SC - Comparitives: East vs West

[Stefan li Rous]

Ras gave a wonderful list of herbs found in various period cookbooks. Among
them was this:
> An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the Thirteenth Century is very much
> pre-1300s and is also European (e.g., Spain) which clearly shows that the
> spices I mentioned were very much in use in Western Europe pre-1300s CE. In
> fact, Spain is further west than even England. :-) Seasonings listed are
> pepper, coriander seed, lavender, cinnamon, cilantro,  mint, onion,  garlic,
> vinegar,  saffron, cumin,  ginger,  cloves, rue, celery leaves,  citron
> leaves, lemon leaves, thyme, fennel seed and flowers, Chinese cinnamon,
> powdered sugar, butter, camphor, rosewater, lemon, rosepetal jam, cilantro
> juice, galinale, clove basil, celery juice, fennel stalks, caraway, pine
> nuts, bee balm, musk, etc. (I ended my quest in this manuscript on page 14 of
> 49 pages. Up to that point I found no mention of bay laurel, rosemary,
> oregano, chives or marjoram.

I am curious about this "rosepetal jam". Do we have any better descriptions
of what this really was? When I think of "rosepetal jam" I think of a jell
of sugar and water with a bunch of rose petals for flavoring. But I thought
earlier discussions here had shown that such jellies and jams were actually
post-medieval when sugar became much more available, certainly not 13th
century. Perhaps Spain was different? Or is this a different item? Perhaps
made with honey instead of sugar? Or maybe another translation question?

- -- 
Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
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