13th Century Lemon Syrup
A PDF of this post can be found on my Academia page.
1) Introduction:
This is a revisit of a syrup that I have made many times. It is based on a recipe from the Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook. Oddly enough, the Cookbook doesn’t give any suggestions for using this syrup. Nor is this syrup mentioned anywhere else in the cookbook, but you most certainly can dilute it in hot or cold water and make lemonade. I have poured this over pound cake (poke some holes in the top of the cake, first), and it is a good glaze to apply on grilled chicken, or just spooned into hot tea.
This particular project, and documentation, was started the week before War Practice, which was not an impossible task as no fermentation was required. (Post War Practice note: I brought everything I needed for the competition, except for the syrup.)
2) Technical documentation of the project for people who don’t like reading 100 pages before finding the ingredient list.
2 pounds of lemons.
1/2 pound of sugar, muscovado was used for this project but any sugar can be used.
1 pint of water
Zest all of the lemons before juicing them into a measuring cup. Add in enough water to make sure that the liquid is a total of one cup in volume. Combine with the sugar and zest in a pot and bring to a boil. Then reduce the heat to a simmer and let it cook down for about an hour, stirring often. Just a warning: molten sugar is kitchen napalm; do not let it over heat as it will make a big mess. Also, do not continue to boil the liquid unless you wish to make lemon candy.
Reduce the liquid by half, then turn off the heat. Let cool before straining out the zest and moving the liquid to a container.
13th Century Lemon Syrup
An attractive beverage of the modern era is lemonade; sweet and tart, served ice cold, quenches one’s thirst on the hottest of days. But, lemonade has a history that dates back centuries and is easy to make. The Moorish cookbook, “The Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook”, list many syrups (or sharabs] that were used as ingredients for other dishes and sauces, but were also intended to be mixed with water and served as drinks. This project is based on the following recipe:
Syrup of Lemon
Take lemon, after peeling off the skin, press it [to a pulp] and take a ratl of juice, and add as much of sugar. Cook it until it takes the form of a syrup. Its advantages are for the heat of bile; it cuts the thirst and binds the bowels.
[1]
===============
The redaction from Rowan Houndskeeper
SYRUP OF LEMON = LEMONADE
Redaction:
2 c lemon juice (either purchased or fresh squeezed from ~12 large lemons)
2 c sugar
2 c water
Boil sugar, lemon juice, and water together in an adequately sized pot for ~15 minutes to obtain a thin syrup. This syrup should be diluted 1:2 with cold water to form lemonade. The original recipe doesn’t mention if this drink is served hot or cold. Served undiluted as a warm syrup it is actually quite tasty as a hot, refreshing alternative to herbal teas. Dilute it as directed above and you have period lemonade. Although dilution is not mentioned in the original recipe, most of the other herb or fruit syrup drinks in the same source do mention diluting with water. Therefore this is a reasonable interpretation of the original recipe. If there is any question about how “modern” this recipe is - a recipe nearly identical to the original period one can be found in The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook (1989) on p. 470.
===============
My method for this project:
The original recipe called for a ratl of lemon juice and the same amount of sugar. A ratl is between 400g and 470g depending on the source.
[2] Martin Levey tells us that one ratl is equivalent to 406.25g, with the following caveat: “The weights mentioned in the text are those of ninth-century Baghdad....Very little is known of the exact weights of the units in most periods and most areas of the medieval Islamic world. The above values must, therefore, be considered uncertain subject to further research.”
[3] The actual amount does not matter; as long as the juice and the sugar are of equal weights.
2 pounds of lemons.
1/2 pound of muscovado sugar.
1 pint water
I zested
[4] the lemons, cut them in half and squeezed the juice from them. This gave me just under 1 cup of lemon juice. I topped off the measuring cup with extra water bringing up the volume to 1 cup, or a half a pint. Since a pint’s a pound the world round,
[5] we can maintain the equal weight ratio of the original recipe. I used whatever brand of lemons I found at my local grocery store; I did not have a choice between varieties or region, since I started this project at the beginning of May. I moved the zest and juice into a sauce pot and added the sugar.
