Molding fruits and animals in sugar
Celia Durkin
Transcription:
<title id=“p126r_a1”>Mouler fruicts en sucre<lb/>
et animaulx </title>
<ab id=“p126r_b1”>Le sucre est gras, et d’iceluy on gecte bien choses rondes<lb/>
& gros muscles, mays malaisem[{ent}] choses subtiles & delicates.<lb/>
Toutesfois essaye le sucre fort clarifié. Il fault tremper<lb/>
toute une nuict ou un jour le moule de plastre plustost que gecter<lb/>
le sucre affin qu’il soit bien abreuvé d’eau & ne boive pas<lb/>
le cirop. Il fault aussy qu’il soict bien en despouille<lb/>
car le sucre est aigre & brusc. Enfin ne pense de gecter<lb/>
rien en sucre qui ne soict bien en despouille et qui ne se<lb/>
puisse nettement mouler en deulx parties pour s’ouvrir<lb/>
quand besoing sera. Si tu veulx mouler un raisin, il le<lb/>
fault prendre co{mm}e touts aultres fruictz en sa vigueur<lb/>
naïfve, car s’il est fretri, il viendra de mesme. Advise<lb/>
doncq de faire tes moules en la naturelle saison de<lb/>
chasque chose. Le raisin co{mmun}ement qu’on veult<lb/>
gecter en sucre se faict artificiellement ou avecq de la<lb/>
cire ou terre, ou avecq des grains mesmes raportés<lb/>
avecq de la cire fondue sur quelque plaste & chose pleine,<lb/>
de facon qu’ils soient bien serés et en despouille & ne<lb/>
facent qu’une moictié. Ou bien si tu as de ces raisins qu’on<lb/>
apelle chauchés ou sauvignons qui ont le grain fort<lb/>
pressé. Enchasse la moictié d’iceluy dans la plaste<lb/>
d’ardille et gecte sur l’aultre moitié. Et s’il y a quelque<lb/>
grain qui ne soit en despouille, arrache le. Note qu’en<lb/>
sucre ne mesmes en metal le raisin qui ha les grains clairs<lb/>
& separés ne se peult bonnement gecter pource que les bouts de<lb/>
la grappe seroient si subtils, mesmement si le raisin est gard[é],<lb/>
qu’il ne pourroit soubstenir les grains massifs. Par ain[sy]<lb/>
il fauldroit gecter creux, ce que tu ne pourrois si le raisin
n’est reserré des grains & sans les avoir espars & clai[r]<lb/>
semés.</ab>
<note id=“p126r_c1a”>à couler et brusc & rompant estant sec</note>
<note id=“p126r_c1b”>Pour gecter poires &<lb/>
pommes en sucre, il ne<lb/>
fault point faire de<lb/>
gect, mays emplir une<lb/>
moictié de moule<lb/>
et puys<lb/>
joindre les<lb/>
deulx, et<lb/>
tourner<lb/>
tousjours<lb/>
jusques<lb/>
à ce que<lb/>
le sucre<lb/>
soict pris<lb/>
et froid.<lb/>
Il ne fault<lb/>
rien mesler<lb/>
au moule<lb/>
que le seul<lb/>
plastre<lb/>
recuit co{mm}e<lb/>
tu sçais.</note>
<note id=“p126r_c1c”>+ Il fault que<lb/>
le moule aye<lb/>
trempé tout<lb/>
un jour et<lb/>
une nuict da{n}s<lb/>
l’eau froide<lb/>
et soict<lb/>
humide quand<lb/>
tu gectes en<lb/>
sucre.</note>
<note id=“p126r_c1d”>Le signe que<lb/>
le cirop ou<lb/>
sucre fondu en<lb/>
eau est assés<lb/>
cuit pour<lb/>
gecter fruicts,<lb/>
c’est quand il<lb/>
faict des filets<lb/>
en le secouant. Et s’il passe ce poinct, il ne seroit pas bien car il se rendroit tousjour[s]<lb/>
humide. Si le sucre s’attaque, il fault y gecter un peu d’amydon dans le moule<lb/>
ou le frotter avecq une amande.</note>
Translation:
title id=“p126r_a1”>Molding fruits and animals in sugar</title>
<ab id=“p126r_b1”>Sugar is fatty, and, with it, round things and large muscles are cast well but fine and delicate things [are cast with] difficulty. However, try well-purified sugar. The plaster mold must be soaked in water for a full night or a full day before casting sugar so that it [the mold] is saturated with water and does not soak up the syrup [the sugar mixture]. The [plaster] mold must also be stripped very well from it [the sugar], because sugar is sour and brittle. Thus, do not cast anything with sugar which is not stripped easily from it, and which can not be neatly molded in two parts to open as will be needed. If you want to mold a grape, you must get it when it is very fresh; because if it is withered, it [the cast] will look the same. See to it, thus, that you make your molds in the natural season for each thing [fruit]. Grapes that one wants to cast in sugar are man-made, either with wax or earth or with grapes molded with melted wax, on some dish [plaste & chose pleine] in a way so that they are pressed closely together and easily stripped from it. And only a half [of the grapes] should be molded. Or, if you have some of those grapes called chauches or sauvignons which have well-pressed grapes, set half of the grapes in the dish of clay, and cast on the other half, and if any grape is not stripped from it, pluck it out. Note that a grape whose grapes are set apart and separated cannot mold well in either sugar or metal because the ends of the cluster are so fine. Similarly, if the grape is kept, that it cannot hold the bunched grapes. Therefore, a hollow should be cast, which you will not be capable of if the grape is not close together and without having them spread apart.</ab>
