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

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

>
>      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)."
>
[snip]
>
>     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


Is there a copy of Bede's will (or any other information, for that
matter) out there in the literature in the original Latin? So that we may
check to see what exactly he did write, to figure out if he did indeed
mean buckwheat.

Margaret