[Sca-cooks] Re: Mastic for Stefan

[Stefan li Rous]

Phlip said:
> OK, Stefan, I've been looking through my cookbooks, as
> I promised, and here we go.
>
> From Cariadoc's Mexcellany, the cooking section, the
> following recipes contain mastic:
>
> Burinya
> Tuffahiya
> Madira
> Raihaniya
> Rutabiya
> Labaniya

> Aha, you say- so far this shows mastic only in Arabic
> cookery, but not European?

Up to this point that was occuring to me...

However, I never said it wasn't used in Europe. I just
said I didn't think it was common.

> Not so.
>
> Taillevant has a Cameline sauce containg mastic
> (there's also a garlic cameline, but more on that in
> another post) with which he sauces Red Mullet, Fresh
> Salmon, Gar, Dory, and Breem, all, IMO, fairly strong
> flavored fishes. He also sauces Stewed Deer Testicles
> with it. I am not including any of the recipes calling
> for Garlic Cameline, because from context I can't tell
> whether it's a separate variant, or an addition to the
> base recipe.

Yes, that is the main place I see it used.

Thank you for doing this research. It will go in the files,
perhaps in a new file mastic-msg and I think others may
find it useful in the future.

> And Stefan? I ran a search in your Florilegium, and
> got 56 references, without repeats, including one for
> a toothpaste made of mastic and alum- I'd think you'd
> be familiar with at least THAT resource ;-)

Yes, but those 56 include a number of messages just saying this
is where you can get mastic, some are from the file on resins-msg
and are about mastic itself and one is in the file on wood-finishes.
Hardly a food use, there. :-)

There are numerous problems with using the Florilegium for a survey
like this, including the selective nature of the Florilegium and
multiple referances just mean it is talked about more, not that it
necessarily shows up in more period recipes.

However, I did some quick searches on some other spices, some of which
I would consider more common than mastic:
mastic     78  (I used the google search built into the Florilegium)
pepper    830
galangale  24  (but this one is a problem because of different spellings)
cinnamon  792
nutmeg    463
sugar    1100  (!)
cubebs    118

It would be interesting to see what other surveys turn up.

--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****