SC - Grapes and needing help

[ChannonM at aol.com]

<< The ratio, then, of
sugar to acids and astringents, would be unlikely to change. It'd still
make you pucker a bit, to say the least. >>

<< I expect you and the author of whatever has the reference are
talking about different varieties of grape..>>

I am keeping this last comment in mind, but I believe the type of grape used 
was possibly vitis vinifera although there were about 50 or so types of 
grapes cultivated in Imperial Rome. Actually, what I am referring to are 
grapes that are used to make must according to Anthimus, Dioscorides and 
Pliny. I have been researching my earlier thread of the connection of Apician 
(modified to include  Roman) recipes and cooking to later French cooking. In 
particular - Taillevent. Note the similarity to verjuis? I don't think I have 
to go on about the importance of verjuis in early French cooking nor  for 
that matter the importance must plays in Roman cooking. I cannot 
unquestionably say that the Roman "must" is one and the same as verjuis, but 
this information makes the connection  more convincing . It also brings into 
question our interpretation of caroenum, defrutum and sapa (three reductions 
of must used extensively in Roman cooking) which ie Flowers and Rosenbaum 
equate  with a sweet liquid-made from tinned grape juice in their estimation. 
Every modern writer I have read on Roman cooking has used the same 
interpretation of a sweet juice including Giacosa, Grainger and last and in 
my opinion  least, Vehling. 

Anthimus actually says in the very last line of his letter to Theuduric in 
the 6th C;
uua passa similiter ipso genere de uuis dulcibus et albis. unfacium de uua 
cruda fit. 

translated by Mark Grant in his edition of the text as;
Raisins from sweet white grapes have similar properties. Must is made from 
unripe grapes.

I have also read a second source of English translation, written by a woman 
(can't remember her name at the moment). In it she interprets "cruda" as raw. 
I went to 3 online dictionaries and found that crudus can mean bleeding/ raw/ 
uncooked/ unripe/ green/ fresh/ immature/ untimely/ undigested/ harsh. In the 
context of the sentence, raw, just doesn't seem to fit. The sentence and 
preceeding sentence are not indicating any cooking methods or the need to 
cook or not. Using the word as unripe  would fit when accompanied by the 
comments that Mark Grant adds from the Corpus of Latin Glosses that the best 
must was made from grapes picked when no more that the size of chick peas and 
Pliny says that these early grapes were pressed to produce a dry red and 
rather bitter juice. 

It gives one reason to reconsider the sticky sweet grape juice we use when 
cooking Roman. I'll be doing some reworking of recipes and comparing the 
results. Of course, there may be more to this thread than I've gathered so 
I'm not pullin' out my soap box.... yet.:)

Hauviette
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