Duke's powder (was Re: SC - saffron)

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

Robin Carroll-Mann wrote:
> 
> > Whoa... is this the same Duke's Powder that Le Menagier mentions as
> > pre-sweetened hippocras spice?
> >
> > Adamantius
> 
> I don't know. Possibly. It certainly contains sugar, and appears just after de Nola's recipe for a hippocras spice mixture. I'm translating the 1529 edition of de Nola, BTW. There is a slightly different version of this mixture in the 1525 edition, plus a second recipe which does not appear in the 1529. Here are the recipes:
> 
> Source: Roberto de Nola, _Libro de Cozina_ (Spanish, 1525)
> Translation: Brighid ni Chiarain (Robin Carroll-Mann)
> 
> POLUORA DE DUQUE -- Duke's Powder
> 
> Cinnamon, half an ounce; ginger, half an ounce; cloves, one eighth; sugar, one pound; all this well ground and strained through a hair sieve so that it should be quite delicate and subtle, or at least just like the one for the sauces.
> 
> POLUORA DE DUQUE DE OTRA MANERA -- Duke's Powder in another manner
> 
> White ginger, two ounces; galangal, one eighth of an ounce; cinnamon, one ounce; long pepper, one ounce; grains of paradise, one ounce; nutmeg, one ounce; fine sugar, one pound; all this should be well ground and strained through a delicate hair sieve.
> 
> [The paragraph on weighing spices follows]
> 
> Source: Ruperto de Nola, _Libro de Guisados_ (Spanish, 1529)
> Translation: Brighid ni Chiarain (Robin Carroll-Mann)
> 
> POLVORA DE DUQUE - Duke's Powder
> 
> Half an ounce of cinnamon; an eighth of cloves; and for the lords cast in nothing but cinnamon, and a pound of sugar; if you wish to make it sharp in flavor and [good] for pains in the stomach, cast in a little ginger.
> And the weights of the spices in the apothecary shops are in this manner: one pound is twelve ounces; one ounce, eight drachmas; one drachma, three scruples: another way that you can more clearly understand this: a drachma weights three dineros; a scruple is the weight of one dinero; and a scruple is twenty grains of wheat.
> 
> - - -
> 
> How do those compare to the Menagier's recipe? Or doesn't he give one? (I have a copy somewhere, but don't want to hunt through an unindexed book before I finish my second cup of coffee.)

Well, here's Le Menagier's recipe, probably the Powers translation,
courtesy of His Grace Cariadoc:

> Hippocras 
> 
> Goodman p. 299/28 
> 
> To make powdered hippocras, take a quarter of very fine cinnamon selected by tasting it, and half a 
> quarter of fine flour of cinnamon, an ounce of selected string ginger, fine and white, and an ounce of 
> grain of Paradise, a sixth of nutmegs and galingale together, and bray them all together. And when you 
> would make your hippocras, take a good half ounce of this powder and two quarters of sugar and mix 
> them with a quart of wine, by Paris measure. And note that the powder and the sugar mixed together is 
> the Duke's powder. 

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com