From: jtn@nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter)
Newsgroups: rec.food.historic
Subject: Re: Galangal, galingale (galinga)
Date: 12 Sep 92 18:26:34 GMT
Followup-To: rec.food.historic

Hi.  Tim Langevin wrote,

>   There appears to be some confusion about galingale and galangal.
>   According to the American Heritage Dictionary, these are the roots
>   of two unrelated species, one Asian (galangal, Alpinia officinarum)
>   and one European (galingale, Cyperus longus). Galangal was probably 
>   named by Europeans who were familiar with galingale and found it 
>   similar. I found no reference to galinga.  I have seen (and made)
>   Thai recipes that use galangal (and also referred to it as kah), but
>   have never seen (though it doesn't prove much, I know...) a Thai
>   recipe call for galingale.

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]

I have almost a pound of what you get from Frontier Herbs if you special
order "galingale".  It's the stuff that tastes like ginger that grew up,
went to college, got sophisticated, and decided to go for a Ph.D.  So
if you order galingale (under that name) from Frontier, at any rate, you
will get the good stuff. 

-- I think it's the AHD that's confused.  It works from US source material 
primarily, and neither root has ever been much used here.

>   How interchangeable they are in recipes, I can not say...

Nor can I; but judging from the naming, my guess is that "English galingale"
is at least a half-way decent substitute, as it was named in a time and place
where galingale was widely used.  (Then again, Kay Klier had a bad experience
with it.  Then again, maybe she had a bad sample?  I got some lousy ginger
root once....)

>   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