SC - Re: A couple questions . . .

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Mark Schuldenfrei wrote:

> Research by a friend of mine (who happens to be A&S Minister of the East, so
> she's no lightweight) has shown that Digby changed a lot of the technology
> of brewing in his time: inventing the strong bottle, and so forth.
> 
> I like Digby: it's an easy to use and read source.  But I don't consider it
> period.  YMMV
> 
>         Tibor

Agreed on principal. However, I feel I need to qualify that with my
opinion that while there are some areas in which Digby appears to have
been a quite influential brewer whose "career" might be regarded as a
sort of turning point for the art, there are nonetheless many areas in
which the art has remained consistent before, during, and after the time
in which Digby lived, brewed, wrote, died, and was published. Much of
what Digby wrote applies to period brewing, as well. Of course, it's
hard to tell which is which sometimes, so I'd be inclined to use Digby
as a secondary source, in the sense that he might provide useful insight
into the interpretation of a more period recipe. Note that I said,
"might".

On a similar note, Gervase Markham has also been placed as officially
OOP by his 1615 publication date. I personally feel that Markham has
quite a lot more to teach about brewing as a science than Digby, because
the process of English-style infusion mashing is explained in quite
clear detail, while Digby just speaks of pouring your boiling water over
the malt, which, if followed to the letter, may well not result in
anything drinkable.

The other charge sometimes made against Markham, generally as an attempt
to discredit his value as a nominally period source, is that he was a
plagiarist. What many people who repeat this charge fail to take into
account is that what he was accused of plagiarizing was his own work,
over about the forty years previous to the publication of "The English
Housewife". The charges of plagiarism were made by a consortium of
publishers, who threatened to blackball him, essentially, if he
attempted to recycle any more of his previous works. In other words,
much of what was published in The English Housewife in 1615 had been
previously published, by Markham, in the 1570's and '80's.

Adamantius 
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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