Well-beloved cousin, I greet you well with all mine harte. I wish continued good health and prosperity to you and your familie.

I thank you for the receipts for presarving fruit you sent in your last letter. The sugared plums are particularly goode. I will looke forward to making the pippin tart stuffe in the autumn. So it bee faire I send you a receipt of mine owne.

As you know I am being courted by the Honourable Boyar Aleksandr Ruslanovich Yevsha who comes from far away Russia. I have tried to make him Englysh disshes that he might like, but it has nott been an easy task for he findeth many of our flavourings strange.

The Russe eat much cabage and garlike, which along with the cold of their winters maketh them meloncholy. Much of the cabboge is pickled and eaten as soup called Sheechee. They eat much fisshe like we do, for they do keep manie fasts. They eat few roast metes, but many more bake meats for all houses are kept warm with large ovens which they call Peaches (and they do let those of high esteeme sleep there on) and not fireplaces. At nearly everie meal they eat a pottage they call Kassha which is made of boiled grain sometimes with meat or fish in it. They maketh beere out of bread (which is black) and their word for this is Quasse. Their sweets are made of honey boiled with fruits in it.

I wished to make him Englissh sweets, for you knowe how I delight in such. First I did make him white biskit bread (from Lady Elinor’s receipt) for I though the lightness would be novel but he liked not the anisse seed. So I did make him ffrench bisket bread (also from Lady Elinor), but again he turned up his nose, at the rose water this tyme, although he liketh much the richness of the almonds. So I did devise to make a sweet he would like of mine own receipt. This finally did please him. And he sayeth that the taste was good, but the devising was from mine own heart and therefore the sweeter.

Take one pound of sugar, well serced & viii egges & one pound of almonds. Blanche the almondes and do them small in a morter. Take the whites of the eggs from the yelks and beat them until they be somewhat stiff. Add yr suger and beat more untill they bee stiff as pap. Carefully stir in your almondes. Put great spoonsfuls of your stuffe on coffins of paper and lay it in yr oven. It should be hot as after the manchet has been drawen. Three quarters of an hour be sufficient. See they brown not. This will be sufficient for fowr dozen.

They will be crisp on the outside yet soft in the centres and flavored well of almondes. It pleaseth me well that not only did the Boyar enjoy them, but I also received praise from Duchess Anna Tarragon.

Other tidings be there none here. I pray you commend me well to your mother my lady aunt and all your family.

Written at London the 17th day of July by your cousin, Morwenna

This recipe was created for the reasons stated above. I was experimenting with biscuit breads (Elizabethan cookies), from Elinor Fettiplace’s Receipt Book (see bibiography) and the Honorable Boyar (now Master) Aleksandr didn’t particularly like them.

White biscuit bread is a kind of meringue made of beaten egg whites, sugar, a little flour, flavored with crushed aniseed.

Take a pound & a half of sugar, & an handfull of fine white flower, the whites of twelve eggs, beaten verie finelie, and a little annisseed brused, temper all this together, till it bee no thicker than pap, make coffins with paper, and put it into the oven, after the manchet is drawen.
(Elinor Fettiplace’s Receipt Book, page 118)

French biscuit bread is primarily made of ground almonds with some beaten egg white to hold it together, flavored with rosewater and sugar.

Take one pound of almonds blanched in cold water, beat them verie smale, put in some rose water to them, in the beating, wherein some musk hath lien, then take one pound of sugar beaten and searced and beat with your almonds, the take the whites of fowre eggs beaten and put to the sugar & almonds, then beat it well altogether, then heat the oven as hot as you doe for other bisket bread, then take a paper, & strawe some sugar upon it, & lay two spoonfulls of the stuf in a place, then lay the paper upon a boord full of holes, & put them into the oven as fast as you can, & so bake them, when they begin to looke somewhat browne they are baked inough.
(Elinor Fettiplace’s Receipt Book, page 224)

He liked the texture of the first and the almonds from the second, so I combined the two recipes to make a cookie he would like.

The comments about Russian cuisine are based on the writings of Giles Fletcher in 1591 and the Domostroi, a Russian household manual from the late 16th century. The modern transliterations and some comments follow.

Shchi (sheechee) is cabbage soup. The "sour cabbage soup" frequently mentioned in the Domostroi is called kislye shchi and made with fermented cabbage.

The pech’ (peach) is the clay stove that dominates the Russian house. It was the custom (and still is) to sleep on the stove in winter. This flat topped stove was relatively new in the 16th century, the previous type having had a rounded top. Using a stove for heat and cooking was unusual in England of the same time. Most houses still relied on fireplaces.

Kasha (kassha) is the generic term for boiled grain. These days it mostly refers to buckwheat groats. There is a Russian proverb: Shchi da kasha, pishche nashe (Cabbage soup and boiled grain are our food). These two food items seem to have been served at every meal for both masters and servants.

Kvass (quasse) is a fermented beverage similar to beer. Most commonly it is made from black bread, but can be made from fruit or vegetables, such as beets. Kvass is used as the base for some soups.

The formula for naming the recipe follows the convention of "The Lord of Devonshire His Pudding" (Elinor Fettiplace, page 213).

Here is the recipe for 1 quarter quantity with measurements:

2 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
4 ounces blanched almonds

Preheat the oven to 275ºF.

Chop or grind the almonds finely, but not so much that they begin to become almond paste.

Beat the egg whites until they begin to get stiff. Gradually add the sugar, still beating. When the egg white form stiff peaks and are shiny, gently fold in the almonds.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Put the mixture on the paper using a tablespoon. These cookies do not spread much in baking.

Bake for about 45 minutes. The cookies will still be a little chewy inside.

Makes 1 dozen.

Fletcher, Giles. Of the Russe Commonwealth (1591). Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1966.

Pouncy, Johnston Carolyn (ed. and trans.) The Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.

Spurling, Hilary. Elinor Fettiplace’s Receipt Book: English Country House Cooking. London: Salamander Press, 1986.

Morwenna Westerne is a Cornish woman living in Elizabeth's England. She can often be found consorting with foreigners, embroidering, or reciting racy Latin poetry. She loves to concoct sweets and baked goods from all the new receipt books available in London.

Abigail Weiner is utterly unprepared to deal with the modern world, having spent too many years in school studying dead Romans. She considers reconstructing 16th century cooking practices to be a much more interesting kind of archaeology than what she did in grad school.

This article appeared previously in Tournaments Illuminated 140 and in a slightly different form in Serve It Forth 15 and The Carolingian Minuscule, May 2000.