<note id=“p126r_c1a”>to cast and brittle, and [it] breaks when dry</note>
<note id=“p126r_c1b”>+ In order to mold pears and apples in sugar, do not cast. Rather, fill half of the mold, and then join the two [halves], and keep turning [it] until the sugar is stuck and cold. Do not mix anything in the mold except the reheated plaster, as you know.</note>
<note id=“p126r_c1c”>The mold needs to have been soaked in cold water for one full day and night and [the mold] must be damp when you cast in sugar.</note>
<note id=“p126r_c1d”>The sign that the syrup or the melted sugar has boiled enough in the water for casting fruits is when it makes threads when shaking it. And if it passes this point, it will not be good because it will make [it] damp. If the sugar attacks itself, throw a bit of amidin in the mold or rub it with an almond.</note>
Molding fruits and animals in sugar
BnF Ms. Fr. 640, fol. 126r.
The recipe on fol. 126r details the steps for casting fruits in a syrup of melted sugar, and refers to the properties of sugar and the transformations sugar undergoes during melting and hardening. Sugar, in its purest form, was very expensive and considered to be a luxury in the early modern period.1 It was employed as a medicine, preservative, binding/thickening agent, as well as to cast decorative objects for banquets.2 Medieval monks used sugar in the glassy state to impart gloss to their illuminated manuscripts,3 and Cennino Cennini included sugar and honey in recipes for mordants4 and gesso used under gold.5 This annotation explores a recipe for casting fruits in sugar, and the ensuing questions about the properties and behavior of sugar described in the recipe. The recipe describes sugar as both “fatty [gras]” and “sour and brittle [aigre & brusc]” – two seemingly opposing properties. In the context of the fat/lean dichotomy, fatty indicates unctuous and malleable, where sour and brittle suggest easily broken. Later in the recipe, the practitioner warns of sugar “attacking itself” [s’attaque], and if this happens, advises the reader to throw some starch into the mold or rub the mold with an almond.6 What might this mean? How is such a process to be recognized? Are there analogs to this seemingly violent quality in other materials? We sought to understand more about the multiple properties of sugar and its seemingly aggressive nature through reconstruction, as well as through comparison to other contemporaneous recipes. This annotation describes the experiential knowledge gained about the properties of sugar, the sometimes aggressive action of sugar, and concludes with an overall understanding of the agency of materials.
Multiple Properties of Sugar
The recipe suggests that because sugar is fatty [est gras], round things and muscles are cast well, while delicate things are not.7 In the fat /lean dichotomy, fatty is considered unctuous, dense, and malleable.8 However, later in the recipe, the author-practitioner warns that the mold must be easily stripped because sugar is sour and brittle [aigre & brusc]. A fat sand, with its ease and unctuousness, would seem to connote sweetness rather than sourness, and brittleness would seem to oppose the malleability of fat sand. Either sugar may possess opposing qualities at different times (or states), or these qualities do not oppose one another as much as previously thought. More research was necessary into the meanings of the words fat, sour, and brittle in the conception of materials of the early modern period. The following section of this annotation explores the concepts of both fat and sour in the context of sugar, as well as in the context of other materials mentioned in the manuscript and in the work of contemporaneous authors.
