I was at a French friends house for dinner, and she cooked roast chicken. I normally associate chicken with herbs, rosemary, tarragon, thyme and lemon etc.
When I was eating it, my taste buds were going on a joy ride. She had used four spice, a combo of ginger, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.
I’m converted!
Now she prepared the spices herself from fresh, but I see you can buy the mix like you can buy 5 spice.
Have you used this combo? What with? What else would you imagine this combo with?
I had lamb recently in a neighbours house. She cooked it medium, but the flesh was nearly white, it was so pale, it looked like pork, but tasted lovely.
Such a learning curve, and what makes it more difficult is we don’t eat much meat, maybe twice a week.
We are trying to eat more fish, experimenting with different kinds. Some of them we just don’t know, as probably we didn’t get them so much in Ireland. One we tried is lieu noir, and we absolutely love it. Turns out it’s Coley saithe or pollack. But I bought it one day with some cod, and much preferred the taste and texture of the coley.
If we’d known the translation before we tried it, we may have not. So glad we did 
Peter,
Yes when I looked it up it mentioned pepper, and not ginger. It’s the combo I am intrigued about. I love that it stretches my own boxed in variations of groups of spices, and what they are used for.
About the Pork. Totally agree, my hubby buys a roast for 5-6 euro, and has mastered it on the BBQ and in the oven. Somehow he manages to get it tender and with flavour (I even coaxed him to make crackling one day)
My neighbours swear by their chosen butcher, which changes depending on who I speak with. But the message is clear, the meat is better than the supermarkets.
Coming from Ireland, I am actually disappointed with the general quality of meat, however some of the cuts are better.
The commercial Quatre Epices might have black pepper instead of the ginger, but it's not exactly hard to mix whatever you like. I've read that you could also use cayenne/chili powder instead of pepper/ginger.
Given the lack of taste in today's mass-produced (but cheap) pork, I find that this kind of rub improves it considerably. Of course, I'd rather be able to get good quality pork, but that's easier said than done around here.
I think it would probably be really good as a rub over a piece of lamb for slow roasting.