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

[Elizabeth A Heckert]

On Thu, 9 May 2002 07:47:04 -0500 (CDT) "Pixel, Goddess and Queen"
<pixel at hundred-acre-wood.com> writes:

>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.

     It is in the second volume.  (And I have a monster sinus attck,
which is why I was up as late as I was last night, so pardon any
incoherence!!)  It was under the discussion of spices, and it was in the
will of the venerable Bede  (Ha! I got it right--it was either Bede or
Cædmon).  I  had to go get the book.  (My head feels like it's floating 3
feet above my shoulders.  I hate sinuses!)

   Pg. 183:  "The spices Bede left to his brethren are said to have
included lavender, aniseed, buckwheat, cinnamon, cloves, cubebs,
coriander, cardamom ('grains of paradise' so called because they were
thought to float down the Nile from the earthly paradise), cypress roots
(galingale)  ginger (raw and preserved) gromic, liquorice, and sugar (as
well as pepper)."

   Hagen footnotes the parenthetical aside on grain as being from Kuper,
*The Antropologist's Cookbook*, 1977, and footnotes the end of the
sentence referencing  *The  Seven Centuries' Cookbook*, by Maxime
McKendry.
   My little *Golden Guide Herbs and Spices*  (1976) lists grain of
paradise (Aframomum melegueta, native to West Africa) cardomom (Elettaria
cardamomum, native to India) and galangal (Alpina galanga native to
western India) as being members of the ginger family (Zingiberaceae) and
by noting where the spices are native to, they are clearly as accesible
to England as pepper (Malabar coast of India) cubeb (East Indies) and
ginger (Oceania).

   I think that this quote goes a long way to reinforcing Lady Brighid
and Master Adamantius's assertion that following the recipes will give a
truer representation of the food as prepared than by going at cooking
from out of the kitchen sources, and not because of the grain of paradise
question.

    It's the addition of buckwheat.  If by buckwheat, Hagen means
Kasha--a grain I associate with Russia--it is the only time she mentions
it in the second volume.  I know it's used to make pancakes (and
blini????) and a natural foods industry ready to eat cereal.  I don't
remember seeing it being sold as a seasoning--which would indicate to me
that its inclusion into Bede's will is in terms of medicine.  But I don't
know for sure, and (not that anyone here would) it could perhaps be
argued that buckwheat flat breads-'pancakes' are period for the
Anglo-Saxons.

   Elizabeth


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