SC - Re: White Gingerbread, Gums Tragacanth and Arabic

[Elise Fleming]

Margritte wrote:

>Hmm.. interesting points. I knew that arabic and dragacanth aren't the 
>same thing, but I had assumed they were similar in how they acted.

I don't believe they do. A local group, several years ago, did a dish 
substituting arabic for the tragacanth and the result was gummier and 
more tacky.  

>In my defense, I'm very new to historic cooking, and not quite ready 
>to do my own redactions.

Oh, please...I hope I didn't sound so crabby that defense is necessary. 
 I do tend to come off rather dogmatic, but then I teach recalcitrant 
teenagers so it's sort of inbred!  :-)  I use other people's redactions 
also, especially to start with.  Then I go back and look to see what 
differences there might be.  (See Cariadoc's comments on bisket bread 
proportions.)  Lorwin's "Shrewsbury Cakes" was one where I began to 
learn that the authors take liberties with the original recipes.  In 
this one, the original recipe (as for the aforementioned bisket bread) 
had you beating the dough for a _long_ time.  Lorwin instructs us, with 
her rationale, to beat it only a few minutes.  Her Shrewsbury cake is 
delicious, flaky and light.  If one beats it for a long time as the 
original says, it is still delicious but hard and more "tough".  

>The redaction that I used was straight out of _Dining With William 
>Shakespeare_. I also had the gum arabic on hand, but no idea
>where to find the tragacanth even if I had been tempted to try it. 
>Could you point me toward a source?

Gum tragacanth is hard to find and rather expensive.  The cheapest 
source I know of is Penn Herb Co. in Philadelphia.  Their toll free 
number is 1-800-523-9971.  It should be item #630 but I don't know the 
current price.  It comes in 1 oz, 4 oz. and 1 lb. plus shipping.  One 
ounce is roughly $2.50; 4 is roughly $7.50 and 1 lb. is around $28.  It 
is also available from the former Maid of Scandanavia in Minneapolis 
but I believe their price is even higher and they only sell in small 
quantities.

As far as whether it's actually "gingerbread" or not, I admit that it 
is
not bread-based. However, judging from what I've read, it was still
_called_ gingerbread in period.

>Why would commercial almond paste be too sweet? Are we talking about 
>almond paste or marzipan here? I used almond paste, and I don't 
>believe it had any extra sugar added to it. How did you go about 
>making your own?

Oops!  You're right...commercial marzipan is the sweet one.  There are 
a number of ways to make one's own, mostly time-intensive.  Having a 
food processor helps.  I have a file I can send you via private e-mail 
if you want.  It's basically the same article I sent in to TI a few 
years ago.  I've found that grinding the almonds in small amounts and 
then re-grinding at least twice more makes a smoother paste, but I have 
not been able to duplicate modern paste just because their grinders 
really do mash down the almonds.  I often wonder just how "smooth" 
medieval almond paste was compared to what I can get from the 
processor.  They had plenty of time and lots of muscle power.

Alys Katharine