This recipe was made to furnish Their Royal Majesties of the Midrealm with largess for Pennsic War.  The whole process was started in early July and finished around two weeks later, the midwest in summer is a humid place and is not, in general a nice place to make candies.

Pasta di Genova
Prendi zucchero bianco in polvere finissima libbre una e polpa di cotognie cotte in aqqua e passate sottilmente per staccio libbre dua et incorpora insieme in calderotto sopra il fuoco e faria cuocere con gentilezza tanto che si conosca che sieno a mezzo della cottura e cominci a spiccarsi dal calderotto, che allora s'intende cotta.
La quale si getta nelle scatole overo sopra il marmo imbrattato di zucchero e se ne forma gigli, marroni, animali o quello che vorrai e si asciughi quello che di essa pasta formerai.
Persicata
Persche cioè la polpa e farai nel medesimo modo che si è detto della Pasta di Genova; si può fare similmente con polpa di mele appie o paradise o d'altri frutti ancora, tenendo l'ordine detto.

Genovese paste
Take a pound of fine white powdered sugar and two pounds of quince cooked in water and passed through a fine sieve and blend together in a casserole over the fire.  Let it cook very gently, as much as you know that it is half cooked, when it starts to detach itself from the casserole, then one understands that it is cooked.
This one pours into a box or over marble dusted with sugar and one forms lillies, chestnuts, animals or whatever one wants and one dries this formed pasta.
Persicata (peach sweetmeat)
Peaches, that is the pulp and make in the same what that it is said for Genovese paste, one can make it similarly from the pulp of “appie” or paradise apples, or of other fruit following the same instructions given.

Ingredients
9 lb fresh peaches
3.5 lb sugar plus extra for dusting
Method
I sliced the peaches, removed the stones and simmered slowly with a ¼ cup of water until tender.  Then passed the cooked peaches through a sieve to yield pulp.  Weighed the pulp and added half as much sugar as I had pulp.  In this case 9lb peaches yielded 7lb of peach pulp.  I added the sugar and stirred constantly over low heat.  I found it necessary to cook this thick pulp very slowly.  I cooked it over the course of a week on one of the lowest settings my stove had.  It sticks and burns very easily.  If you have time to sit and stir you can heat a little faster.  When the mixture starts holding together and is thick it is done.  I then poured it out onto a cookie tray sprinkled with sugar and let it set overnight.  Then you can cut it or work it into whatever shape you wish, I cut lozenges.  Now the tricky part was trying to work out how dry these sweetmeats should be.  At the time I finished cooking them we were sat under what was left of a hurricane which had stalled out in the Midwest. The humidity was dreadful and the sweets kept trying to dissolve themselves in the atmosphere.  So they were rolled in sugar and placed in the oven on the lowest (150 F) setting.  And there they sat for about four days until the humidity dropped, they may have needed less drying because the flavor changed from intense peaches, to peachy jam flavor.  I then wrapped them in parchment and vacuum sealed them in plastic bags to stop any further dissolution.  They are an interesting sweet, but I think I need more practice with sweetmeats before I can call myself master of the candies.

Recipe taken from : Del Turco, G., and A. Evangelista. 1992. Epulario e segreti vari : trattati di cucina toscana nella Firenze seicentesca (1602-1636). A. Forni, Sala Bolognese, BO.

Copyright Mistress Helewyse de Birkestad (MKA Louise Smithson) August 4th 2005.  Permission is given to use this recipe, translation and redaction in SCA publications, for research and for SCA feasts provided that the author is given credit. Plus I'd really like to get a copy of your feast booklet.  Contact me by email helewyse@yahoo.com