Sugar as Fat
Christ Forth, in his article “The Qualities of Fat: Bodies, History, and Materiality,” describes the conception of fat from antiquity through the early modern imagination. The descriptions of fat and lean have been used to signify qualities of soil dating back to antiquity, with fat soil being considered fertile, having the distinctive palpable qualities of oil or grease.9 Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle, utilized a taxonomy of fat and lean soil, which was shared by the Romans and indicated how it should be farmed.10 Virgil describes the tactile qualities of fat sand, as felt by the experienced farmer, for “never does it crumble when worked in the hands, but like pitch grows sticky in the fingers when held.”11 In addition to the unctuous and pliable qualities discerned from the hand, fat soil was theorized to exhibit a tendency to swell. Forth discusses a test to determine if soil is fat and fertile, as described in Columella’s writing On Agriculture. One could remove a handful of soil and then reinsert the soil into the hole: “If there is an excess as by some sort of leavening, it will be a sure sign that the soil is fat; if it is insufficient, that it is poor; if it makes an even fill, that it is ordinary.”12 On fol. 85v of the manuscript, the author-practitioner also refers to the swelling tendency of fatty sand – as “being fatty & even, [sand] puffs up & does not receive subtle impressions at all.”13 Sugar, as fatty, is also poor for receiving subtle impressions of metal, as the author-practitioner mentions in the recipe for sugar casting that “round things and large muscles are cast well but fine and delicate things [are cast with] difficulty.”14 Guided by the author-practitioner’s knowledge of properties of sugar, we chose to cast a pear and a bunch of grapes (fig 1). The “fat” quality of sugar that could be detected from the reconstruction was its unctuousness. Although the sugar did not noticeably swell (except when it was later poured), it did leave a greasy feeling on the fingers.
Sugar as Sour
Determining that sugar could be fatty and unctuous, we now turn to the seemingly opposite qualities of sour [aigre] and brittle [brusc]. In order to position these properties, we investigated further the meaning of aigre and brusc across materials in both the manuscript and in contemporaneous literature. According to Randal Cotgrave, aigre is defined as “ sharp, tart, biting, sower; also, brittle, or easily broken (with a hammer.)”15 Other mentions of aigre in the manuscript position it against doulx, which, according to Randal Cotgrave, is interchangeable with the word doux, meaning “sweet, delicious, dantie, pleasing, soft, pliant, smooth, tractable, gentle, mild, meeke, lovelie, kind, courteous, loving.”16 According to these definitions, doulx still would seem to be a property of a fat sand much more so than aigre.
However, a closer look at other instances of aigre in the manuscript reveals that the author-practitioner positions the term aigre against doulx to describe fusibility. On fol. 32v, the author-practitioner contrasts aigre and doulx metals, explaining that sour metals are easily melted, while sweet/soft metals are not. Describing the making of bells, he notes that “The softer great metals are, the harder they are to melt. Because the pewter used to make bells is fine and sour [aigre], it is easier to melt than lead,17 which is soft [doulx].”18 Biringuccio also uses the word sour to describe a metal’s fusibility. However, Biringuccio presents the opposite classification: sour metals are difficult to melt, or at least not easily extracted from their ore by smelting. He uses sour to describe a metal ore that is hard, dry, and not easily smelted:
With those ores that are sour and harsh with which you cannot proceed in the ordinary and direct way, try the extraordinary, mixing them, as I have said, with all those things that may induce them to easy smelting.19
…By itself [Ochre] is a material without any metal, although when it is used in smelting it helps to melt the harsh and sour ores of metals. 20
Although this contradiction potentially creates more doubt about what sour actually means, we can hypothesize from both references that the word sour pertains to a material’s fusibility.21
The author-practitioner also refers to sugar as easily melted. On fol. 31r, a recipe for coloring fruit cast from sugar, the practitioner cautions: “Don’t paint them with a brush like other color-moistened things, for the sugar would melt [fondroit]. But rub them with color with a finger.”22 This caution refers to the sugar after it has been cast. Thus, sugar, after being cast, could undergo a change of state: from fatty to fragile (brittle and easily melted). This fragility would explain why the mold must be stripped very carefully from the sugar. Although, in our reconstruction, we did not experience the easy melting of sugar after it had hardened, we did indeed find it to be brittle and fragile. When we released the cast sugar from the mold, a small chunk broke off in the process. Thus, sugar could have undergone a change of state through the process of melting and hardening, of which the author-practitioner was aware when he described sugar as both fatty and sour. Alternatively, the author-practitioner could have viewed the properties of fatty and sour as not mutually exclusive in a material, with sugar employing both properties throughout the entire process – being both unctuous to the touch as well as easily melted before and after being cast.
Sugar’s possession of multiple properties may be further illuminated by Medieval Islamic medicinal theories of sugar;23 specifically, a Medieval Islamic text written by Ibn al-Nafis, a physician considered the first to describe the pulmonary circulation of the blood. Born in 1213 in Damascus, al-Nafis wrote an encyclopedia titled Al-Shamil fi al-Tibb, in which he describes the medicinal effects of sugar on various pulmonary disorders. In the fourth section, describing sugar’s effects on the organs in the chest, he writes, “Sugar has atoms with a ‘gentle’ quality, and as it dissolves easily in liquids, it moves easily into the organs of the chest and is highly effective on them.”24 Later, speaking of sugar’s effects on the digestive organs, he states, “However, sugar may also damage the liver with its ‘hot’ quality because sugar, as mentioned above, can take on a bitter quality.”25 Here he presents sugar as composed of multiple, changing qualities. He explains the different qualities of sugar as pertaining to their elements – one atom of sugar is comprised of elements of water, gentle hot earth, and air. These elements interact during the hardening of boiled sugar: “When the water element’s properties arise, but there is little water present, the properties of the air element overtake those of the water element. When boiled sugar congeals, its water element properties naturally recede.”26 Here, Al-Nafis is essentially describing evaporation. Nevertheless, the Medieval Islamic view of sugar as comprised of multiple properties simultaneously sheds light on how sugar could exhibit both properties of “fatty” and “sour and bitter,” as described in Ms. Fr. 640. In the recipe for casting sugar, the author-practitioner might also see sugar as possessing multiple properties simultaneously, each emerging and receding as sugar changes state through the process of boiling and hardening.
