[Sca-cooks] Sugar plate and mastic? (was: New and Kewl Kitchen Acquisitions)

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Betty Cook:
>Maire wrote:
>
>>I'm doing the happy dance <g>.....
>>My order from the Pepperer's Guild came in today.....
>>I got mastic, so I can play with sugar plate,
>
>Are you sure mastic is the type of gum used in sugar plate? I haven't
>ever done suagr plate, but I have used mastic in Islamic recipes, and
>it is the kind of seasoning one uses in 1/16 of a teaspoon
>quantities--it might make your sugar plate taste distinctly odd.

I noticed that, too, just hadn't gotten around to mentioning it.
Mastic is an aromatic, tastes just a tad like Pine-Sol, and I suspect
that, if used in the quantities used for sugar-plate, yes, distinctly
odd is the mot juste.

Could gum tragacanth or gum benzoin/benjamin be what the recipe calls
for? FWIW, I have two package (probably years stale by now) of
Lebanese mastic and cardamom Chiclets, respectively. The mastic ones
contain mastic, but the main ingredient, other than sugar, is still
gum Arabic.

Adamantius