I had the opportunity earlier this year to take part in a cooking competition with a theme of 'preserves'. I was excited when I heard the theme of this competition because I have a number of recipes that I am keen to try. I had been toying with the idea of trying an intriguing recipe for preserved potatoes since last year, but the main thing holding me back was that my family would probably be the test audience and they often find medieval recipes a little strange. Having the opportunity to test it out on people who are more experienced with the often unusual flavour combinations and textures of medieval food is ideal.
The recipe comes from Elinor Fettiplace’s Receipt Book (edited by Hilary Spurling). The recipe book is dated 1604; just one year after the death of Good Queen Bess and the end of the Elizabethan Age. It is most likely that the recipes in the book are ones that had been around (or developed from ones that had been around) for quite a while. In an era when there was no copyright or intellectual property laws, it is very common to see recipes (and embroidery patterns) show up over and over again in different publications, often with only very minor changes if any at all.
I was astonished to see a preserved potato recipe; I quickly realised it was for sweet potatoes (and was a tad disappointed!).
Potatoes and sweet potatoes are New World ingredients. Christopher Columbus is credited with introducing sweet potatoes to Spain (University of Missouri web page) and they made their way to England in the Tudor period. The first definitive account of sweet potatoes in England comes from Gerard’s Herball in 1597, who speaks of it favourably, “howsoeuer they bee dressed, they comfort, nourish, and strengthen the body” (Historic Royal Palaces webpage). The tubers grown at this time in England were much smaller than what we see in Australia now, because they are a warm climate plant.
This recipe is very similar to candied sweet potatoes, which is a popular Thanksgiving dish in many parts of the USA. It would be interesting to know if this recipe was brought over to the new colonies and was so beloved that a variation of it is still being cooked today.
I did some maths to change the imperial measurements to metric to give me a relatable idea of the amounts.
To Preserve Potatoes (p. 194, suggested as part of October’s [Northern Hemisphere] cooking)
“Boile your roots in faire water until they bee somewhat tender then pill of the skinne, then make your syrupe, weying to every pound of roots a pound of sugar and a quarter of a pinte of faire water, and as much of rose water and the juice of three or fowre oranges, then boile the syrupe and scum it, then cut your roots in the middle and put them into the syrupe, before you take it from the fire, put in a little musk and amber Greece.”
Spurling tells us that the extant recipe book actually has two different recipes for this dish, with the second omitting the muck and ambergris, and advising to cook the potatoes in syrup ‘till it look cleare, then when they are cold put them up in a glas and so keep them’ (p194).
I chose to follow the first recipe as best I could. I was pleased that the recipe actually gave guidelines on ingredient amounts; more often than not medieval and renaissance recipes do not, and also assume such a level of familiarity with cooking techniques that the ‘instructions’ are vague at best.
Elinor does not discuss her cooking tools, but a pot or a kettle would have been used for boiling (Eveleigh, p.15).
I filled a nice big pot with ‘faire water’ (nice clean water) and put my washed sweet potatoes in. I had to cut the small ones in half to make them fit. I brought the pot to the boil and left it on a rolling boil for ten to fifteen minutes. This method would not vary from what a cook in our time period would do, although I had the benefit of Teflon cookware, gas stove and clean running water. Cooking this dish over a fire or a wood fire fuelled stove would require the cook to be quite vigilant as keeping the temperature right would be tricky.
I took the sweet potatoes off the heat when inserting my knife under the skin made the skin lift easily. I let them cool on a chopping board, and, when cool I peeled them and cut them into largish cubes (as if I was making a rustic stew). I had to move fast with this part, as sweet potato discolours if exposed to air too long. I had to discard a small amount due to discolouration (which would not have affected the taste, but which looked unappealing).
