SC - Powder Douce

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Susan P Laing wrote:
> 
> What is the main difference between Powder forte & Powder douce?  Is Powder
> douce required in many period recipes??

Umm, not to sound flippant, because I'm not (at least not now), but
powder douce is made from sweet spices and powder forte is made from
strong spices. I've seen recipes for each in which some spices appear in both.

Without recipes in front of me, and without caffeine singing through my
veins (I like to do e-mail before everyone else wakes up) I can say
typical recipes might include cloves and cinnamon, possibly mace for
powder douce, and pepper, nutmeg, galingale, grains of paradise, etc.,
for powder forte.

I'd say that in the medieval English corpus of recipes there are at
least as many recipes calling for specific spices, such as poudre pepir,
clowes, etc., as for powder douce, powder forte, and some others such as
blanche powder, and fine powder. In other cases a recipe will simply
call for powder of sweet spices or strong spices.

My suspicion is that while there are certainly formulae for producing
the mixes you mention, they might be regarded as something of a
convenience item, with some cooks not deigning to use them, just as most
Indian cooks wouldn't stoop to using curry powder. On the other hand,
for large feast situations (in the middle ages, that is, not for our
stuff, necessarily) it might have been seen as eminently practical to
either purchase such mixtures in bulk or or make them up in bulk.

I recall an occasion where I happened to have a fair amount, perhaps
four ounces, of leftover hippocras powder which I used to fill one of
those industrial-strength flour-duster/salt-shaker thingies. The mix
went really well in the recipes calling for powder forte. Off the top of
my head I think it contained pepper, grains of paradise, nutmeg,
galingale, and cinnamon, and came from the hippocras recipe in Le
Menagier de Paris.

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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