Re(2): SC - cognac

[Terry Nutter]

Hi, Katerine here.  Derdriu responds to Tibor responding to me:

>> I agree that brandy is an appropriate thing to use for either aqua vite or
>> eau ardent (and have a sneaking suspicion that eau is clearer than aqua...
>> but I don't know why I think that).  But I wouldn't use the (more expensive)
>> and regionally specific cognac in a recipe, unless perhaps the source of the
>> recipe was in or near Cognac, France.
>
>Could the difference be language based?  I wonder if eau ardent was available
>in France more readily than it might have been other places.  
>> 
>> 	Tibor
>
>Just wondering.

Both appear in English sources.  Eau ardent probably appears in French ones
too, but I can't think of any offhand.  People tend to forget that the common
language of English cuisine through the 13th century appears to have been 
pretty firmly established as Anglo-Norman, and that medieval miscellanies
(in which a number of culinary recipes appear) were fairly well bilingual
between Middle English and Latin, and sometimes in earlier cases trilingual
between English, Latin, and Anglo-Norman.

The evolution (and accellerated corruption) of Anglo-Norman dish names through
the 14th and 15th centuries pretty clearly indicates that the scribes copying
them no longer understood Anglo-Norman.  The references I can think of offhand
to eau ardent are early 15th century (in Arundel 334).  I strongly suspect
that by then, to those who wrote about it, it was just a name.

Cheers,

- -- Katerine/Terry