Cooked Apples with Dragées

Description

Le Ménagier de Paris refers to "pommes cuites" or cooked apples many times in his menu planning, but gives us extremely little direction on how they might be served. We know from his shopping lists that they are served with sugar, and may also be served with blancmangier, or with white comfits on top. The snip from 52 specifies cider apples for the servants, indicating this is not especially high fare, but also calls for precious sugared spices. This makes me think this was a specific treat, but one of a lower caliber. I have chosen to use sugar and a showcase of spices - omitting the omnipresent cinnamon, the pairing with which of apples is entirely banal to the modern eater. Instead, we'll include the most popular spice of the time, Ginger, the familiar "pie spices" but also Galangal and Grains of Paradise to give it unique character representative of the time and place without overshadowing the apples themselves. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to source the Calville Blanc d'Hiver apples I hoped to serve - a variety very close to what would have been available at the time - but Granny Smith is a less glamorous and still lovely cousin. At the event where these were served, they were decorated with red dragées flavored with ground anise seeds since whole anise seed dragées could not be sourced.