[Sca-cooks] Re: (Period cookery questions)

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

>
>     A good example (and the only one I am familiar with) are the two
> volumes on Anglo-Saxon Cookery by Ann Hagen.  Ms. Hagen was working with
> an era in which there weren't even the kinds of recipes you have in Forme
> of Cury etc.  She gathered (what I assume to be) boatloads of evidence
> from archeological sites in England and connected what she found as raw
> remains to laws, taboos, and home health manuals.
>
>     But because she (apparently) is not familiar with Menagier, she
> decided grain of paradise was cardamom (which is a grave disservice to
> both spices, and I'm sure causes the author of Menagier to spin in his
> grave!!!)  Other than that little error, she has presented  a wonderful
> trove of information about a lot food that we are familiar with, both as
> modern cooks, and as people trying to study food in history.
>

I don't remember reading this in either of the two books. Of course, it's
been a little while (and of course they are at home), but this sounds
awfully like Constance Hieatt, who (as I understand it) only *very*
recently found out (from someone on this list, IIRC) that grains of
paradise are not cardamom? I know in the revised edition of _Pleyn Delit_
that she still says to use cardamom in the place of grains of paradise but
admits that she has never tasted the latter.

Margaret, being confused