[Sca-cooks] Honey Butter? No! No!

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

phoenissa at netscape.net
>lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:
>  >I may also serve some other "spreads". I'll explore my Near Eastern
>  >cookbooks. A local Persian shop sells "carrot spoon fruit" - not that
>  >i think carrots are fruit, but the carrots are finely grated, cooked
>  >with sugar, orange peel, sliced almonds, and spices. I vaguely recall
>  >something slightly similar in something i read...
>
>Well, here's a "carrot paste" from the Andalusian cookbook:
>---
>Carrot Paste
>
>Take a ratl of carrots, of which you have cleaned the interior.  (Do
>they mean core them??)  Cook it in a ratl of water, some two boilings,
>then take it off the fire and let it dry a littl, over a sieve.  Add
>it to three
>ratls of honey, cleaned of its foam, and cook all this until it takes the
>form of a paste.  Then season it with ginger, galingale, cubeb, and flowers
>[of clove?], half an uqiya in all for each ratle.  Eat it like a nut at meals.
>Its benefits: it fortifies coitus (!) and increases desire beautifully; it
>is admirable.

Ah, thanks to you, and to Brighid ni Chiarain who sent along a link.
This is the one i was remembering (i have the book in xerox form).
It's good to know it wasn't a figment of my imagination :-)

As for taking out the interior... yes, they cored their carrots. In
the past, the centers were much more fibrous than they are now, i
have read. I think that with good carrots today that wouldn't be
necessary. However, i have sometimes gotten carrots whose cores were
rather bitter, so at least taste testing would be in order.

And, well, why not a strengthener of coitus? Carrots are full of
vitamins. I won't, however, be responsible for what autonomous adults
do after my feast :-)

Anahita