I’m just back from Rochester New York, where ALHFAM was this year.

ALHFAM is Association of Living History Farms and Museums so this was a professional development trip .

There was a whole lot of foods of the past in the program.

A Short, Sweet History of Macaroons  presented by Mya Sangster was very sweet indeed.

Mya made samples …A little bag with labeled cookies  so you could eat along with the recipes….

And then another lot up front, all the variations from a single recipe that called for

Almond, walnut, ground nut (peanut) cob nut (hazel or filbert) and coconut

Peanut macaroons are a marvelous and wonderful thing.

Somewhere I have the handout that has the recipes.

May 31st is National Macaroon Day, so I have time to get my act together before the next big celebration.

But I keep finding miscellaneous macaroons in my ordinary reading …like this:

The Sunflower:

“I once made macaroons with the ripe blanch’d seeds, but the turpentine did so domineer over all, that it did not answer expectations.”

               Evelyn, John. A Discourse of Sallets. (1699)Prospect Books. 2005. p. 45.

So, Sunflower Macaroons – right out!

and then this:

Popcorn Macaroons

1 cup freshly popped corn

1 cup walnuts or butternuts

3 egg whites

1 cup powdered sugar

Pinch of salt

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Butter a cooky* sheet.

2. Chop the popcorn and the nutmeats or put them through the food chopper.

3. Beat the egg whites stiff and combine with the sugar. Mix with the popcorn and nuts, add salt.

4. Drop by the spoonful on a buttered cooky sheet.

5. Bake fifteen minutes in a moderate oven, 350°.

6. Makes one and half dozen.

• Bowles, Ella Shannon and Dorothy S. Towle. Secrets of New England Cooking. Dover: 2000. First published M. Barrows and Co.: NY. 1947. p. 217.

and then there were other popped corn macaroons.

Popped Corn Macaroons

3/4 cup finely chopped popped corn

3/4 tablespoon melted butter

White 1 egg

5 1/2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Blanched and finely chopped almonds

Candied cherries

Process

Add butter to corn; beat white of egg until stiff; add sugar gradually; continue beating. Add to first mixture; add salt and vanilla. Drop from tip of teaspoon on a well buttered baking sheet one and one-half inches apart. With the spoon shape in circles and flatten with a knife, first dipped in cold water. Sprinkle with chopped nut meats and press a shred of candied cherry in top of each macaroon. Bake in a slow oven until daintily browned.

• The Corn Cook Book. Hiller, Elizabeth O., comp.Chicago, New York [etc.] P.F. Volland company [c1918]

Popcorn macaroons as part of the War effort – the First World War.

Popcorn good. Cookies good. Popcorn cookies….I just have to make enough popcorn to not eat it all before it’s time to make the cookies.

And since it’s hot, it’s only right that there be ice cream to go with the cookies – or is it cookies to go with the ice cream? It seems Mrs. Lincoln (of Boston Cooking School fame) was way ahead of the Ben and Jerry’s curve.

Cookie dough great add in – cookies – also great ice cream add in

Macaroon Ice-cream

Dry one dozen stale macaroons, roll or pound them fine and sift through a fine gravy strainer. Add them to ice-cream after either receipt* and flavored with extract of almond or sherry wine. Stir them in when the cream is partly frozen.

               Scald the cream if you wish a firm, solid cream.

               –Mrs. Lincoln. Frozen Dainties.White Mountain Freezer Co., NH. 1889. p. 13. Applewood Books.

• The two previous receipts are Hollipin Ice-cream and Maraschino Ice-cream, which are both based on the Neapolitan Ice-cream, which has 1 qt. cream, 4 eggs,1 cup sugar and flavoring.