Description

Medieval sweetmeat

Technical

From the Middle Ages through end of the 18th century, references to and recipes for a sweet called manus Christi appeared across a range of European documents. Descriptions of this food ranged widely and were never exactly alike, though in its most typical description, manus Christi was a hard, sugar sweet. At others times, texts describe a liquid, and in others still a type of marzipan. In its hard, sugar candy form, flavours of cinnamon, rosewater, and violet were often used, accompanying other inclusions such as crushed gemstones, flakes of silver, or more often, gold.