[Sca-cooks] Cardamom?

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

On Sat, 6 Mar 2004 lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:

> OK, it finally dawned on my why i am seeing cardamom interpolated
> into modern SCA-redactions of Medieval and/or Renaissance spice blend
> recipes. SCAdians, and some modern scholars and cookbook authors are
> using it as a substitute for grains of paradise.
>
> I guess the assumption is, since grains and cardamom are in the same
> family, cardamom can substitute for the hard-to-find grains of
> paradise. It's like substituting ginger for galangal - they're both
> rhizomes in the same family... If one has never tasted the mystery
> spice, then won't know just how very different the flavors are.

Constance Heieatt asserts in both editions of Pleyn Delit (and the
second edition came out four years *after* I had encountered grains of
paradise, in 1992, so she has *no* excuse whatsoever for not going out and
obtaining it for herself) that 'grains of paradise' meant 'cardamom' and
thus all the instances of grains have cardamom substituted in the
redactions. It's not the argument that they're in the same family, she's

You'd think she would have noticed the instances where both occur in the
same recipe, as clearly different ingredients, but apparently not.

>
> But i STILL wonder... are there any Medieval and/or Renaissance
> recipes that actually use cardamom?
>
> Anahita

None that I can remember off the top of my head, but I have neither Bear's
nor Adamantius's amazing powers of recall.

Margaret