Elizabethan Spice Compilation

Top layer tray of box filled with bags and jars of spices, also a hand-made nutmeg grater thrown in. This isn't how period spices would be stored but this was necessary for sending it by post.

Spices

Note: I did include some sources that date past 1600 and indeed past the Elizabethan age, but included them as notes of interest on how food, and dining, both changed and remained similar.

Mace: While a lot of the mace, once used in the recipes, may be powdered, a good deal of whole mace, used in the form of blades, was used through the last half of the 16^th century and into the 17^th century. This was most often in boiled chicken[i] and capon[ii] dishes (some similar from book to book) as well as for other birds such as mallards and sparrows[iii] as well as other non-poultry dishes[iv]. By the 1650’s I did notice “large mace” also used in a variety of baked dishes[v], however those examples are way past our period, though the degree of change was interesting enough to mention.

Its use in powdered form, or what is most likely powdered form, is mentioned throughout English cookbooks from at least the 14^th century[vi] and on.

Cloves: These can either be powdered or left whole. A couple examples for leaving them whole are late 16^th century recipe for baking turkey[vii] and a gammon of bacon. In these cases, the meat is studded with cloves before being put in the pastry.

Again, cloves in various forms appear to be quite common in Elizabethan cookery and were popular in English cooking before the era[viii].

Pepper, Grains of Paradise, Long Pepper: By the late 16^th century, Pepper seems to have become more of the standard peppery spice with much less mention of Grains or Long pepper in England. It would actually take too much space to list all the recipes containing pepper where the other two seemed mostly confined to either drinks or jelly[ix].

Ginger: From preserves to powder, it’s also a fairly common spice for the Elizabethan palate showing up in too many recipes to list. One note I would like to make is its use for Galentine (known under various spellings), this seems to be the common spice used in later periods while earlier period used either ginger or galangal or both. What is interesting here, is the example of a sauce that was known for its use of galangal in earlier recipes moved to being one that used mainly ginger by the late 16^th century. In “stumbling into historic cookery”, I talked about the sauce a couple of times noting its possible origins with the galangal[x].

Saffron and Saunders: Both a spice and a colouring. While some believe it to have been used as two separate spices, my conclusion is that Saffron was just saffron in Elizabethan England and used accordingly. Of course I little proof but it does seem to have a mostly large role as a colouring as does Saunders (red sandalwood). One could use food colouring as a substitute in many cases, though I would advise trying the real thing first to get an understanding of the colours obtained and how the two play together and in various foods. In dishes where the subtlety of saffron could be detected, I would then highly advise only using the real thing.

Cinnamon: Another very common spice and one used from early English cookery and on, used both alone and in named spice mixtures. Cinnamon can also become easily overpowering, many years ago I did a little experiment to show how expensive it would be to cover up even the bad smell of spoiling meat (exposed but not yet decomposed) and only cinnamon came even close to masking the smell, though it took nearly its own weight in spice to do it.

Nutmeg: While sometimes preparation isn't defined, other times recipes state either to either cut[xi], crush[xii] or grate[xiii] the nutmeg. It is also a fairly commonly used spice as seen in several entries from the era.

Salt: Used for seasoning all the way to curing food, very popular but would be wrong to leave it out.

Sugar: common, but not commonly thought of as a spice but it does have a place with spices and was even used in powdered mixtures (see below).