I brought the mixture up to a boil to dissolve all of the sugar, then I dropped the heat down to a simmer and let the mixture reduce down by half, which took about 45 minutes. Once the mixture had reduced, I took the pot off of the heat and let it cool down.
Once cool, I strained the zest out and moved the syrup to a container and parked in the ‘fridge.
Water
I used tap water run through a Pur filter. The water from my tap is good, but I wanted to make sure that no funky flavors made their way into my syrup.
Sugar
I used muscovado, or un-refined sugar, because I feel that it is very close to the common sugar that was used in the time period.
[6] Muscovado sugar, unlike the hard cones of piloncillo sugar, is still soft and scoopable. This means that I can easily measure out the amount of sugar that I need without resorting to a box grater. Period inventories and shopping lists mention sugar loaves as well as references to “sugre blanche”, “white sugar” or “candy sugar”. Which indicates that there was a difference between the varieties of sugar. Furthermore, The Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook uses the word “sugar” in most of its recipes but calls for other varieties of sugar in some: “good white sugar”,
[7] “lump white sugar”,
[8] “white sugar”,
[9] “pounded white sugar”,
[10] “white manna of sugarcane”
[11] and “Sulaimani sugar”
[12] Balducci Pegolotti, an early 14th century Floretine trader, listed various types of sugar in his hand book...five kinds of loaf sugar, in order of quality: mucchera, cafetino, bambillonia, musciatto and dommaschino. The colour and cost of the loaves varied widely. A sugar loaf looks a little like a bomb. [13]
The Arabic sources from medieval times describe raw sugar as red (sukkar ahmar) rather than brown. A cone-shaped loaf of sugar, also called an ubluj, typically had a white upper section and a red or dark lower point. Tricks...were clearly employed by the sugar merchants to hide the red part, and present the illusion of an entire white cone.[14]
We expect our sugar to be white, uniform crystals, readily available at a moment’s notice. And while the market is offering organic, “unrefined” sugar (turbinado, cane crystals, raw sugar) it is still processed and packaged to be easily scooped and measured.
Sugar itself was exported in solid conical loaves of various sizes, since a cone-shaped mould was in standard use wherever sugar was refined. We tend to think of sugar as a pure, white and unvarying substance, but the difficulty and expense of refining meant that until the mid 19th century there were many more grades of sugar than today, and that a batch or loaf of sugar was by no means always white - and if it looked white on the outside, it may have been brown within. [15]
Muscovado
[16] is un-refined, crystallized, sugar-cane juice, loaded with molasses. This is not the same as modern brown sugar which is processed, refined, white-sugar mixed with molasses; processed so that it can be easily spooned out.
Lemons
I purchased a bag of small lemons from my local store. The bag did not list a country of origin, but each lemon had a sticker labeled: Sunkist - 4033 - USA. I will assume that they are the Mayer variety grown in Florida.
[17] I am disappointed that Wegman’s did not list more information on the bag, like they do for grapes and other bagged produce. I do not know what variety of lemons would have been available in 13th Century Spain, but it certainly wasn’t the Meyer variety, which was “invented” in 1908 by cultivator Frank Meyer who bred them from Chinese varieties he had imported.
[18] I do not know what varieties of lemons would have existed in the 13th Century, but it really doesn’t matter; I was only able to secure one variety of lemon and did not have the time to hunt down other varieties. But, what do we know about lemons from the time period of the Cookbook? Did the author only know of one variety of lemon? Were they new to the region? Was this recipe a novel one or would the readers have been familiar with lemons?
According to Dr. Dafna Langgut, of the Tel Aviv University, lemons, sour oranges, limes and pomelos were introduced to the West by Muslim traders via Sicily and the Iberian Peninsula in the 10th century AD. “It is clear that Muslim traders played a crucial role in the dispersal of cultivated citrus in Northern Africa and Southern Europe,” Dr. Langgut said. “It’s also evident because the common names of many of the citrus types were derived from Arabic, following an earlier diversification in Southeast Asia. Muslims controlled extensive territory and commerce routes from India to the Mediterranean.”
