To Make Callishones – Coriander-Scented Marchpane Candies (John Murrell, 1621)Callishones drying on the stovetop — fragrant marchpane sweets gilded with coriander and gold dust.
Updated: October 30, 2025 | Originally Published: 9/17/2015
To Make Callishones – Coriander-Scented Marchpane Candies
This elegant sweetmeat comes from John Murrell’sA Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen (1621), a household guide filled with refined banqueting recipes — comfits, marchpanes, fruit pastes, and perfumed lozenges meant to close an Elizabethan feast. Callishones (or calysons) were pressed from almond paste and spiced with coriander and musk, then dried into aromatic lozenges.
The Elizabethan Banqueting Course
In the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, a banqueting course was a distinct final act of a feast — a separate table laden with sugarwork, spiced wines, candied fruits, comfits, and perfumed pastes. These dishes were not meant to fill the stomach but to delight the senses and demonstrate refinement.
The fashion for such displays began in the Tudor court and reached its height under Elizabeth I, when sugar was imported from Madeira, the Azores, and later the Caribbean. Wealthy hosts commissioned sugar plate sculptures and marchpane castles, while smaller households imitated them with printed or molded sweets like callishones. The very word “banquet” came to mean not a meal, but a ceremonial table of confections.
Surviving accounts from royal and noble households show that banqueting rooms were sometimes separate from dining halls — built atop towers or in garden pavilions — so that guests could “walk to the banquet” after dinner and admire both the view and the artistry of the table.
Context. This post expands on Gervase Markham’s early-17th-century candying method from The English Huswife (1623), part of his famous “banqueting-stuffe”—the delicate sugarwork served at the end of elite meals. Candying preserved seasonal produce for winter and created jewel-like sweets for feast courses and subtleties. Below you’ll find Markham’s original text and a carefully tested modern method I use for SCA feast work.
Dry Peaches and Red Quince Paste served at Curia Regis (9/10/2017)
To Dry Peaches – 17th-Century Fruit Paste (Hannah Wolley, 1670)
Originally published 9/16/17. Updated 9/19/2025.
Golden peach pastes adapted from Hannah Wolley’s Queen-Like Closet (1670): jewel-bright confections, oven or dehydrator friendly, ideal for SCA feasts.
This sweet preserve comes from The Queen-Like Closet (1670), a cookbook and household guide by Hannah Wolley. While late for the SCA timeline, her preserving methods represent skills widely practiced in the 16th and 17th centuries—perfectly in line with late-period banquet fare.
About Hannah Wolley
Hannah Wolley (1622–c.1674) was among the first Englishwomen to make a career from writing. She was the first to publish cookery books under her own name, the first to openly market them to servants and housewives as well as the gentry, and one of the earliest women in England to claim authorship professionally. Her career began with The Ladies Directory (1661) and The Cook’s Guide (1664), before culminating in The Queen-Like Closet (1670). The latter went through multiple editions, was translated into German, and became her best-known work. She blended recipes for food, preserves, and medicines, establishing herself as the “Martha Stewart” of her day.
What Kind of Peaches?
In 17th-century England, peaches were a luxury fruit, grown in walled gardens or imported at high cost. Period peaches were closer to older European cultivars: smaller, firmer, often slightly tart, and prized for their fragrance. They were valued in preserves where structure and color mattered as much as flavor.
Period style: Older white-fleshed clingstone peaches (smaller, firmer).
Modern substitutes: White peaches (delicate, aromatic), yellow peaches (bright amber color), or apricots (documented in the original recipes).
Practical feast kitchen: Frozen peaches or reconstituted dried apricots work beautifully when fresh fruit is out of season.
Sources in Period
CCXV. To dry Apricocks. Take your fairest Apricocks and stone them... boil them till they are clear... lay them out upon Glasses to dry in a stove, and turn them twice a day.
CCI. To dry Apricocks or Pippins to look as clear as Amber. Take Apricocks... set them into a warm Oven... every day turn them till they be quite dry. Thus you may dry any sort of Plumbs or Pears as well as the other, and they will look very clear.
Editor’s Note: Although Hannah Wolley’s Queen-Like Closet (1670) is technically outside the SCA’s 1600 cut-off, the method of drying fruits with sugar syrup was already well established centuries earlier. Wolley’s text preserves a technique that was in active use during the medieval and Renaissance periods, even if not written down until her time.
14th century – Forme of Cury (c.1390): preserves and sugared fruits appear.
15th century – Harleian MS. 279 (c.1430): recipes for fruit pastes and conserves.
16th century – Platina and Scappi describe sugared fruits, marmalades, and pastes on elite banquet tables.
17th century – Hannah Wolley records these long-standing practices in print (1670).
This timeline shows that while Wolley’s printed version is late, the preservation technique itself is “in period” and entirely appropriate for SCA feasts.
Menu Placement
Dried fruits and fruit pastes were served as part of the banquet course—the sweets and subtlety table that followed the main meal. They also travel well, making them practical for camping feasts today.
Humoral Notes
According to humoral theory, peaches were considered cold & moist. Drying them and cooking them with sugar shifted them toward balance, making them more wholesome. Serving them with warming spices like cinnamon or ginger further balanced their nature.
