SC - creations and creativity

[Karen Evans]

Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
> 
> can anyone help? Please send responses to sca-cooks list, or
> charlesn at srl.rmit.edu.au or living-history at gospel.iinet.net.au (but only
> on of those)
> 
> Charles/Ragnar
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 22:40:22 +1000
> From: Andrea Willett <willetta at mail.austasia.net>
> To: living-history at gospel.iinet.net.au
> Subject: Silphium & Alisander
> 
> Hi All!
> 
> Flicking through Alexis Soyer's "Pantropheon" (not the most reliable source
> I will admit) I came across two seasonings/spices that I am unfamiliar
> with, silphium and alisander. does anyone know what they are?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Andrea Willett

Alisander is probably the same thing as Alexander, which is known in
English as horse-parsley. 

Silphium is a little more complicated, I'm working from memory here, so
please bear with me: Sylphium is a plant grown in, I believe, India and
Persia, and its aromatic gum is powdered for use as a spice. The
best-known variety would be asafeotida, also known as hing and
teufelsdreck (devil's-dung). On a related note, silphium appears in some
Roman cookery as a substitute for laser root, an entirely different
plant which appears to have become either unobtainable or perhaps
extinct during, approximately, the early Roman Empire. Anyway, silphium
is pretty rank-smelling, a little like garlic going off, but tiny
amounts of hing powder are often used in Indian curries, particularly
vegetable and fish varieties. The idea is to season the dish and bring
out the other flavors, rather than to make the dish smell or taste of
hing. It also appears pretty frequently in Apician fish recipes.

Adamantius  
- -- 
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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