SC - Lord's Salt experiment. upcoming trial with venison

[Lurking Girl]

LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 11/10/99 11:40:43 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> castorquinn at crosswinds.net writes:
> 
> << what spices flowed through to Western Europe,
>  before about 1300?  I am talking here of exotic spices, not the native
>  spices , if there were any (were there?). >>
> 
> A quick glance at period recipes reveals cassia, cinnamon, galengal, long
> pepper, black pepper, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, grains of paradise, mace,
> raisins of Corinth, etc.

Not to pick nits, but are you looking at a source "before about 1300"? I
don't imagine there'd be a huge difference, but since there aren't all
_that_ many pre-1300 sources available to us (and people always seem to
ask for stuff from before all those lovely 14th-century sources, don't
they ;  ) ?), any differences might be hard to quantify accurately.
 
> Native 'spices' were pretty much NOT used in noble cookery, SFAIK.

Native European spices would include, among others, caraway, mustard,
fennel, anise, and cumin, and while they may not rate the spiff factor
that grains of paradise enjoy, they are used with fair frequency, and I
gather the proliferation of Dark Ages/early medieval literary references
to dishes of chicken in cumin sauce would suggest the domestic spices
_might_ have rated higher in early period than they did later. I read
this in a book by Richard Barber, I forget which, but it seems sensible
that in, say, the reign of Charlemagne, for example, when the spices
from the far East seem to have been somewhat more difficult to come by
than in later years, the slack might have been taken up by domestic
products.  

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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