[Sca-cooks] No Sugar in 10th Century??

[LrdRas at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/8/01 9:02:58 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
ekoogler at chesapeake.net writes:

<< I know that some recipes seem to call for very large quantities of spices
proportionate to the amount of other ingredients.  >>

Agreed. However, thise recipes that do contain quantities (outside the middle
eastern collections) really are rather rare. Given the unpalatible nature of
the resulting dish, it is my contention that either there were scribal errors
which creeped in through the process of hand copying and recopying or that
the quantities given were meant to be  ground and mixed to gether and use as
a seasoning much like we use Cajun seasoning or apple pie spice. Numerous
references to 'spice powder', 'strong spice powder', 'powder' without further
instructions seems to lend credence to this position. As does the existence
of wandering spice grinders.

In my viewpoint, the biggest argument against the use of large quantities of
spices in a given recipe (e.g. 1 LB of cloves in a pound of meat) is simply
the fact that the resulting dish is inedible.

Ras