While I was peeling and chopping the sweet potatoes, I had about 1.5l of water coming to the boil in the newly washed pot. I also added around 1.4kg of sugar. I added about 200g of brown sugar to the white sugar to try and get an approximation of the taste of the loaf sugar used in period. I stirred and then let the syrup boil down slightly. In some confectionery recipes, it is important not to stir your sugar syrup as it can form crystals on the side of the pot which can ruin your candy. This was not an issue for this recipe and its desired result, so I stirred occasionally.
Sugar was an expensive imported ingredient. By the late sixteenth century, a variety of sugar forms were available. Loaf sugar, madeira sugar, canary sugar, cassonade sugar, common sugar, and sugar candy were available in England (Brears, p. 530). I added the brown sugar to white to try and approximate muscovado sugar because I didn’t have any handy. Sugar was being refined and clarified in a variety of ways (including with lime water and egg whites,[Brears, p.530]) so our modern muscovado sugar would probably not be exactly like that available in the sixteenth century anyway.
All the ingredients in this dish would have demonstrated how prosperous the noble of the house was, because the ingredients were expensive and exotic. This is not a dish for poorer people.
I added the juice of four oranges. Sweet orange varieties had been brought to England by Portugese traders by the sixteenth century (Sharma) and what an exotic and exciting treat they must have been. I was thrilled to find such lovely oranges at my grocer even in an age where they are so common. I rolled the oranges on the chopping board first to try and get as much juice out as possible and they were lovely and juicy. The juice added a lovely fragrance and counterpoint to the sweetness of the sugar. Orange peels contain up to 30% pectin too (chempedia.info), so I suspect they could be added to the syrup and removed before bottling to help the preserve set a bit.
Isinglass was a fish product that could be used in a way similar to gelatin, and Brears (2015, p.553) includes several Elizabethan recipes for jelly which contain gelatin, so I guess there are a few options for making the preserve set more.
I wasn’t sure how long it would take for the chopped potatoes to boil so I watched them carefully. As confectioners know, it only takes seconds for a sugar syrup to go from a gentle boil to boiling over, and this syrup was no different. The syrup was pretty clean and clear at first, but the addition of the brown sugar and then the juice really made a lot of scum form on the surface and I had to remove it with a spoon multiple times.
I had to keep adjusting the heat level to keep it at a medium boil (this probably could have been solved by changing to a different size burner). I wanted the pieces to be cooked to softness but not fall apart.
When the pieces were soft enough to be ‘smooshed’ against the side of the pot with a spoon, I turned the mixture off the heat. I added quarter of a teaspoon of artificial musk flavouring.
Musk is a scent derived from the scent glands of the musk deer. The deer is killed to extract the glands, and this practice has recently been heavily reduced. Even if real musk was available, I would not choose to use it. I instead used an artificial musk flavour essence available from cake decorating shops. I only used a quarter of a teaspoon as it is quite a strong flavour. The flavour really came through when the mixture was hot but mellowed as it cooled.
I added a half a teaspoon of rosewater essence. Rosewater could be made in period by distilling an essence from the petals of freshly picked, delicately scented rose flowers. Nowadays, a range of qualities of rosewater and rose essences are available to purchase. If I had access to a better quality rosewater, I might adjust the amount I used. As with so many things, personal preference comes into play. I wanted the rosewater to add to the complexity of flavours without the syrup tasting like fruity perfume.
The recipe also called for ‘amber greece’. Ambergris is a bile secretion generated in the intestines of sperm whales and is a prohibited substance in our current modern age. This is because it can be vomited up by a whale or harvested from it’s body and there is no real way to know if a person has found the ambergris on a beach (vomit) or if the whale has been illegally killed and the ambergris harvested. Fresh or raw ambergris apparently smells like faeces or vomit, but when it has been aged (-the key chemical component, ‘ambrein’, oxidises into different compounds-) it has been described as sweet, earthy, and salty. It was common in the middle ages in Persian and Indian cuisine (Schmidt, 2015) and has historically been used as a perfume ingredient and was astronomically expensive and very sought after. There is a synthetic alternative to ambergris which is called Ambroxan, which is made from a chemical which is found in the Clary Sage plant. I am not familiar with Ambroxan or how it works with other ingredients, so chose to avoid it.