Sugar melting
The manuscript lacks specific instructions on the ratio of sugar to water when making the syrup, but instead offers a qualitative sign for when the sugar is ready, stating in a note that “The sign that the syrup or the melted sugar has boiled enough in the water for casting fruits is when it makes threads when shaking it.”27 Other contemporary recipes to make syrup by boiling sugar and water are similarly vague. In Ouverture de Cuisine, written in France in 1604, Master Lancelot de Casteau explains to his master cook “To prepare sugar for casting images & fruits: mix melted sugar with rose water as much as you would like to have, & let it boil a long time until it becomes like syrup.”28 Other contemporaneous recipes sound similar, instructing the reader to dissolve as much sugar as is reasonable, thus suggesting that the making of sugar syrup was widely known. As in Ms. Fr. 640, most of the recipes include a sign to tell when the sugar is ready: the sugar should be boiled to a specific height in the pot.29 The recipe in Ms. Fr. 640 instructs the practitioner to continue boiling the sugar until it forms threads when shaking it [en le secouant].
This description raised some questions as to what is shaking and the appearance of the threads. Research into confectionary manuals illuminated the nature of the thread test. In The Art of Confectionary, Ivan Day describes an entire eighteenth-century system of reading the sugar’s behavior as it changes temperatures, based on the length of the thread it creates. The clear syrup is tested by dipping the tip of forefinger in the solution, pressing it onto the thumb, and then slowly separating the fingers. If the sugar was ready a short thread would form; if the sugar was boiled a little longer this thread would extend to a quarter as far as the forefinger and thumb could stretch, and the syrup was considered at “the great thread degree.”30 Luckily, a different recipe for casting sugar spares the fingers, and advises testing the degree of the syrup with a wooden spoon. In Sir Hugh Platt’s Delightes for ladies to adorne their persons, tables, closets, and distillatories with beauties, banquets, perfumes and waters, one boils the syrup “till by powring some out of a spoone, it will run at the last as fine as a haire.”31 Using the spoon method to test the syrup, we discovered this to be the case after about an hour of boiling the sugar. When removing the wooden spoon, the syrup would not drip from the spoon, but rather formed a long thread from the spoon into the pot. This thread signified the sugar syrup was ready to cast.
Sugar attacking / attaching to (itself)
After describing the sign for the syrup’s readiness, the recipe mentions the possibility of sugar attacking itself. The author-practitioner suggests, “If the sugar attacks itself [s’attaque], throw a bit of amydon in the mold or rub it with an almond.”32 This auto-aggressive quality of sugar raised still more questions. How can sugar attack itself? What does the process of sugar attacking itself look like? What qualities comprise attacking? Can we find instances of other materials attacking themselves or one another?
While researching the processes of sugar casting, we came upon many modern day recipes for making sugar candy that explained the process of melting sugar in water. We found that sugar is extremely hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs water very readily. When a solution is over saturated with sugar, the solution is considered extremely unstable, and has a high tendency to recrystallize.33 To remedy this sugar recrystallization, candy-making recipes suggest adding a bit of starch.34 Given that the author suggests amydon as a remedy for “sugar attacking itself,” and that amydon is an early modern term for starch,35 we hypothesized that “sugar attacking itself” was in fact sugar recrystallizing. Another source refers to early modern confectioners’ knowledge of the recrystallization of sugar while making rock candy. According to Kate Hopkins’ book, Sweet Tooth: The Bittersweet History of Candy, 16th century English confectioners were aware that “after boiling sugar to the point where you can make pulled sugar, also known as rock, its chemistry will result in its reverting to its crystalline state. Candy in this state will become brittle and fall apart, becoming more akin to its natural, granular state of sugar. This process is called ‘graining.’”36
During our reconstruction, we experienced this phenomenon. When finally reaching the point of sugar “making threads” when shaken (fig 2), we poured the sugar into one of two molds, both of which were still damp from being soaked in water all night. Soon after, while we were pouring the sugar into the second mold, it began to change suddenly and dramatically in texture. The sugar began to bubble so furiously that it sprang up over the sides of the mold and continued to spread (figs 3 and 4). The syrup turned from clear to white and thickened into a paste. Almost immediately after we poured the second mold, the remaining sugar in the pan ceased to be liquid, becoming a crystallized solid mass (fig 5). We assumed that this must be sugar “attacking itself,” but unfortunately, we did not have amydon on hand to remedy the “attack.” When the sugar cooled in the mold, it was relatively smooth and hard, so we decided to try to let the mold harden fully.