[19] In 13th century Arabo-Andalusian cookery, added sourness in dishes was achieved by the use of sour apples, citron or pomegranates, in addition to that of vinegar and verjuice. In Christian Europe, recipes with lemon juice, of Arabic origin, were called Limonia (or limonea in the Sent Sovi) and they are found in the Liber de Coquina, the Anonimo Toscano, the Anonimo Veneziano and the Modus. Recipes with pomegranate were called Romania (Liber de Coquina, Anonimo Toscano, Modus). The Libre del Coch also uses lemon and orange juice for sauces. Candied lemon was used in Arabo-Andalusian cookery, and was found again at the end of the 16th century in Lancelot de Casteau. The Viandier de Taillevent (printed edition) has a recipe for blancmange with pomegranates. .. Initially citrus fruits were valued and cultivated for their healing and medicinal properties, their intense fragrance, and their ornamental flowers. In the 4th century BC, the citron was recorded as being cultivated in Persia and the Middle East, while the first lemons appeared in Rome around the 1st century AD (the citron being known during ancient Roman times as the Persian Pomo). Although, it’s known that lemons were grown at Pompeii earlier, as they feature in one of its famous wall frescoes dating to 79 BC. However, the first of the truly sweet citrus – oranges, only arrived in Italy from China in the mid-17th century.[20]
It would appear that the Andalusians would had had three centuries to cultivate and experiment with lemons, and while the Meyers that I used might have been sweeter than what was commonly available, I think that they would have been recognized as lemons and used in the same fashion as the locally grown varieties.
Stove and pot.
As to the cooking hardware, I used my electric stove top, a one quart stainless steel pot and a silicone slotted spoon. In the 13th Century, cooks would have used a ceramic, copper, or lead pot to cook in and would have placed the pot into hot coals, over a fire or on a hearth next to a fire. I prefer to cook using electricity because I can control it completely. And I don’t like open fire in my house. For this beverage I don’t think there would be any difference between fire and electricity other than there would be no smoke, ash, or particulate matter in my beverage, where, depending on the ventilation, there might be if I did this outside on my grill. Also, I used the pot that I had; stainless steel. The metal is non-reactive, but so is ceramic. Copper ions can leach out into acidic solutions and cause copperiedus
[21] over time and I do not have to explain why using lead cookware is a bad thing. The 13th Century cooks did not have access to silicone, but I used a high-heat spatula because it is non-reactive and much easier to clean than wood. This is an occasion where the use of modern cookware is preferred to period cookware: safer to use; easier to clean; and doesn’t add or take away anything good that period equipment would possess.
Procedure.
Before I started, I gathered my hardware and cleaned everything. Then I scrubbed the edible wax from the lemons using running water and a green scrubby-pad.
[22] I used a modern “ribbon” style zester instead of a micro plane as I wanted to be able to strain out all of the zest. I could have used a knife, which is what would have been done before the invention of zesting tools, but the lemons were slippery and I did not want to slice the rinds and then scrape the pith from them: all I wanted was the zest.... And all of my fingers intact. I had also intended to save the zest and hope that it turned into candied lemon peel, which I could use for a future project. With the two pounds on lemon, I ended up with a bit under 1 cup of very loosely packed zest, which turned into about two tablespoons at the end of the project.
Once I had zested all of the lemons, I sliced them in half and juiced them by hand. I didn’t worry about the seeds as I was going to pour the juice through a stainer. The amount of juice I got from the lemons was just under one cup. I had planned for a full pint of juice to go with the full pound of sugar, but I decided to reduce my project’s scope: I felt that working with a cup of juice and of sugar was more manageable than running out to the store and buying another two pounds of lemons.
I weighed out one half pound of sugar using a kitchen scale and added it to my pot, along with the zest and the juice, poured through a strainer, as mentioned before. I brought the mixture to a boil and held it there until the sugar dissolved. Then I reduced the heat to a quiet simmer and cooked the mixture until volume reduced down to a thin syrup. I used the “back of the spoon” test. This reduction took about 45 minutes, with me adjusting the heat and stirring often. I strained the syrup through a metal sieve, pouring clean water over the zest to get most of the syrup, and poured the syrup into a bottle to cool. I ended up with 350ml
[23] of syrup which was a bit thinner than what I was working for, but I did not want to cook the syrup any further and risk burning the sugar. What I had would be fine for a one week project.
