Re(2): Spice Use and Food Poisoning, etc.

[linneah@erols.com]

Greetings to all on the new  List,

I am so glad to be able to talk with many more cooks.  Since I joined the
Madrone Culinary List, I can't wait for the mail to come in.  And the
costume list, too.   I am Lady Allison Poinvillars de Tours, technically
of the Barony Marche of the Debateable Lands, in the Principality of
AEthelmearc in the East Kingdom, but am 'living in my son's mailbox'
while I househunt in the Pittsburgh, PA area.  I am actually located in
Elyria, OH between trips to Pittsburgh.



I have been a Society member since 1980 (?) I think.  I began my career
in BMDL, and did a lot of cooking and feastocrating.  I've moved around
the world a fair amount since then.  I have quite a few cookbooks, and
add to them as I can.  I have a special interest in German cooking, and
am working on translating a book that was published in 1709, but was
taken from a handwritten book of the 16th C.  



My current cooking project is a compilation, comparison and redaction of
period sauces.  This may just be a class or two, or a handout, or might
spring full blown into a booklet worth selling.  Before you make the
sauces, you must make your verjuice.  I plan to make and try several
kinds.  In the past, I just used the one appropriate to the recipes I was
making. There's some red wine festering away in a cool corner of the
kitchen, and I have a question for you all regarding another type of
verjuice.



What a choice for me to pick for my own research--sauces--they ALL seem
to have verjuice of one sort or another, and I really don't LIKE
verjuice.  But they--sauces--are so useful and necessary, I'll just screw
up my face and eat them.  The manager of our local convenient store
apparently didn't know that apple cider turns hard.  He set up a display
last fall out on the floor, and those of us who recognised those tiny
bubbles forming just grinned and bought it.  I have half a gallon in the
back of the fridge that has passed soft cider, hard cider, and is
becoming really nice cider vinegar.  It was super on the Easter ham.  I
plan to try some sauces with it, as I think I remember cider being one
kind of verjuice.  It may only have been crab apples, though.  I think
I'll send this part to the list and see if anyone has experimented.




Have any of you tried naturally fermented cider vinegar as verjuice?  Do
we have any sources that say regular apples were
always/occasionally/never used?  I can think of some areas of Europe
where grapes didn't grow well, but apples did.  Of course, the cook could
easily put some leftover wine--perhaps some left in the pouring ewers,
aside for the vinegar.



I also have some really nasty--for eating--green grapes in the fridge. 
Those grapes really *want* to be sour verjuice.




Looking forward to many interesting conversations,




Allison



Master Chirurgeon
AOA, East
POC, Drachenwald
Companion des Lindquistrings, Drachenwald