“Attacking” across materials:
It seems that sugar “attacking itself” would refer to a flash recrystallization, due to an oversaturation of sugar in the syrup, because of the loss of water during the boiling process. How, then, does this concept of attacking apply to other materials? There are a few other instances in the manuscript that mention a process of attacking with reference to other materials. On fol. 111r, a recipe for clay earth, the author-practitioner advises the clay to be “wet & well beat & kneaded as you know, is necessary for you to make the contour of your molds. But attend that it not be too soft. But likewise [attend that it be] sort of half dry such that it doesn’t attack [s’attaque] the hands at all, because otherwise it would attack your work.”37
The author-practitioner warns that the clay will attack the hands if it is too wet. During the reconstruction, we experienced this. While rolling the clay to make the contour of our molds, we felt that the clay we were using was too dry, so we opened an unopened block of clay, which was much more moist. We noticed when rolling it out that it stuck to the rolling pins, the counter, and our hands. In order to continue, we had to adopt a “pizza dough method,”38 which involved flattening out the clay by throwing it from hand to hand in the manner of shaping dough for a pizza crust. In this case, clay attacking the hands was simply the clay sticking to another material. The interpretation of attacking as sticking could also apply to the sugar, as recrystallization is essentially sugar molecules sticking to one another. However, this does not seem to be how the author-practitioner would have conceived of this process, as he uses different terminology in the manuscript to describe sticking.39
Further investigation into the meaning of the word “s’attaque” led us to Randle Cotgrave, and then back to the manuscript to find other instances of this word as used by the author-practitioner. “Attaquer” is defined by Cotgrave as “to assault, or set on; to incounter…any way to meddle with.”40 From our experience with the materials in the reconstruction, we found this to be a bit odd, as clay did not exactly assault our hands; however, it did bond somewhat aggressively. The word attaque is very similar to the word attacher, meaning to attach, which would more accurately describe our experience with the clay. According to Cotgrave’s dictionary, attacher means “to tye fasten, claspe, knit, annex…or clap upon a pot, wall, etc.”41 Even more interestingly, Cotgrave provides a definition for “s’attacher a,” meaning “to coape, deale, meddle, scuffle, grapple, quarrel, fight, brabble with.”42 This led us back to the manuscript, where we noticed many more instances of materials that “s’attaque a l’…” another material, specifically with “s’” in front of a form of attaque, followed by the pronoun “a”. On fol. 42, wax will attack/ attach itself to paper [sattaquera au papier]. On fol. 154r, lead, if fat, will grip and attack the knife or chisel. [A cause quil est gras & se grippe & attaque au costeau ou ciseau mouille le & tu le coupperas co{mm}e verre]. While it is unclear whether or not the author-practitioner was referring to the meanings of ‘attach’ or ‘attack’, Cotgrave’s definitions of both words imply an aggressive agency. The author-practitioner’s use of “s’attaque a” therefore hints at an early modern belief in the agency of materials.
Agency of sugar
The use of the word “attacking” personifies sugar and clay, giving the materials their own agency. To better understand this conception of materials as active, we can look to contemporaneous sources such as The Admirable Discourses of Bernard Palissy. In his chapter “Treatise on Metals and Alchemy,” Palissy presents a Socratic dialogue between the characters “Theory” and “Practice,” where Practice disproves Theory’s assumption that “metals are dead and insensible bodies.”43 Practice tells Theory a secret – that all metals were created with the same life force as plants:
Just as I have told you that the seeds or matters of all vegetative things were created at the very beginning of the world along with the earth: also I have told you that all mineral matters (which you call inert bodies) were also created like the vegetative ones, and exert themselves to produce seeds to generate others. Also, the mineral ones are not so inert that they do not generate and produce from one degree to another, more excellent things, and to make you understand it better, the mineral substances are intermixed and hidden among the waters, in the womb of the earth, just as every human and brute creature is conceived as water in its formation: and being intermixed among the waters, there is some supreme substance which attracts others of its nature to form itself.44
Palissy sees minerals as imbued with agency and a drive to reproduce, comparable to humans, brute creatures, and plants. This agency manifests in the attraction of like substances. Practice describes this force of attraction found after grinding a rock of fusible matter:
After having thus pulverized it (the rock), I mixed it with clay, and a few days later when I wished to work with this clay, I found that the rock had begun to gather together, even though it was so thoroughly mixed with the clay that no one could have found a piece of it as large as the little motes that are seen in the sun’s rays when they come in to a room…that must make you believe that the materials of metals gather together and congeal admirably, according to the admirable order and power that god has ordained for them.45
Palissy personifies the fusible rock as a material with its own agency, attracted to pieces of its like form, and able to find those pieces and combine with them. In Palissy’s dialogue, practice disproves the theory of metals as dead substances. The agency of materials can be seen through practice, and the attraction of like minerals to form larger structures signifies a much larger life force and purpose imbued in the materials.
