From: Pat.Churchill@bbs.actrix.gen.nz
Subject: Re: Galangal, galingale (galinga)
Organization: Actrix Networks
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 05:29:23 GMT

In article <3453@creatures.cs.vt.edu> jtn@nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter) writes:
> Hi.  Tim Langevin wrote,
> 
> >   There appears to be some confusion about galingale and galangal.

> 
> The OED gives a different account. It explicitly treats all spellings as 
> the same word, and refers to a single main entry under "galingale".  This
> is more consistent with the spelling variations I find in 14th and 15th
> C English and French recipes than the AHD treatment.  Under that entry,
> the OED lists two meanings:
> 
> 	1.  The aromatic root of certain East Indian plants of the
> 	genera _Alpina_ and _Kampferia_, formerly much used in medecine
> 	and cookery.
> 	[bunches of refs omitted]
> 	    b.  A dish seasoned with galingale.
> 	[more refs]
> 	2.  Applied to an English species of sedge, _Cyperus longus_,
> 	sometimes distinguished as 'English galingale', the root of
> 	which has similar properties to those of the true galingale.
> 	[more refs]
> 
> >   As to what Elizabethans used galingale for, I also can't say,
> >   although perhaps that made a 15th century style Lamprey Sauce... 
> 
> This is pre-Elizabethan.  One of the most common sauces of the 14th and 15th
> centuries was galentine (galantine, galintine, galantyn, etc.); virtually
> every English and French cookbook has at least one recipe for it.  In this
> period, the primary (sometimes the only) spice is galingale.  -- Galantine
> sauces survive today in French cuisine, but the galingale has been replaced
> by ginger, to the severe damage of the sauce, at least in my opinion (and
> I love ginger).  By the way, the same traditions _did_ have distinguished
> ginger sauces -- jances -- and used them differently.  I've also found 
> galingale used in bruets (sourt of medieval stew-like dishes), sweets,
> other sauces, and so on; not as common as ginger, but used in much the same
> way.
> 
> I'll run through my Hugh Platt and see what I find for Elizabethans.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Terry Nutter     Blacksburg, VA     jtn@vtopus.cs.vt.edu     (703)552-1598
In *Exotic Fruits and Vegetables*, authors Jane Grigson and Charlotte
Knox deal with Galangal (alpinia galanga) and say:
On account of medieval recipes I would suspect that the words
galantine and galangal are confused in the inquiring cook's mind.
Galangal was used to flavour a galantine sauce which consisted of
bread crusts, a little galangal, cinnamon and ginger, pounded up and
moistened with an appropriate stock.  This was heated, sharpened with
a splash of vinegar and strained over fish or meat, a dashing lively
sauce, a galant sauce:
  Was never a pike wallowed in galantine
  As I in love am wallowed and y-wound
as Chaucer wrote around about AD1384.
RThe word galangal came via Persia and the Arabic khalanjan from the
Chinese Ko-liang-kiang, meaning no more than mild ginger from Ko, a
prefecture in the province of Canton.  Europe seems to have stopped
using galangal with the development of simpler cooking, or rather
simpler flavouring, in the Renaissance.  I doubt it appears at all in
the 17th century cookbooks that set our moder style.
Quote ends...

It's rather interesting, isn't it?
-- 
| The floggings will continue until morale improves
| Pat.Churchill@bbs.actrix.gen.nz (Pat Churchill, Wellington, New Zealand)
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