[Sca-cooks] Allspice

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius1 at verizon.net
Tue Feb 24 21:05:14 PST 2009


On Feb 24, 2009, at 10:33 PM, Kean Gryffyth wrote:

> A question to the list...
>
>   What would you say is the closest period equivalent to allspice?  
> i.e., If you had a recipe that called for allspice and you only had  
> access to period spices, what would you replace it with?

Well, I think I'm going to echo Antonia on this one. Bearing in mind  
that allspice is called allspice because it's believed by many to  
resemble a mixture of certain fairly commonly available modern spices,  
it does sort of beg a question: if you have access to a modern recipe,  
which it would have to be, to some extent, in order to call for  
allspice, why substitute for it at all?

Are we engaging in some sort of reverse-engineering of a modern food  
into a period setting? And if so, why? Sure, it's fun to play around  
with things like this, but it raises some questions.

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter




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