period mead recipes

[Mark Harris]

Greetings unto the Ansteorran mead brewers,

I believe it was Pug who asked about period mead recipes. Here are the
referances to period mead collections that have been mentioned over
the years. This is from my file mead-msg.

Stefan li Rous

=========
From: DDF2 at cornell.edu (David Friedman)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Period brewing and herbs...
Date: 19 Nov 1993 02:50:17 GMT
Organization: Cornell Law School

In article <2cdsr5$oje at uxa.ecn.bgu.edu>, miss059 at uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Rich
Bainter) wrote:

>    I'm doing a little personal research and I'm interested in finding
> out what herbs were used in medieval brewing and why. 

The recipe for mead in Buch von Gute Speise uses hops, sage and a resined
vessel. It is the only usable pre-1600 mead recipes I know of. Curye on
Englysch has two more, although they do not have enough information, in my
judgement, to make it clear how they are really done. If you do not have
access to a copy, and can probably dig out mine.

The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, Opened, c. 1660, is the first source I know
of with lots of fermented drinks. There are also a few descriptions of beer
making from the sixteenth century. Harrison's preface to Holinshed's
chronicles has one that mentions hops, arras (?), and bayberries finely
powdered, also long pepper as an alternative.. 
-- 
David/Cariadoc
DDF2 at Cornell.Edu


From: jtn at nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Period brewing and herbs...
Date: 21 Nov 1993 18:27:30 GMT
Organization: The Rialto

Greetings, all, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn.

Cariadoc writes:
>>    I'm doing a little personal research and I'm interested in finding
>> out what herbs were used in medieval brewing and why. 
>
>The recipe for mead in Buch von Gute Speise uses hops, sage and a resined
>vessel. It is the only usable pre-1600 mead recipes I know of. Curye on
>Englysch has two more, although they do not have enough information, in my
>judgement, to make it clear how they are really done. If you do not have
>access to a copy, and can probably dig out mine.

There is also a single recipe for mead (called "Bouchet", but clearly mead)
in the Menagier, listed under dishes for invalids, as I recall.  There is
some difficulty with working out the measures, though.  It is not reproduced
in the Eileen Power translation, but is in the (complete but not commercially
published) Janet Hinson translation that Cariadoc sells.

I agree absolutely with Cariadoc that the first collection of recipes 
anywhere near extensive enough to tell you anything about customary use
of herbs and other flavorings in brewing is Kenelm Digby.  And the "why"
is far from evident.

Cheers,
-- Angharad/Terry


From: mjc at telerama.lm.com (Monica Cellio)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Help: Recipi for MEDIEVAL BEER
Date: 16 Jan 1996 15:07:48 -0500
Organization: Telerama Public Access Internet, Pittsburgh, PA USA

There is a very tasty mead recipe in "Ein Buch von guter spise", c.1340
(German).  It is flavored with sage and hops (!).  (I know the original
poster was looking for beer, but thought a hopped mead might be interesting
too.)

A translation of the cookbook can be found at
http://www.mit.edu:8001//people/akatlas/Buch/buch.html.

Ellisif

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