[Sca-cooks] SANDLEWOOD & DESSERT SPICES

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

On 21 Oct 2001, at 9:59, Seton1355 at aol.com wrote:

> > Mixing all those spices together just isn't natural,
>
> It isn't???

Spice mixtures are very common, even in modern American
cooking.  Apple pie spice, pumpkin pie spice, Italian seasoning,
chili powder.

> > > putting dessert spices on meat ... ;-)

> > Many cultures do that!!

Sure do.  When I was doing my period food spiel at a public demo
last summer, I made that particular point.  The first part of my spiel
was "a lot of medieval food would be familar to us today".  I gave as
examples such things as roasts, bread, rice, cheese quiche,
chicken soup, and apple pie.  The second part was "some of their
cooking practices were different than modern America", and I
mentioned cinnamon in beef stew.  I then reminded folks that
Indian and Middle Eastern cuisines still use a lot of "sweet" spices
in meat dishes, and that the Greeks put cinnamon in meat stews.
(It helps that New Jersey has the largest Asian Indian population in
the U.S.  Lots of Indian restaurants here.)  I try to make people
think of medieval cooking as a foreign cuisine, with both familiar
and unfamiliar elements.

> Phillipa
>
>

Now, personally, the only way I would go through a pound of
sanders is if I was planning to mass-produce peach pits for Twelfth
Night gifts... for the whole kingdom.  I still have several ounces left
over from my Pennsic purchase a year and a half ago.


Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
rcmann4 at earthlink.net