Category: Ingredients and Spices

Ingredients and Spices / Rendering Fat into Lard

December 10, 2010

Rendering of Fat into Lard

Rendering Fat into Lard Lard is the rendering of animal fat into a solid(ish) state to be used in cooking or as a base for an herbal rub such as a bruise balm. Rendering...

Honey / Ingredients and Spices

November 20, 2010

So today’s topic is every one’s favorite sweetener, Honey! There is a lot of information on honey so just a few high lights. Per Toussaint-Samat, bees (not today’s honey bees but their ancestors) originated ...

Ingredients and Spices / Sugar

September 23, 2010

Sugar

Sugar was not, historically, plentiful or abundant until the late 1500’s. What we would consider an every day stable was used sparingly for medicinal used (improve digestion and increase appetite) to only found on...

Ingredients and Spices / Mastic

August 21, 2010

Mastic

I was out and about shopping for baker’s ammonia (Hartshorn), that is used in Springerle cookies, when I stumbled across Mastic. Now this spice is called for in more then a few Middle Eastern...