SC - about spices quantities

[David Dendy]

Since Helen's question about spice quantities has generated considerable
interest, I am reposting, with her encouragement, my reply to her original
question to me (the first bit below). I thought I'd best do this to show
that my reply was strictly historical, and that I am not actually trying to
unload half our stock on her in reality (although if anyone *does* want half
our stock, have I got a deal . . .  :) )

Yours aromatically,
Francesco

>> >I am doing
>> >a feast of 400 and trying to guess at the amount of spices.  Any help?
>>
>> Wow! You are a much braver person than I am. I once did a feast for 100,
and
>> that nearly finished me.
>>
>> I really can't tell how much you need in the way of spices, as it will
>> depend on what recipes you select, and how much of each you make (and
those
>> decisions, I suppose, will depend on your diners and how ready they are
to
>> eat spiced dishes). I can give you an example from actual historical
>> practice. The Menagier de Paris (French, later 14th century) gave an
account
>> of an actual wedding feast for 40 persons, which called for the following
>> spices (using the term in the modern sense--I omit things such as hulled
>> wheat and sugar, which he considered spices because they were bought from
>> the spice merchant): 1 lb. ginger, 1/2 lb. cinnamon, 1 oz. saffron, 1/8
lb.
>> each of cloves, grains of paradise, long pepper, galingale, mace, bay
>> leaves. Therefore the total of spices for the cooking was 2 5/16 lb. (37
>> oz., or a little less than one ounce of cooking spice per diner), and he
>> specifically notes that "little was left of the spices". (There were also
>> what he calls "spices for the chamber", such as candied orange peel and
>> other sweet confections, and the hypocras was bought ready-made from the
>> spicer, so its spices were not included in the previous total.) I suppose
on
>> this basis your 400 persons would require somewhere around 23 pounds of
>> spices (but I have a feeling that the twentieth-century palate might feel
>> such spicing was overdoing it).
>>
>> Another feast, for 16 persons, called for 14 1/2 oz. spices (again, a
little
>> less than one ounce per diner).
>>
>> I don't know how much help this is--I hope some. I would be interested if
>> you could tell me how much spice you do actually end up using per diner,
and
>> whether the consenus was whether that amount was too much, too liitle, or
>> just enough).
>>
>> Your humble servant,
>> Francesco Sirene
>> David Dendy / ddendy at silk.net
>> partner in Francesco Sirene, Spicer / sirene at silk.net
>> Visit our Website at http://www.silk.net/sirene/
>

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