[Sca-cooks] Oh, My Aching Comfits!

[Stefan li Rous]

Phillipa asked Alys:

<<< When I was reading about your work with making confits, I was
wondering about gum arabic so I looked it up. OK, so now I am
convinced that you can eat the stuff.....but I have a bottle of gum
arabic that I use in calligraphy.... and I would never eat THAT
stuff... Is it the same thing??  >>>

There are different gums, used for different purposes, but I think  
gum arabic is gum arabic ad that there aren't multiple types. However  
some may be treated in such a way that you wouldn't want to use it in  
a food product.

For more info, perhaps this file might be of interest:
gums-resins-msg   (34K) 11/12/06    Period use of plant gums and  
resins. Myrrh,
                                        mastic, frankincense, camphor.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/PLANTS/gums-resins-msg.html

Or perhaps check the various message that come up when you plug "gum  
arabic" into the Florilegium search engine.

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 ****