SC - Hordiate/Orgeat/Horchata

[Philip & Susan Troy]

"E. Rain" wrote:
> 
> Michael F. Gunter suggested that Hordiate in the 'Manual de Mujeres" might
> be a forerunner of orgeat.  another possibility that ocurs to me is that it
> could be an ancestor of Horchata a spanish/Mexican sweet almond-flavored
> drink made with water or rice milk
> 
> Eden

Hello, Eden, I didn't know you were here! Welcome, if probably belated!

Um, I think that was me... .There appears to be a related family of
almond-flavored beverage bases surviving around Europe and Asia today,
and apparently at least a couple of them have names which appear
etymologically related to words denoting barley.

My feeling is that there's probably a series of vaguely medicinal barley
beverages, sometimes, but not always, flavored with almonds, that may be
only marginally related to the foods designed to fill the belly,
porridges and pulses and such. I have a feeling that Mark Grant's use of
"barley soup", for example, in his translation of Anthimus would be
better associated with tisanes and barley-waters than with simple soups,
both in preparation and use.

At some point there seems to have been a branching-off of the
almond-flavored barley preparations from the almond-free versions, but
all seem to have had a medicinal use connotation.  

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com