Coconut Macaroons

When Harriott Pinckney Horry copied her mother’s old recipes in 1770, she often changed them to suit her own palate. Her mother’s “torte” more appropriately became “Cocoa Nut Puffs”:

“Take a Cocoa Nut and dry it well before the fire, then grate it and add to it a good spoonfull of Butter, sugar to your tast, six Eggs with half the white and 2 spoonfulls of rose water. Mix them all together and they must be well beat before they are put in the Oven.”