[Sca-cooks] roman feast

[Kathleen A Roberts]

i can see where that might make a diff.  i will certainly 
try that.  i am pretty much willing to consider any advice 
(other than jumping off a pier, of course). 8)

i am still tweaking and playing with ideas.  at least 
until i get a deadline for proposals.

cailte

On Tue, 1 Apr 2008 16:44:01 -0700
  Lilinah <lilinah at earthlink.net> wrote:
> OK, this has been sitting in my out box for quite some 
>time, but i 
> decided to send it anyway.
> 
> cailte wrote:
>>yeah, i can see a lot of spin on the ingredients and how
>>they are cooked (in both senses of the word) in the
>>vehling.  but it's fascinating reading.
>>
>>except for the cumin.  never did like cumin.  boy, did i
>>transplant to the wrong part of the country!
> 
> Have you tried pan roasting/dry frying whole cumin seeds 
>before 
> grinding them? While i generally have no problem with 
>cumin, i find 
> it has a much more agreeable flavor after it has been 
>"roasted". 
> (there has got to be a better word... Adamantius? 
>anyone?)
> 
> When i made the Apician Peach Patina with Cumin Sauce 
>(Cuminatum in 
> Patina de Persicis : Patina of Peaches in Cumin Sauce 
>[Apicius, Book 
> IV, Chapter II, Recipe 34 in F&R]) for my Greco-Roman 
>feast, i 
> roasted the cumin seeds before making the dish (peaches 
>in a sauce of 
> lovage, parsley, mint, cumin, black pepper, honey, fish 
>sauce, wine 
> vinegar). The peaches were absolutely superb and the 
>dish was 
> fabulously yummy, as weird as the ingredients may sound 
>to some. I 
> had no precedent for this in Roman cooking and i confess 
>i did it 
> only to improve the flavor of the dish.
> 
> The recipes doesn't specify exactly which cumin sauce to 
>use. There 
> are quite a few in the book. Besides cumin, nearly all 
>include black 
> pepper, fish sauce, and wine vinegar. Most include mint, 
>lovage, 
> parsley, rue, and honey. And a few include bay leaf, 
>malabathrum, 
> coriander, or old wine.
> 
>Faas in his book "Around the Roman Table" included the 
>Peach Patina 
> recipe and one of many cumin sauces (p. 242), but did 
>not bother to 
> "redact" the recipe, merely commenting, "This is a 
>curious recipe. 
> Boiled peaches in perfumed olive oil sounds fine - but 
>with cumin 
> sauce? A challenge to the chef."
> 
> Side Bar:
> According to Gernot Katzer's terrific spice pages, 
> Malabathrum/malabathron is the leaf of Cinnamomum tamala 
>and 
> Cinnamomum tejapata, and also called tejpat and Indian 
>bay-leaf
> http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Cinn_tam.html
> Unfortunately, in my haunting of the many local 
>Indian/Pakistani 
> markets, all i've found is that ordinary bay leaves are 
>sold as 
> tejpat :-(
> 
> Has anyone actually found *real* tejpat?
> 
> Anyway, back to cumin and roasted spices:
> In "Cooking Apicius", Sally Grainger's companion book to 
>her husband, 
> Christopher Grocock's book "Apicis" (long title snipped 
>but recently 
> much mentioned on this list), she recommends roasting 
>various spice 
> seeds, although not peppercorns (p. 21-22). She doesn't 
>give a 
> clearly Roman reason, however. She says, "With the 
>exception of 
> peppercorn, spices benefit from the release of their 
>fragrance by 
> roasting before they are ground."
> 
> In any case, i suggest giving a try to dry roasting the 
>whole cumin 
> seeds before grinding them and seeing if it makes cumin 
>more 
> palatable to you.
> -- 
> Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
> the persona formerly known as Anahita
> 
> My LibraryThing
> http://www.librarything.com/catalog/lilinah
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy which 
sustained him through temporary periods of joy."
W. B. Yeats
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kathleen Roberts
Coordinator of Freshman Admissions
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM
505-277-2447
FASTINFOrmation at your fingertips - 
http://fastinfo.unm.edu/