A Closet for ladies and gentlevvomen. or, The
art of preseruing, conseruing, and candying. With the manner hovve to make
diuers kinds of syrups: and all kind of banqueting stuffes was
first mentioned in the Stationers’ records in 1602 and published in 1608.
It has long been a most sought- after volume for the Society’s
historically minded confectioners and cooks. Unlike Plat’s 1609 Delightes for Ladies, which was
privately printed in the 1930s and more popularly published in 1948, the
1608 Closet was never reprinted
or made available in a popular hardbound edition in the 20th century. It
is now available in my annotated © 2011 edition through medievalcookery.com.
The Closet contains recipes associated
with confectionary, preserving, all sorts of Candying and Pastes, Banqueting
conceits, Cordial Waters, Conserves, and Syrups. As such as it describes
recipes containing sugar and sugar heights, but unlike later works most of this
work is accomplished in the making and use of sugar syrups.
[6] To preserue Pomcitrons for instance calls for “then take two pounds of sugar
being clarified, and make Syrope for them, and let them boyle in syrope a
quarter of an houre very gently, then take them vp, and let your Syrope boyle
til it be thicke, and then put in your Pomcitrons, and you may keepe them al
they yere.” [p 23]
[10] To preserue Quinces instructs "TAke your Quinces two pound,
& core them, & then perboyle them, & pil off the outtermost white
skin, and then weigh them, and put them into claryfied sugar one pound, and
then boyle them closly couered vpon a very gentle fire, putting vnto them a
sticke or two of good Cynnamon, cut into small pieces, and so stirre them
continually that they may be well coloured on euery side: and when the syrop is
come to the height of a perfect gelly, take them off the fire, and so keepe
them, for the higher your syrope is, the better will your Quinces keepe."[p 25]
[12] To preserue Eringus Rootes calls for “and then you must take to euery
pound of Rootes, three quarters of a pound of clarified sugar, and boyle it
almost vnto the height of a syrope, and then put in your rootes, but looke that
they boyle very gently together, with as little stirring as may bee for feare
of breaking, vntill they be ynough: and when they bee cold, put them vp, and so
keepe them." [p 26-27]
The instruction “boyle it almost vnto the height
of a syrope” is employed in a number of the Closet’s recipes,
indicating that a knowledge of boiling syrups was thought necessary to preserve
various fruits so that they might be kept for all the year.
See A Closet for Ladies and Gentlewomen. http://www.medievalcookery.com/notes/1608closet.pdf
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