But Wait... There's More!

Ah, yes, Patient Reader...

I had suggested I was sure I remembered coming across historic recipes for Nun's Farts. But long enough ago now, that I had no real idea where. Well, after some searching, and Googling, and rootling about, I've come up with several versions. Somewhat more oddly, three variations claim to be from the same source, so I'm assuming there may be differences due to translation, or translations of editions.

One website: http://www.chezjim.com/sundries/s9.html has an article in a newsletter about "Tart's Toots", and as well as giving some links to other tidbits of info and history, quotes a recipe from La Varenne.

>(from La Varenne, Le Cuisinier Francois, 1680, page 444):
Put egg whites in a mortar and a litte orange flower water, beat them well and bit by bit put in powdered sugar, make a workable dough and make from it little balls the size of a walnut and put them on paper, cook them in the oven.

Another food blog that I have bookmarked is: The Old Foodie.com and there I found:
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2006/10/womens-cakes.html with a second variation of the La Varenne recipe:

>Pets de putain (Farts of a Whore).
Make your Fritters paste stronger than ordinary, by augmentation of flower and eggs, then draw them small or slender, and when they are fryed, serve them warm with sugar and sweet water. [The French Cook, by la Varenne, 1653]
[Note the different edition date.]

After that I dug around until I found a copy of La Varenne which I have on my computer,(a 1653 facsimile) and tracked down:

Pets de putain
Make them the same way, [six eggs, half a pint of flowre, and a little salt; beat all together] but that you must put a little more flowre; draw them out very small with the handle of a spoon; after they are fryed, serve them sugred, and besprinkled with orange flowers.
(recipe #10 on page 198)

Elsewhere I found mention of:

>How to make small-whore's-farts.
Take roasted white-bread, wine, eggs, ginger and sugar. Mix well together and bake hereof small-cakes in the pan with butter and scrape thereon sugar and serve.
Eenen seer schoonen, ende excellenten Cocboeck, 1593. Carolus Battus (I believe the translation is by Jennifer Strobel.)

So there may be still more recipes out there, but these few at least justify the inclusion of Nun's Farts in our historic meals.

v