[Sca-cooks] Le Menagier Fine Powder

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Greetings, Johnna

Thanks for adding to the pile'o'stuff i have on Fine Powder and 
powders like them :-) This definitely helps me understand at least a 
bit what's going on the Le Menagier.

>I also have at hand: Le Mesnagier de Paris which is Brereton and 
>Ferrier's edition of Le Menagier de Paris translated into modern 
>French by Karin Ueltschi [Librairie Generale Francaise, 1994] and 
>the Slatkine Reprints edition of Le Menagier de Paris  [or the 
>Pichon edition](Geneve) if you think those versions might help. I 
>can check those in the morning, but it's too late tonight to get 
>into them.

Well, if you have time, i'd love more info :-) I'm just that kinda 
guy. As annoying as i must seem over such a small thing, this is 
really helpful in clarifying and understanding how the "redactors" 
have arrived at their modern recipes.

Also thanks for the reference to your article. I've now looked at it 
in the Florilegium, and i have another annoying question. Does 
Barbara Wheaton in Savoring the Past give the original French by any 
chance for:

Spice Mixture from Livre fort excellent de cuisine 1555.
Wheaton. Savoring the Past . p.247.

7 tablespoons powdered ginger
1/4 cup ground pepper
7 1/4 teaspoons grated nutmeg
5 teaspoons ground cardamom
5 3/4 tablespoons ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons long pepper
4 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
2 tablespoons powdered galingale

Also, i'm now curious about the Thresor de sante recipe in Wheaton. 
The recipe Thorvald/James Prescott sent which is on p. 395 of this 
work, says, in the original French:
"Gingembre, quatre onces; canelle,  trois onces et demie; poivre 
rond, une once et demie; poivre long, une once; muscade, deux onces; 
clous de girofle, une once; graine de paradis, garingal, de chacun 
une once.

Which i translate as:
ginger, four ounces
cinnamon, three ounces and a half
round pepper, one ounce and a half
long pepper, one ounce
nutmeg, two ounces
cloves, one ounce
grains of paradise, galangal, of each one ounce

Whereas Wheaton has:
Another Spice Mixture from the 1607 Thresor de Sante.

7 tablespoons ginger
4 tablespoons fresh pepper
5 tablespoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons galingale
4 teaspoons ground cloves
5 teaspoons cardamon
1/2 ounce long pepper if you have it
4 grated whole nutmegs

Again, does she give the original French? It looks to me like she is 
using the recipe James sent, but is substituting cardamom for grains 
of paradise. And in my experience, since i have access to both grains 
and cardamom, they are not all that similar.

Again, my thanks to you, both for you information and for the 
intriguing web page. And for all the other help you've sent me in 
messages now lost in the death of my hard drive.

Anahita