[Sca-cooks] Powder Fort

[Melanie Unruh-Bays]

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Linda Peterson <mirhaxa at morktorn.com>
Reply-To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Date:  Fri, 13 Jun 2003 10:31:14 -0600 (MDT)

>On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Daniel Myers wrote:
>> Source [Le Menagier de Paris, Janet Hinson (trans.)]: FINE POWDER of
>> spices. Take an ounce and a drachma of white ginger, a quarter-ounce of
>> hand-picked cinnamon, half a quarter-ounce each of grains and cloves,
>> and a quarter-ounce of rock sugar, and grind to powder.
>>
>Most of us probably assemble our powders from already ground spices. Do
>you think grinding them all together would have an effect on the flavor,
>more blending of essential oils or something?
>
>Mirhaxa
>  mirhaxa at morktorn.com
>

I find that if I grind them together, they seem to work on one another, and I get a product that seems to (I haven't ground with a stopwatch in my hand) grind faster, and to become a more uniform m[e']lange. I don't notice a change in flavor.

BTW, isn't there a reference or two to period poudre forte recipes in  Odile Redon's _The Medieval Kitchen_? I'm at work, and can't check just now...

Eirene