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

Patience Rewarded?

Back in the spring I was asked about an interesting dish that I’ve known about for years, a sweet called Nun’s Farts. Or Pets de Nonnes. I promised to write a few words about them, then promptly forgot how to write at all and fell off the face of the earth. Pretty much.

So finally I was thinking about them, again, and after dredging out some references and a recipe, even felt inspired to make a little batch!

One of the first cook books I was given, by my Dad, was James Barber’s Ginger Tea Makes Friends. A wonderful, tiny little book, written in a quirky comic strip style, and designed around cooking in a stripped down kitchen, with minimal gear.
I loved it. It was funny, and inspired, and full of really good recipes that I’ve continued using over the years.

His third book, Flash in the Pan, was just as enjoyable. One of the recipes, Hot Doughnuts for Breakfast, is a small simple fritter. And about them he says:
“In their original version, they were known (quite respectably) as Pets de Nonne, which literally translated means Nun’s farts. Should you, out of delicacy, prefer the original pre-eighteenth century French, it was Pets de Pute, which means Whore’s farts.”

I love it. And them.

Bill Casselman, in his book Canadian Food Words, calls them Pets de Soeur.
And it seems from searching on the internet that there is a variety of names, Nun’s Sighs, Nun’s Bellybuttons, and a number of different possible origins for these little pastries. French, Spanish, German…

Some of the descriptions vary: dough fried and spread with jam, pastry wrapped around brown sugar and cream filling, but I quite love these simple little puffs of choux pastry. (And they make a delightful little farting noise while cooking!)

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of French reference material, and my language skills are, shall we say, frail, so I don't currently have an original recipe to post, or more precise historical descriptions, but in the meantime, here is the modern recipe I use, and I'll see what else I can find and follow up with.

v

James Barber’s recipe:
½ cup water
1 tsp sugar
4 Tbsp butter
½ tsp salt
Bring to boil and immediately take off heat. Add all at once,
½ cup flour (and stir well)
2 eggs, (one at a time, mixing vigorously with a fork till very smooth)
Cook over lowest heat, stirring until it doesn’t stick to sides of pan.
Heat 1 cup oil in a small fry pan or saucepan. (Med/High heat; 370 degrees)
Add one teaspoonful at a time into the oil, turning twice as they brown to medium, and leaving room for them to puff up. Drain. Sprinkle with sugar (and cinnamon!)