While the recipe does not call for the syrup to be diluted, as I quoted from Rowan Houndskeeper, other recipes in the same section of the text do call for dilution with water: “The drink is made with two ûqiyas of syrup to three ûqiyas of hot water”;
[24] “The drink is an ûqiya with two of hot water”;
[25] “Drink an ûqiya and a half of this with three of water”.
[26] I know from experience with this recipe, and other syrups from the Cookbook that the hot syrup is rather harsh and that it would need to cool down, overnight, to let the sweet and sour flavors meld.
Observations:
The recipe does not indicate whether to drink this hot or cold. It is very refreshing when cold, but I did sample it while it was still hot. At temperature, the smell and taste of lemons is almost over powering; it reminded me of a liquid cough drop, which was telling as, when I first made this beverage, many years ago, I did have a scratchy throat, due to the weather. The hot syrup did ease my throat pain almost immediately. This should not be surprising as hot lemon tea and honey is still recommended for sore throats, and the 1918 edition of The Dispensatory of the United States of America does list a very similar recipe for “syrup of lemon”.
[27] “Lemon Peel, in thin slices or grated, 20 grammes; Alcohol (90 per cent.), a sufficient quantity; Lemon Juice, 500 millilitres; Refined Sugar, 760 grammes. Macerate the Lemon Peel in thirty millilitres of the Alcohol for seven days; press; filter; add sufficient of the Alcohol to produce forty millilitres. In the Lemon Juice, clarified by subsidence or filtration, dissolve the Refined Sugar by the aid of gentle heat; cool; add the forty millilitres of alcoholic liquid; mix.” Br.[28]
Due to the molasses in the sugar, lemonade made from this syrup is much darker than modern lemonade, which is made from refined sugar, it also, I feel, has a much richer flavor. I also feel that this syrup can be used to cover a cake or over chicken, as a marinade, although the cookbook does not mention this syrup as an ingredient for other recipes. Further experimentation is necessary.
Due to the nature of these syrups, the actual ratio of syrup to water are user dependant. This syrup is not like a modern lemonade mix, which is formulated to be pleasant to a majority of pallets. The strong lemon and molasses flavors can be over powering if not diluted enough. My recommendation is to use a little of the syrup and dilute with water, taste, and then add more syrup or water as needed. Perhaps start with one quarter teaspoon of syrup to a full cup of water.
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[1] Andalusian Cookbook, p18
[2] Perry and Serjeant/Bidwell, respectively
[3] The Medical Formulary, or Aqrabadhin of Al-kindi, p25
[4] Using a modern zesting tool, I did not want to risk using a knife.
[5] At least it is here on planet Earth.
[6] 13th century Spain.
[7] Recipe for Zrbja
[8] Making of Elegant Isfunja
[9] Recipe for Jullbiyya, a Dish with Julep
[10] White Fldhaja With Milk
[11] Syrup of Sandalwood
[12] Another Like It, a Summer Dish that Cools the Body
[13] Richardson, p101-2
[14] Sato, p69
[15] Richardson, p101
[16] Muscovado is derived from a corruption of Portuguese “açúcar mascavado” (unrefined sugar) or the Spanish “mascabado” - (sugar) of lowest quality: EOD.
[17] Based on Sunkist’s website, and from reports of bad harvests in Texas and California.
[18] University of Florida
[19] ScienceDaily, quoting Dafna Langgut. The Citrus Route Revealed: From Southeast Asia into the Mediterranean. HortScience, 2017; 52 (6): 814 DOI: 10.21273/HORTSCI11023-16
[20] GardenhistoryGirl
[21] Copper toxicity
[22] Also not found in period, but our 13th Century cooks didn’t have to deal with edible wax and fruit stickers.
[23] Yes, I’m throwing in a metric measurement. I took the picture with the metric gauge facing me.
[24] p13,The Little Drink of Roots: Way of Making It
[25] p13, Syrup of Aloe Wood: Way of Making It
[26] p16, Syrup of Dried Roses
[27] Only mixed with alcohol.
[28] p147