I wanted an earthy, woody flavour that might go a small way to approaching the complexity of flavour that ambergris could add, even though the second of Elinor Fettiplace’s recipes omits ambergris and musk altogether. I decided to add half a teaspoon of ground nutmeg. Nutmeg was a spice used by the wealthy classes during the middle ages and renaissance, and is often included in the various ‘poudre’ recipes, gingerbreads and savoury recipes. I thought it might be a nice counterpoint to the sweetness.
While the mixture was still hot, I poured it into sterilised jars and submerged them in boiling water. There is no indication in the recipe how long the author expected the preserve to last. I have relatively limited experience with jam making or other boiled preserves, but I am aware of the need of sterilisation to prevent spoilage. Elinor Fettiplace has other recipes for preserved fruits and vegetables, fruit gellies and marmalads, but unfortunately does not go into details about sterilisation or storage. (I don’t tend to go into lots of detail in my own personal cooking notes because I know the associated processes with the step I am writing about; I assume she was the same. How could she know that hundreds of years into the future her recipe book would be published and pondered over?)
The mixture needs time to season and for the flavours to develop, but I tried it with pork chops the day it was made. I used it as an accompaniment and I really liked it although the texture was unusual. If I made the recipe again, I would cut my ingredients by half. I would probably mash the potato up more in the syrup to form a chutney-like texture, and I may add pectin…. I will have to see how the mixture sets over time. You could probably put slices of potato in jars and use it as a vegetable side dish, but I am not a huge fan of the texture of sweet potato, so I chose not to do this. This may have been how the preserves were served in period, as sweet potato tubers were smaller then. I imagine you could add more sugar and possibly increase the essences and/or spices and make an interesting dessert to serve with one of the many cream recipes that were popular in our period. I would also experiment with reducing the amount of water and adding a setting agent (perhaps adding the orange peels to steep in the boiling syrup to release more pectin) and straining some of the syrup to make a jelly. I liked the flavour of the syrup most of all, and I think it might be a pleasant accompaniment to meats (in the way that redcurrant jelly is,) or even as a jelly on toast. All in all, this has been an enjoyable and interesting experiment and has certainly revealed a lot of interesting reading matter that I intend to explore.
My Ingredients
1.5 kg sweet potato, washed
1.5 l clean water
1.2 kg white sugar
200g brown sugar
Juice of 4 oranges
½ tsp rosewater essence
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp musk essence
Bibliography
Brears, Peter (2015). Cooking and Dining in Tudor and Early Stuart England, Prospect Books, London.
Everleigh,David J (2010). Old cooking utensils, Shire Publications, Oxford, UK.
Spurling, Hillary (1986). Elinor Fettiplace’s Receipt Book, The Salamander Press, England.
Online References
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Published Aug 10, 2020 by Nick Musica.
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Ambergris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambergris
Published by the Wikipedia Project, last updated on 20 March 2022
Accessed 25 March 2022
Ambergris and Musk: Exotic scents of a cuisine blog post
https://madhavifeast.wordpress.com/ambergris-and-musk-exotic-scents-of-a-cuisine/
Posted by Madhavi
Accessed 25 March 2022
Big Chemical Encyclopedia: Oranges juice pectin https://chempedia.info/info/oranges_juice_pectin/
Published by chempedia.info in 2019
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History of Orange https://fruitly.wordpress.com/2013/04/13/history-of-orange/
Published 2013 by Muskan Sharma
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Published by Historic Royal Palaces on 26 November 2015
Accessed 25 March 2022
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Musk Ambergris, the Perfume of Whales that once Scented Foods
Posted July 2015 by Stephen Schmidt
Accessed 25 March 2022
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Accessed 30 November 2021
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Published By The Spice Academy on 9 December 2017
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Published by the Wikipedia Project, last updated on 22 March 2022
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Published by the Wikimedia Project, last updated on 19 March 2022
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