In Ms. Fr. 640, Palissy’s view of material agency is reflected by the author-practitioner in his description of the sugar attacking/ attaching to itself. The use of the word attack implies an aggressive action or fight and potentially parallels Palissy’s personification of battling elements of water and fire, as “fire is the destroyer of water, and wherever it enters it must expel the water, or if it does not, the water will kill it.”46 During the reconstruction, practice served to further elucidate sugar’s agency, mostly during the sudden boiling over of the sugar, and the sugar’s subsequent, almost instantaneous change of state from a liquid to a crystallized mass. As the action of the sugar was so sudden, the aggressive reattachment of the sugar so fast and irreversible, the semantic lines between the words attacking and attaching were significantly blurred. The recrystallization was both an attachment and an attack. Witnessing sugar’s aggressive recrystallization shed light on why the author-practitioner used the term “attacking” to describe this action of the sugar. Sugar seemed to be acting of its own volition, perhaps imbued with the life force that Palissy describes.47
Through the reconstruction, we developed a new understanding of the agency of materials, as we experienced the affordances and limitations of sugar. We can now shift from Palissy’s early modern idea of material agency to present day theory of material affordance. Material agency or affordance, as Anne-Sophie Lehmann describes it, involves “the restriction or encouragement of certain actions that result from the specific properties of the material.”48 During the reconstruction, the properties in sugar restricted and encouraged certain actions. Because sugar is fat, and does not take delicate impressions well, we were encouraged to mold round objects. As sugar is also brittle, we were encouraged to mold grapes in bunches positioned close together. Because of its material properties, sugar affected the subject matter of the object to be cast.
Describing other evidence of material agency, Lehmann states, “Material agency also shapes the tools used in the process of making so that they can exploit the potential as well as cope with the constraint of a material.”49 The process of tool shaping occurred during the reconstruction, as we had to experiment with various methods of opening the molds and releasing the grapes. We ended up using a chisel to open the molds and a blowtorch to melt the wax which had coated the grapes. As Lehmann also points out, in the act of making, action “is not simply exerted by the actor on the material,”50 but moves back and forth between the two. This type of material agency implies an action exerted by the material that instigates a reaction in the maker. This type of material agency correlates most directly with Palissy’s views that materials are imbued with a life force, and was seen when sugar attacked itself.
This act of recrystallization seemed to be initiated by the sugar and instigated a reaction in the practitioner – to throw starch into the mold. In the manuscript, whereas the instances of sticky or sticking are slightly passive, the instances of attacking describe an action exerted by the material and initiating a reaction from the experimenter. These instances of attacking can be treated as either obstructive or constructive, and the practitioner can either attempt to ward against them or harness them. Either way, the final product of making is a result of the interaction between material and maker.
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Mukherjee, Ayesha. Penury Into Plenty: Dearth and the Making of Knowledge in Early Modern England. New York: Routledge, 2014.
Palissy, Bernard. The Admirable Discourses of Bernard Palissy [1580], ed. and trans. Aurèle La Roque. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1957.
Platt, Sir Hugh. “The Arte Of Preserving Conserving, Candying.” Delights for Ladies: To Adorne Their Persons, Tables, Closets, and Distillatories with Beauties, Banquets, Perfumes, and Waters. Reade, Practise, and Censure. London: Humfrey Lownes, 1609.
Renou, Jean de. A medicinal Dispensatory: Containing the Whole Body of Physick. London: J. Streater, and J. Cottrel, 1657.
Sato, Tsugitake. Sugar in the Social Life of Medieval Islam. Leiden: Brill Publishing, 2014.
Virgil. Virgil I: Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid I–VI. translated by H Rushton Fairclough Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Sugar-Glass/
http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/candy/sugar.html
http://resources.amdigital.co.uk.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/gc/price/index.html?p=pro
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/plants-fungi/seeds-of-trade/page.dsml?section=crops&page=spread&ref=sugar_cane
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/melting-points-mixtures-metals-d_1269.html
1 The price of sugar in England in 1582-93 was between 17.10 and 19.10 pence per pound. Ayesha Mukherjee, Penury Into Plenty: Dearth and the Making of Knowledge in Early Modern England (New York: Routledge, 2014), 158. In 1583, I pound of sugar would trade for almost 15 grams of silver. http://resources.amdigital.co.uk.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/gc/price/index.html?p=pro
[accessed 5/20/2015] In 1500 in Madiera (the world’s largest sugar exporter at the
time, 100 lbs of sugar was worth one ounce of gold. Now, two tons of sugar is worth one ounce
of gold, making sugar forty-five times cheaper today than in 1500.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/plants-fungi/seeds-of-trade/page.dsml?section=crops&page=spread&ref=sugar_cane [Accessed 5/20/2015].
