[Sca-cooks] Real Cubebs?

edoard at medievalcookery.com edoard at medievalcookery.com
Wed Jun 9 12:52:36 PDT 2010


> -------- Original Message --------
> From: lilinah at earthlink.net
> 
> I buy a lot of spices at Lhasa Karnak, in Berkeley, which is 
> generally reliable. But a few years ago there was a problem with 
> cubebs (i forget which, a disease or insect infestation). Since then 
> LK has been selling as cubebs something that definitely is not cubeb. 
> They are tinier than cubebs, have no tail, and pretty much no flavor. 
> The wrinkled black skin slips off easily revealing a red-brown 
> smoothing skinned sphere.
> 
> Does anyone know where to get REAL cubebs?
> (not a random link on the internet that i could find myself, or ''i 
> think so and so sells them''. I want to know i'm getting the real 
> thing rather than i buying more of something that isn't cubeb.)
> Or are they still unavailable in the US?


I bought a pound of cubebs a while back from a seller on Amazon.com
(Blessac), and what I got was pretty decent stuff.  It was a bit of a
leap of faith in that I got a bunch of what I believe was ashanti pepper
when buying online from a different spice merchant.

I'll make note of the issue with Lhasa Karnak on my spice sources
webpage. 

- Doc





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