SC - Pepperer's Guild

[Phil & Susan Troy]

Susan Browning wrote:
> 
> > Jennifer Conrad wrote:
> >
> > Does anyone out there have the web address for the
> > Pepperer's Guild?  I had it, but lost it.
> 
> Greetings the list!  My name is Elenor d'Aubrecicourt.  I have been lurking
> on the list for about a year now.  I was looking at the Pepperer's Guild
> site, and have a question about the poudre forte.   Actually, I have
> questions about forte and dolce.  What the different members of the list use
> for forte and dolce?  Does everybody make their own?  Or would the PG's
> poudre be a good choice?   Many thanks.

The PG's might be an adequate choice, depending on how fresh it is. It struck
me as having an awful lot of ingredients, which would have the advantage of
making for a more consistent-seeming product from batch to batch if one
ingredient was unavailable, which would be more of a problem is the powder
called for, say, three or four spices. I seem to recall this one called for
maybe seven or eight spices.

As far as I know, we don't really know what was in most of the medieval
pre-mixed spice powders, except for Hippocras powder (which I've occasionally
used quite successfully in recipes calling for powder forte, BTW), and a fine
spice powder recipe in Le Menagier de Paris. What we really have to go on,
apart from a general knowledge of what Eastern spices were imported and used
in the cookery of the medieval European nobs, is that powder forte should be,
well, forte (strong), while powder douce should be douce (sweet), and powder
blanche should be white, etc. Fine spice powder is, of course, fine ;  ).

So, we end up with the idea that, say, cloves, cinnamon, and maybe some nutmeg
would be good in a powder douce, while pepper, galingale, grains of paradise,
and cubeb might make a good powder forte. Since there are a limited number of
things that would make a whitish combination, we assume things like Columbine
ginger and refined sugar might be in blanche powder... .

I believe you do find some recipes for some of these powders in the very tail
end of period, at which point the mixtures are largely obsolete anyway, and
there's no guarantee that what is in them reflects closely what was in them in
earlier centuries.

Hope this helps a bit...

Adamantius 
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================