SC - Is drinking water "period"

[Catherine Keegan]

Imagine your descendants 500 years from now, reading the surviving
cookbooks from the late 20th century.  Most of them are from Sunset, Bon
Appetit, or Gourmet magazines.  None of them make regular mentions of
drinking water with meals; in fact, they rarely mention drinking water at
all, except in the context of declining water quality.  Nearly all menus
describe the appropriate wine; some discuss beer.  Special non-alcoholic
drinks are provided for children, but in general, we conclude that the late
20th century household habitually drank wine and beer with their meals and
rarely, if ever, drank water.

Archaeological evidence, however, indicates that vast sums were spent on
water delivery and purification systems.  It is difficult to know what the
purpose of these systems would be if people were not drinking the water.

In this context, note the surviving 12th century map of the water supply
system for Canterbury Cathedral; very elaborate and sophisticated.  Many
medieval cities had extremely complex water supply systems, built to bring
good-quality water from distant springs or streams.  Surely not all of this
water was used to irrigate kitchen gardens and slop the sewers!

Just a reminder of the bias inherent in our sources of information...

Colin

>> paragraph). Since we often discuss recipes for "documented" drinks at
feasts 
>> - - I pose the question: Is my goblet full of water "period"??
>> 
>> Rayne   
>> 
>> Original Post: Actually, people in period did NOT drink water.  They
didn't 
>> have our
>> facilities for cleaning and sanitizing the water, so drinking water
would be
>> a pretty good way to catch a pretty nasty disease.  Fermenting or
brewing it
>> basically takes care of these problems, or so I understand, so that is why
>> ale and wine were staple drinks.
>
>There has been a little discussion here about this. There are some
>documented exceptions to this rule. However, in general, this appears
>to be true.