2 “Sugar abates acrity, retunds acidity, gratifies austerity, and makes all vapours more suave.
Whence not onely Confectioneres, but Bakers and Cooks frequently use Sugar, for no delicate
dish comes on the Table that doth not participate of Sugar: for if Water, Wine Fruits, Flesh, Fish, or other Edibles or Potables be nauseated, the mixture of a little Sugar will make them current. All sugar is moderately hot, conducible to the roughnefs of the tongue, asperity in the breath, and to the cough; it moves spittle, but hurts the teach for it effects nigritude, mobility and rubiginy in
them.“ Jean de Renou: A Medicinal Dispensatory: Containing the Whole Body of Physick
(London: J. Streater, and J. Cottrel, 1657), 56.
3 Dara Goldstein, The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2015), 670.
4 In a recipe for mordant for illuminated manuscripts, Cennino Cennini calls for a mordant made of
fine gypsum, ceruse and sugar of Candia, that is ordinary pure white sugar. Henry Middleton,
Illuminated Manuscripts in Classical and Medieval Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press,1892), 237.
5 “If you want to put on any diadem or field of burnished gold, to bring you honour and fair name,
take gesso sottile (slaked plaster of Paris) and a little Armenian bole, ground together very finely
with a morsel of sugar. Then with the usual size, and a very very little white of egg mixed with
biaca, go thinly twice over, where you want to put on the gold.” Cennino Cennini. Il Libro d’el Arte, (London: George Allin and Unwin, 1122), 146. Interestingly, honey and sugar are constantly ingredients in the gesso used under gold in the but not otherwise.
6 Si le sucre s’attaque, il fault y gecter un peu d’amydon dans le moule
ou le frotter avecq une amande.
7 Le sucre est gras, et d’iceluy on gecte bien choses rondes
& gros muscles, mays malaisem[{ent}] choses subtiles & delicates
8 For a discussion of fat/lean dichotomy, refer to: Yijun Wang, Fol. 89r, “Powder of Ox Bone and
Rock Salt,” Fall 2014.
9 Chris Forth, “The Qualities of Fat: Body, History, and Materiality,” Journal of Material Culture 18
(2013) 141.
10 Forth, “Qualities of Fat,” 140
11 Virgil, Virgil I: Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid I–VI, trans. H Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1978), 132–133.
12 Columella, On Agriculture, trans. H Boyd. (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1968), 58.
13 Ains estant gras & uny
il soufle & ne reçoit point les traicts subtils
14 Le sucre est gras, et d’iceluy on gecte bien choses rondes
& gros muscles, mays malaisem[{ent}] choses subtiles & delicates.
15 Randal Cotgrave. A Dictionary of French and English Tongues, (London: Adam Islip, 1611), 68.
16 Randal Cotgrave. A Dictionary of French and English Tongues, 68.
17 The melting point of lead is 621 degrees fahrenheit, whereas tin (pewter being an alloy comprised
of 80-90% tin) has a lower melting point of 450 degrees fahrenheit.
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/melting-points-mixtures-metals-d_1269.html [accessed
5/20/2015]
18 Car tant plus les
grands metaulx sont doulx, tant plus ilz sont difficiles à fondre.
L’estain de cloche, qui est estaim fin et qui est aigre, est plus
aysé à fondre que le plomb, qui est doulx.
19 Vannoccio Biringuccio, Pirotechnia. Translated by Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi
(Dover Publications, Inc.: New York, 1990), 143.
20 Biringuccio, Pirotechnia, 116.
21 Biringuccio also indirectly refers to sugar’s fusibility, when he describes natural borax as “a clear
fusible stone of a form like that of sugar candy or rock salt.” Biringuccio, Pirotechnia, 117.
22 On ne les paint pas au pinceau co{mm}e les aultres choses
de couleur destrempée, pource que le sucre se fondroit.
Mays on les frotte de couleur avecq le doigt.
23 “Medieval European physicians learnt the medicinal uses of the material from the Arabs and Byzantine Greeks. One Middle Eastern remedy for rheums and fevers, enthusiastically adopted by the cold-prone inhabitants of Northern Europe, were little twisted sticks of pulled sugar called in Arabic al fänäd or al pänäd. These became known in England as alphenics, or more commonly as penidia, penids, pennet or pan sugar. They were the precursors of barley sugar and our modern cough sweets. In 1390, the Earl of Derby paid ‘two shillings for two pounds of penydes.’ A medicinal confect called diapenidion, in which penids were ground to a powder with pinenuts, almonds, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, liquorice and starch, was an early Arab pectoral medicine which was still being prescribed in 17th century England ‘for such as those who have Coughs, Ulcers and Consumptions of the Lungs’.” Ivan Day, “The Art of Confectionery.” The Pleasures of the Table (London: Philip Wilson, 2001), 4.
