SC - questions: TO BOIL PHEASANTS, PARTRIDGES, CAPONS AND CURLEWS

[Alderton, Philippa]

In a message dated 8/31/99 2:18:16 AM Eastern Daylight Time, cclark at vicon.net 
writes:

<< Though it could be more complicated than that. Ground spices are usually
 called powders. Flower of canel, as opposed to canel flour, just might mean
 carefully selected cinnamon bark, whole or broken in pieces.
 
 Alex Clark/Henry of Maldon
  >>

Is there any indication that broken pieces of bark work in this recipe? My 
interpretation would preclude their use in favor of ground cinnamon. 
Sometimes a recipe can be analyzed to death when the only real thing that 
needs to be done is go to the kitchen and cook it. The use of bark pieces 
does not work well in this recipe. Ground cinnamon does. So it is logical to 
assume that ground cinnamon was meant.

The origin of the word flower and flour is identical so I fail to see how 
pieces is more logical than ground especially when such an interpretation 
confuses the recipe rather than clarifying it. Consider that one of the 
definitions of flower itself is 'a finely divided powder. With all the 
evidence in hand, I would still go with finely ground cinnamon (e.g., flowers 
of cinnamon) unless more substantial evidence is forthcoming.

flow*er [1] (noun)

[Middle English flour flower, best of anything, flour, from Old French flor, 
flour, from Latin flor-, flos . First appeared 13th Century

Ras

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