SC - Anthro and cooking

[James F. Johnson]

Based on this excerpt, I'm not impressed with the book. Sorry. Here's why:

CUBEBS: I was suspicious of the recommended substitute, so I tried it. It
doesn't work. Then I tried some other things. They don't work either.

My best guess is that the author suggested allspice not because it resembles
cubebs at all, but because it isn't as obviously different as other spices
are. It doesn't have anything like the heat of pepper or ginger, the zing of
cinnamon, the cold tingle of cloves, or the distinctive pungency of dill.
This makes it a relatively good filler spice. And filler is needed because
of the pepper. Freshly ground black pepper seems to be about the only spice
that resembles cubebs, but pepper has a lot of heat, and cubebs don't. So
the allspice serves to dilute and weaken the heat of the pepper.

The result of this mixture is still much hotter than cubebs, without very
much cubeb-like flavor, and a generally broader and more nondescript flavor.
The allspice doesn't seem to add any particular cubeb-like flavor. I would
recommend that anyone who doesn't have cubebs substitute a *very* tiny bit
of black pepper, or nothing at all.

SAUNDERS: A few years ago I was passing along some information to someone
else who was going to cook a feast. This bit about saunders being sandalwood
got in, and she had some sandalwood, so she experimented with it.  She told
me that her experiment had an unappetizing flavor and did not come out red.
My saunders, bought at Pennsic some years ago from the Pepperer's Guild, did
produce a red color and a more food-like flavor, so I loaned her some.

So I'm inclined to doubt that saunders is sandalwood, and suspect that this
is just one of those things that some food history writers pass around among
themselves without checking their facts. Are there any botanists or spice
experts around here to provide further information?

As for substitutes, there is an approximately period precedent for using
brazilwood to color comfits red, but I don't know whether it's safe for use
in food. In any case, it seems no more likely than saunders to turn up in
one's local supermarket.

POUDER-FORTE: I don't know that there is any period recipe for this, but if
there were I would expect something a little different from the one here.
Something like pepper, ginger, and a bit of cloves, for instance. Perhaps
also including cinnamon, nutmeg, cubebs, grains of Paradise, or cumin. I'm
especially suspicious of the dried chives, because they are not among the
more familiar spice powders in the medieval English tradition.

POWDER DOUCE: Again, I don't know of a period recipe, and again I don't
quite like this one. Pepper doesn't seem like a sweet spice to me. A more
plausible sweet powder might call for some cloves and/or mace instead. And
just *maybe* some sugar ground in the mortar with the spices.


Sorry to have looked your gift horse in the mouth, but I figure it's better
to do that than to put it to work first without checking. The recipes might
still be good, but I'd take them with a grain of salt.

Alex Clark/Henry of Maldon

>My good lord husband recently gifted me with the book SEVEN CENTURIES OF 
>ENGLISH COOKING: A Collection of Recipes by Maxime de la Falaise.
>This is from the back of the book.
>Phillipa
>
>CUBEBS
>A mixture of black peper and alspice can replace the taste of cubebs.
>
>SAUNDERS
>A red coloring made from powdered sandal wood.  Use of cochineal, carmine, or 
>red food coloring.   I don't like any of these options. 
>
>POUDER-FORTE
>A mixture of dried chives, mace and pepper
>
>POWDER DOUCE
>A blend of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and peper

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