Okay, coolest thing. I was reading PotO, again, and I came across a sentence I hadn’t really noticed before.
“...they amused themselves by dining on three biscuits, two glasses of port and a bunch of violets.”
So, I’m like: were they just munching on some flowers? what’s up with that?
So, I did a ton of random, goose chasing research, and found out what that most likely meant.
This is from a document I found that explains it:
“The above process created what were known as smooth, pearl, or plain round comfits. If the syrup was boiled to what Platt called a higher decoction, the comfits were rough in texture and were known as ragged, or crisp comfits. Although sugar coated caraway, coriander, anise and fennel seeds were the most popular, many other items were made into comfits. Small slivers of cinnamon and candied orange were made into “long comfits” to adorn marchpanes and printed marmalades. In a still life painting by Clara Peeters (Charles Roelofsz Gallery, Amsterdam) small coloured seed comfits adorn a marchpane on a silver charger, while some long comfits spill from a platter of biscuits and wafers.(see plate ) Almond comfits, identical to modern sugared almonds (still known in Italy as confetti), were coated in the balancing pan, as were tiny biscuits and pellets of spiced breadcrumbs.30 Muskadines, or kissing comfits for sweetening the breath were made in the 16th and 17th century by scenting sugar paste with musk, rosewater and orris powder and cutting them into diamond shaped tablets with a pastry jagger. Although these were not made in the balancing pan and were really a type of lozenge, or floral cachou, the early 19th century confectioner Jarrin describes very similar gum-paste comfits which were flavoured with “coffee, chocolate, bergamotte, vanilla, &c ... cut with tools of different forms, as lozenges, hearts, clubs, &c and are only to be put into the balance pan to be finished smooth” with three coatings of syrup to create a smooth glazed finish.31″
http://www.historicfood.com/The%20Art%20of%20Confectionery.pdf
So, basically, confectioners of the time were doing a ton of experimenting and a newly popular thing was to basically caramelize nuts and other things inside a sugary, syrup, kind of thing that would often have stuff like rosewater added to make it make your breath smell nice. This included violets. The nuts or whatever would be coated in the syrup, dried, coated, dried, etc, until they were basically candies that smelled good. They were created through a process kind of like pearls do, layer over layer.
I am so obsessively nerdy about this. I think this is the most interesting thing I have researched in the past month. I absolutely love learning random things that will have no purpose in my life from this point on.
Carry on with your day.