[Sca-cooks] Cariadoc quandry

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Waryn de Ashley wrote:
>  > I am working on a few of the recipes from Cariadoc's Miscellany and I
>  > have come across a couple small snags, namely saunders and galingale.

>  > Having visited most of the health and/or odd food stores in Columbus, I
>  > found one who believes "galingale" may be synonymous with gallangal,
>  > which he does not stock, but can order.  Has anyone else run into this?

Galangal is a rhizome related to ginger - although it tastes NOTHING
like ginger - that is commonly used in Southeast Asian cooking
(Alpina galanga, Zingiberacea). One can find fresh galangal in stores
that cater to Southeast Asians, such as Thais, Indonesians - in Thai
it is called Kha, in Indonesian it is called Laos.

I sincerely doubt that Medieval Europeans were using the fresh
rhizome. One can find dried galangal slices in Southeast Asian
markets - it is used in a delicious soup called Tom Kha Gai. But for
Medieval cooking i recommend the powder, since it's a bear to try to
powder your own from dried roots. Keep it TIGHTLY sealed in a
container and out of the light, or it will lose its delicate flavor.

>  > Is this the same substance and do I really want a pound of it?  Secondly,
>  > "saunders" has drawn a blank everywhere.  Can anyone advise even what
>  > sort of ingredient this is?

Sauders (Pterocarpus santalinus, Leguminosae) is also called red
sandalwood, although it doesn't smell or taste like regular
sandalwood, and isn't even related to it ("real" sandalwood is
Santalum album, Santalaceae). It is basically used for color in
Medieval food, although it certainly adds a flavor to the food with
which it's cooked. It comes generally as terra cotta colored wood
chips which you can easily powder in an electric coffee grinder.

A place i have found things like powdered galangal, grains of
paradise, saunders/red "sandalwood", cubeb, dried food grade roses,
and all sorts of stuff is:
Lhasa Karnak

The "company" has has two retail outlets in Berkeley and does mail
order, via phone or their website.
http://www.herb-inc.com/

I highly recommend them. I've never done mail-order with them, so i
don't know how long it takes for packages to arrive.

Anahita