[Sca-cooks] Potrero seige contest

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

At 01:22 AM 6/1/2006,Bj Jane Tremaine said something like:
>This is what was told to us by the people who ran the contest
[that the small black seeds were galangal]
>
>Jana

Clearly it is impossible that they were galangal. But there are a 
number of things they could actually have been...

Maggie MacDonald wrote:
The organizer of the contest sent me the list of what spices were included:
>And here's the spices they were given:
>?        Salt (kosher/sea salt)
>?        Pepper
>?        Cubebs
>?        Mustard
>?        Juniper berries
>?        Caraway Seed
>?        Cardamom
>?        Nutmeg
>?        Mace
>?        Cloves
>?        Cinnamon
>?        Galingale
>?        Saffron

Well, from this list they could have been:
-pepper (but i assume you know what pepper looks like)
- cubebs (rough and round with a skinny tail)
- mustard seed (smooth and round and very small)
- juniper berries (rough and round, but perhaps too big)
- cardamom (if the seeds were outside of the pods - not round - kind of oblong)

Here are some photos from *the best* source of spice info on the web, 
Gernot Katzer's Spice Pages:
Galangal:
http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Alpi_gal.html
As you can see, it is not nor does it produce black seeds.

Now that *that* is out of the way, let's look at actual possible 
little black seeds:

Cardamom -
http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Elet_car.html

Cubeb -
http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Pipe_cub.html

Juniper -
http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Juni_com.html

Black Mustard -
http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Bras_nig.html

And...
here's what nigella looks like, although apparently it was not among 
the spices at Potrero:
http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Nige_sat.html
-- 
Yours in better Spice knowledge

Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita