[Sca-cooks] Spice Blends

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Wednesday, June 18, 2003, at 11:38  AM, lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:

> I sent this last night at 6:07 PDT, but it never showed up in any of 
> the Digests i get...
>
>
> In reviewing old messages, i find several times comments to the effect 
> that
> "The Viandier de Taillevent lists proportions of spices for Pouder 
> Forte, Pouder Douce and Spice Pouder"
>
> I cannot find my copy of the second volume of Cariadoc's cookbook 
> collection, which may have Taillevent...
>
> So, can anyone fill this in? What are those proportions and which 
> spices?

Unless I'm mistaken, several leaps of logic are inherent in the above 
claim (whoever is making it).

It's my understanding that Taillevent has a list of spices every 
kitchen should have, but not, AFAIK, any proportions. Somebody please 
correct me if I'm wrong.

I also seem to recall that Le Menagier has a recipe for Fine Spice 
Powder and a nice Hippocras recipe, with references to using the 
spices, mixing the spices with sugar to make "the Duke's Powder" 
(anticipating HG Cariadoc very effectively by some hundreds of years -- 
who knew???), and using the stuff to make Hippocras.

Me, I've been using the last of a batch of unsweetened Hippocras powder 
(kept frozen) as powder forte for a couple years.

Will post Taillevent's list later, if I can...

Adamantius