[Sca-cooks] Re: vanilla

[Iasmin deCordoba]

Johnnae wrote:

> Dalby's book has been remaindered and is being sold
> for less than $10.00 at the moment. That makes it a bargain.

Which bookstore again please? I think I missed that.

I was at the local market yesterday scoping out some absolutley
stunning cheeses when my eye spied in the bakery right next door an
item that I'd never seen before. In addition to the vanilla beans and
extract being sold at highway robbery prices, there was also a bottle
about the size of a regular aspirin or booboo-profen bottle that held
vanilla paste. I looked at the ingredients and while I can't remember
all of them exactly, it did list vanilla and gum tragacanth as major
ingredients (there were only a few more and none of them seemed odd or
non-natural, but I'm blanking on what they were).

I'm curious what this vanilla paste would be used for today, obviously,
but isn't it interesting the ingredients? I wonder if they didn't do
something like this in preparation of period stuff either in candies or
pharmaceuticals.

Iasmin