SC - Quantities of salt and spices used.

[Matthew Legge]

Hello All,

The following is probably well known to all the good gentles on this list,
but at a recent feast it was really brought home to me that many of the
period dishes were not very subtle in their use of salt and spices.

Last weekend, the Barony of Aneala had its Mid-summer feast. Members of my
household - with a lot of help from some generous others - were each asked
to prepare enough of one dish for the revellers at the feast. Mine was a
friends tart - a sort of very cheesy/egg tart. Each tart had a quarter
teaspoon of powdered ginger, an eighth of a teaspoon of nutmeg and a pinch
a saffron for flavouring (together with 3/4 cup of cream or other soft
cheese, a cup of grated swiss cheese and two eggs - all measurements are
metric). 

I didn't really understand what other people meant when they described
"conspicuous consumption" of spices (pun intended - sorry:) until I had
tasted one of these at a dinner before the feast (we were testing the
unfamiliar recipies).

What I would like to clear up is whether this heavy use of flavourings was
an every day occurrance or if it was just to impress visitors/guests? The
other way of thinking of this might be to ask whether the recipies that
survived for us to read and interpret were the "special" ones, with the
others being so routine that the cooks of the time did not think it was
necessary to commit them to paper?

Just thinking out loud.




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