Now I’m not an art historian by any stretch of the imagination so if you have better interpretations or know of art I haven’t mentioned please let me know.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago