I love candied nuts, and I love the German traditional papiertuute. I want them to be documentable but so far I haven’t been able to find much. I did find one Italian website that had information about candied almonds (http://www.confettisulmona.it/en/whous/giorgi/history.php) that were supposedly documented back to the 1400s in the city of Sulmona, made by the Poor Clares nuns (and references to candied nuts in the Roman period, but no footnotes anywhere). By poking around on related websites on the history of candied almonds in Sulmona, I have also found that the words for candied almonds and confetti are related, and supposedly because candied almonds were tossed to the poor during Ferragosto processions. One of these sites also states that the Poor Clares wrapped their candied almonds in silk before giving it away (http://italiannotes.com/confetti-from-sulmona/).
The best references I can find on papiertuute are related to schultuute, the huge cones that kindergarten children get on their first day of school. They seem to date back only to the early 1800s though (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schultüte). Another interesting source, including info on how they are folded, comes from a researcher who was documenting the dying art of using the koolyok, which is Russian for “cone” (http://rolandanderson.se/conefold.php). He provides very little info on the history though.
Given how commonly such cones are used for spices, I wonder if they might have been used for this purpose beginning in the Renaissance. As much as I want to believe it though, I’m not convinced. Paper was still relatively expensive and spices were still luxuries.Surely there would have been more secure ways to carry such precious loads than a cone that relied only on a twist at the top of the paper to retain its goods.
Undeterred by the lack of evidence, I have made my own candied almonds. The recipe is similar to the one used for beer nuts – water, sugar, cinnamon, and I added a little allspice. Once the candy hardened, I made myself a cone using these instructions: http://www.instructables.com/id/Paper-Cone/. Here is the result:
The paper top, once in place, is actually quite strong and held the nuts in place very nicely.
If anyone can point me to images or other documentation for candied nuts and paper cones, please contact me.
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