[Sca-cooks] Powder Fort

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

> > 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?

It depens on the spice. For instance, ground cardamom has a very short
shelf life (about a month to a month and a half, I've found, before it
becomes mostly sawdusty rather than spice); I don't know that I've ever
tried to store or use ground grains of paradise, but they might also have
a short shelf life. Ginger has about a 6 month shelf life maximum. Nutmeg
has NO shelf life and should be grated fresh every time you use it, and I
feel the same way about using pre-ground pepper, though I don't know how
long it takes to start fading.

So, if you are starting with fresh, preground spices there wouldn't be as
much difference than if you used, say, McCormick from your grocery store.
Le Menagier wouldn't have bought preground spices if he could avoid it,
because they are too easy to adulterate and he was, ahem, thrifty. The
general concensus that I've seen, though, is that most people bought their
powder forte and powder douce and so-on preground, just as we buy apple
pie spice and Herbs de Provence.

-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika   jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
"In the nonstop tsunami of global information, librarians provide us with
floaties and teach us how to swim." --Linton Weeks, Washington Post 1/13/01.