[Sca-cooks] Dissolving Saunders

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Sue Clemenger <mooncat at in-tch.com> wrote:
>Hmmm...all the references (including that below) I've ever seen to
>saunders lead me to believe it to be reddish colored.  And yet, when I
>bought saunders from the Pepperer's Guild, I found it more of a rusty
>color (like terra cotta).  Kinda orange-ish.  Are there different kinds
>of saunders out there?
>
>--Maire

I don't understand what your confusion is. Terra cotta and rust, the
terms you use, ARE reddish, as you also said.

Saunders is also called "red sandalwood", and it is indeed "red" by
comparison with real sandalwood, which is a warm, creamy, pale yellow
color, but is also called "white sandalwood".

The word "orange" wasn't used for the color we now call "orange" in
period, except perhaps late period (we've had a discussion about this
on list i think, i just don't recall exact details). So colors
ranging from red to orange were called "red". For example,
"vermilion" was considered to be "red", although by my modern eye, i
think of it as an "orange"; however, my "medieval" mind sees it as a
"red".

After all, the color modern Americans call "purple" is really
"violet", or perhaps, more exactly "blue violet", while Medieval
"purple" is really a warm red-purple - not far off the paint color
"alizarin crimson" - a modern parallel: the modern French "poupre" is
better translated into English as "crimson" although it isn't such a
bright red, but a dark bluish red, that is, close to Medieval purple;
"pourpre" is not well translated into English "purple" - and American
English "purple" is translated into modern French as "violet".

There are whole books on the use of language for color in various
cultures and over time. Our modern usages does not match Medieval or
Renaissance color terminology. Heck, there's a whole industry in the
modern world concerned with inventing and/or assigning color names...

So, back to color words - when i read translations of Medieval color
terms, i don't expect an exact, or often even a close, match with
what my modern mind thinks of by that term. In recipes, for example,
the word "blanc" or "white" often does not mean the color "white",
but can mean, "clean" or "pale" or "light" (in color) or other things
having to do with a state of being other than color (after all, in
modern usage, white people aren't white, just as black people aren't
black).

So, the color of saunders you have is the right color. It is terra
cotta red, or rust red.

Anahita