SC - 15th Century Italian feast...

[LrdRas@aol.com]

> Hauviette wrote:
> > In Alya Atlas's work, the word "agraz" is also used to denote verjus.
> She
> > mentions the fact that Charlemagne was the ruler of Germany at one point
> and
> > had some influence on the culinary arts in this regard. I dont' have the
> > manuscript in front of me, so forgive the generalities, time to go to
> work,
> 
> According to the lexicon in the back of Wiswe's Kulturgeschichte der
> Kochkunst, agraz comes from agresta so the word would seem to be
> going north from Italy to Germany not the other way.
> 
> Valoise
> 
Either could be correct.  The Holy Roman Empire incorporated Germany and the
official language was Latin, so the term could have been made common via
Charlemagne's court.  However, I would bet that verjuice was an import into
Roman occupied Germany and that the term agraz was adopted from the Latin
earlier than Charlemagne's time. 

Bear