SC - Mastic Thyme

[Terry Nutter]

Hi, Katerine here, responding to Allison, responding to Adamantius.

>Prescott's translation for #152, To Make Cameline [Sauce], calls for
>'mastic thyme' but does not give the original.

OK, I've gone to my Scully and pulled up the French.  Prescott worked
from one manuscript, VAT in Scully's work, which has "mastic".  The MAZ
manuscripts also have "mastic", the VAL manuscript has no ingredient,
and the BN manuscript has "macis".  Given the context, I'd be willing to bet
long odds that "mastic" is an error.  Scully points out that a spelling
like "mascit" could easily lead to a scribal error; and the manuscripts
that say "mastic" are believed, for independent reasons, to descend from
a single parent manuscript.

In other words: it's not any kind of mastic, or any kind of thyme.  It's
mace.

>Mastic, which I believe is mace, is in another Cameline, in the original,
>in Scully's _Early French Cookery_.  My French is woeful--what is
>'girofle' ?  Is that galingale?  Powdered giraffe horns? 

Mastic is not mace; "macis" or "mascit" or "macy" or "maciz" is mace.
Mastic is something else.  ("Girofle" is cloves -- and shows up that
way occasionally in English recipes.)

>Chiquart calls for 'macys' in the same place as the 'mastic' by itself in
>Taillevent, and both are listed after pepper and before ginger.  Ergo,
>spice.

And in particular, ergo mace.

>Terrendon the Wanderer gave me a definition for mastic thyme from his
>herb encyclopedia, so I think I've got it, if Prescott really meant
>mastic thyme and not mace, although, looking again at the placement in
>the list, I think it must have been mace.

Agreed.  Prescott only worked from one manuscript (and that the latest 
in the tradition, and so even more likely to have inherited scribal
errors).  It helps greatly to compare with other manuscript versions.

>Thanks for everybody's help.  I'll be 'off the air' for about ten days. 
>Talk to you later.

Hope this is helpful when you get back!

Cheers,

- -- Katerine/Terry