24 Tsugitake Sato. Sugar in the Social Life of Medieval Islam, (Leiden: Brill Publishing, 2014), 103.
25 Sato, Sugar in the Social Life of Medieval Islam, 104.
26 ibid 104.
27 le cirop ou
sucre fondu en
eau est assés
cuit pour
gecter fruicts,
c’est quand il
faict des filets
en le secouant.
28 Master Lancelot de Casteau. Ouverture de Cuisine. (Leonard Steel: Liege, 1604).
29 Anon. 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. Also
diuers soueraigne medicines and salues, for sundry diseases. (London; F. Kingston, 1608), 42.
30 Ivan Day. “The Art of Confectionary,” 14.
31 Platt, Hugh. The Arte Of Preserving Conserving, Candying. Delights for Ladies: To Adorne Their
Persons, Tables, Closets, and Distillatories with Beauties, Banquets, Perfumes, and Waters.
Reade, Practise, and Censure. (London: Humfrey Lownes, 1609), 14.
32 Si le sucre s’attaque, il fault y gecter un peu d’amydon dans le moule
ou le frotter avecq une amande.
33 http://www.instructables.com/id/Sugar-Glass [accessed March 13, 2015]
34 http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/candy/sugar.html [accessed March 13, 2015]
35 Randle Cotgrave defined “amydon” as “Fine wheat flower steeped in water, then strained, and let
stand untill it settle at the bottome; then drained of the water, and dried at the Sunne; used for
bread, or in brothes it is very nourrishing.” Cotgrave, A Dictionarie of the French and English
Tongues, 38.
36 Hopkins does not provide an early modern reference to this statement. She only provides a
reference to the French cook, J Gilliers. In his Le Cannamaliste Francaise, published in 1751, he
includes a recipe for “greasing,” which involves adding acid in order to prevent sugar from
“graining.” Kate Hopkins, Sweet Tooth: the Bittersweet History of Candy (London: Macmillan
Press, 2012), 115.
37 quelle ne s attaque point aulx mains pour ce que autrem{ent} elle sattaqueroit a la besoigne.
38 We subsequently learned that over-wet clay must be kneaded (wedged) on an absorbent surface,
such as terracotta or wood to improve its ease of handling.
39 The author practitioner differentiates the words “attacking [attaquer]” and “sticking/ sticky
[s’arraper/ gluante]” in the manuscript. Where as in fol. 16r, the author practitioner describes iron
attacking another metal: “And when the charcoal is almost dying at the furnace’s level, you will be
able to pour in the moulds and iron or metal shells, which is even better for one metal will attack
[s’attaque a] the other. And the inside of the mold has to be covered with soaked ashes, so it
doesn’t stick [s’arrape] in it. [Tu pourras couler dans des moules & coquilles de fer ou de metail
qui est encores meilleur pourceque un fer sattaque a laultre Et fault que le dedans des moules
soient bien cendres avecq de la cendre destrempee affin quil ne sarrape pas.] There appears to
be a distinction between attacking and sticking to, or getting trapped in, the mold. He also
describes a sulphur steam as “sticky steam [vapeur gluante]” in fol 13r.
40 Randal Cotgrave, A Dictionary of French and English Tongues, 68.
41 ibid., 68.
42 Ibid., 68.
43 Bernard Palissy, The Admirable Discourses of Bernard Palissy ed. and trans. Aurèle La Roque,
(University of Illinois Press: Urbana, 1957), 92.
44 Palissy, Admirable Discourses, 92.
45 ibid, 99.
46 ibid, 85. Biringuccio also presents this battling of elements when he describes “all hot things are
direct enemies of everything cold and moist.” Biringuccio, Pyrotechnica, 250.
47 Biringuccio also uses many aggressive adjectives to describe the actions of the materials, imbuing these materials (and elements) with agency. “When [the bronze] is to enter the mould cavity, it encounters the air theirin which would necessarily find itself entrapped and would either refuse entrance to the bronze or break the mould in order to escape. Biringuccio, Pyrotechnia, 249.
48 Anne-Sophie Lehmann, “Kneading, Wedging, Dragging. How Motions, Tools, and Materials Make Art.” in Barbara Baert and Trees de Mits (eds), Folded Stones, (Acco: Leuven, 2009), 44.
49 Lehmann, “Kneading, Wedging, Dragging,” 45.
50 ibid, 45.