SC - Grains of Paradise and Cardamom

[David Dendy]

Frequently one meets the assertion that grains of paradise and cardamom are
the same thing, particularly among SCA cooks and (all too often, alas) among
writers on culinary reconstruction. This is usually a case of the incredible
power of misinformation.

(Once a piece of false information gets into circulation, it is almost
impossible to track it down and kill it. It keeps getting repeated by people
who don't go back to primary sources to confirm accuracy of information, but
just repeat information as they find it. A wonderful case of this, although
out of our period, is the supposed story of the first bathtub in the United
States, allegedly imported in 1843 and the cause of great deal of opposition
from those who believed bathing to be unhealthy. This story was made up as
joke in the 1920s by H.L Mencken, but despite its being immediately exposed
as fiction, the exposure never caught up with the story. I saw the story
given as historical fact on American television just last year!)

In the case of the cardamom=grains of paradise identification, the same
process happens. Once the initial misidentification was made (and I have not
yet tracked down the original errors, but if you think of some of the other
clangers in the early books on historical cookery, it's not surprising),
following writers simply copied that original error.

I suspect what happened was that the first writer, realizing that grains of
paradise were not available where they lived (probably the US, but maybe
Britain), saw in the dictionaries that they were said to be *similar* to
cardamom, and suggested the substitution. Later writers just simplified the
process, and said "are" instead of "may be substituted for". Easy to do when
taking notes. And once into the literature, the identification would be be
unquestioned except be a specialist on spices.

If we look back to the various sources, such as herbal and materia medica,
we find that period people (at least by the 15th century) were well aware of
the *similarity* of Grains of Paradise (aka "meleguetta", "jaws as-sark",
"nox d'exarch", etc) and cardamon. This is not surprising -- both seeds and
fruit capsules are similar, although grains of paradise have redder seeds,
larger darker fruit capsules, and a much hotter taste than cardamom. But
*similar* is not the same as *identical* -- the apothecaries wrote that one
might be used as a substitute (or succudeant) for the other, in case the
druggist did not have the required one on hand -- this though, is proof not
that the two were the same, but rather proof that they were *not* -- a
substitute is something different but which has similar properties (for
example, the apothecaries might also suggest substuting ginger if one was
out of pepper, but that didn't mean they thought ginger and pepper were the
same thing!)

For specific evidence that people in period did not think grains of paradise
and cardamom were the same thing, I'll cite three examples from original
sources:

1] The famous recipe for "Ypocras" in the *Forme of Cury", which calls for,
among other spices, a quarter of an ounce of "cardemonii" *and* a half ounce
of "grayne de paradys". (Constance B. Hieatt and Sharon Butler, ed., *Curye
on Inglysch* [London: Early English Texts Sociey, 1985], p. 143.)

2] In 1311 the spices purchased for Queen Isabella of England included,
among others, two pounds of "grani paradisi" at two shillings sixpence per
pound, and two pounds of "cardamome" at five shillings per pound. (Note that
the cardamom cost twice as much as the grains of paradise, which is what
might be expected for something coming the farther distance from India as
compared to the Grains of Paradise from West Africa). (reference: F.D.
Blackley and G. Hermanson, ed., *The Household Book of Queen Isabella of
England* [Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta Press, 1971], pp.
108-109)

3] The list of 288 spices in the merchant's manual by Pegolotti (written at
Florence between 1310 and 1340) included, as separate items, cultivated
cardamoms, wild cardamoms, and grains of paradise ("meleghette"). (This is
in keeping with the run of medieval materia medica, which distinguished two
types of cardamoms -- my estimation being, from the descriptions I have
seen, that the "cultivated" would correspond to the most usual green or
white that are the normal cardamom in the West, while the "wild" corresponds
to the larger and coarser-flavoured "black:" cardamom of India.)

So much for showing that cardamom and grains of paradise were not the same
thing. Next I'll put together the information on what Grains of Paradise
*were*, where they came from, and how they were used, and send another
message on that subject shortly.

Francesco Sirene
David Dendy / ddendy at silk.net
partner in Francesco Sirene, Spicer / sirene at silk.net
Visit our Website at http://www.silk.net/sirene/