2020 Essays

Molding Fruits and Animals in Sugar

Durkin, Celia; Smith, Pamela H.

A single recipe in Ms. Fr. 640, on fol. 126r, gives instructions for making sugar casts of fresh fruits. Such cast sugar sculpture was a common sight at lavish banquets held in sixteenth-century European courts and cities. The author-practitioner provides practical instruction and tips for making this delicacy, but also frames his instructions within a set of properties that sugar exhibits as it changes from solid to liquid and back to solid. According to the author-practitioner, in its nature, sugar is by turns fatty, brittle, and sour. This essay explains the meaning of these properties within the author-practitioner’s material imaginary, and our reconstruction clarifies how this material imaginary provided a coherent supporting framework for the practical actions described in the recipe.