[Sca-cooks] galangale

[Mark S. Harris]

William de Grandfort commented:
> If you cannot get fresh galingal, omit it completely.  The dried or
> powdered form is a very poor
> substitute for fresh galingal.  As a matter of opinion (not fact), they
> do not taste anything alike.
Maybe. But where would anyone find fresh galangale? At least in the 
U.S.? We've discussed galangale here before and I remember comments 
about both the dried chunks and the powdered galangale, but I don't 
remember anyone talking about the fresh stuff before.
galangale-msg     (20K)  9/15/04    Period use of the spice galangale.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/PLANTS/galangale-msg.html

But more importantly, if you are doing re-creations of medieval dishes, 
would using fresh galangale be accurate, even if it does taste better? 
Would the galangale available in medieval Europe be fresh? I don't 
think it would be, even when such goods started being carried directly 
to Europe by ship.

If it can be found, trying out some fresh galangale might be a nice 
experiment.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****