SC - jerky documentation?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Serian wrote:
> 
> Greetings, good gentles,
> 
> I am curious about recipes/documentation for jerky.  I will
> look in the Flori when I am more awake, but am curious if
> any of you have sources or information.

AFAIK, charqi made from bison or deermeat was discovered by Spanish
explorers, being eaten by Native American travellers (the jerky, not the
explorers, that is), in the 16th century or so. Whether or not its use
was transferred to Europeans in period, I don't know.

However, there _is_ a dried beef recipe in the Yuan Dynasty physician Hu
Szu-hui's _Yin-shan cheg-yao_, or "Proper and Essential Things For the
Emperor's Food and Drink", recently published in a critical translation
in Buell and Anderson's "A Soup for the Qan":

"[183.] Dried Beef

"It cures chronic chill of spleen and stomach, compulsive drinking and eating.

"[34A.] Beef (five chin; remove fat and cut up into large strips.),
black pepper (five ch'ien), prepared mandarin orange peel (two ch'ien;
remove white), tsaoko cardamom (two ch'ien), grain-of-paradise (two
ch'ien), lesser galangal (two ch'ien).

"Make a fine powder of ingredients. Combine evenly with the meat, five
ho of sprouting ginger juice, one ho of onion juice, four liang of salt.
Let sit for two days, remove meat and dry over a fire until dried. Eat
as desired."

Elsewhere in "A Soup for the Qan":

"Note on Weights and Measures. In the translation below we have made no
attempt to translate Chinese weights and measures. The following
equivalents must be borne in mind when interpreting the recipes: a
ch'ien is today 3.12 g or .011 oz and is one-tenth of a liang. Sixteen
liang make a chin (about 500 g). A sheng is today 31.5 cu in (slightly
less in the fourteenth century), and is comprised of 10 ho (each 3.17 cu
in). Ten sheng make a tou. Units of length relevant to the translation
are the ts'un, which is 33.3 mm and the ch'ih, ten ts'un, or about one
third of a meter."

Note that the math above doesn't quite work in relation to ch'ien,
liang, and chin. 

It's unclear to me at this point whether the abbreviation "g" refers to
grams or grains (as I believe was suggested as a possiblity by HG
Cariadoc), or whether the decimal in ".011 oz" is misplaced (my own pet
theory), but if a ch'ien is 3.12 grams, that would be more like .11 oz,
not .011 oz. If it _is_ grams, that would seem to suggest 0.11 oz is
meant for one ch'ien, which would make a reasonable approximation for a
liang an ounce, and again, a reasonable approximation for a chin, a
pound. A web-based chart of weights and measures that I have saved on my
hard drive (unfortunately lacking a URL) claims a chin equals a catty
which equals 1 1/3 pounds, which may or may not be consistent with the
above if we're talking troy weight. At this point I'm totally confused. 

If what is meant by "g" is grains, at 437.5 grains per ounce troy and
480 per ounce avoirdupois, then here's where I go get more tea and begin
with my 12-Step program. Hello, my name is G. Tacitus Adamantius, and I
can't do the math for this recipe...

Perhaps Kiri or Phlip would be kind enough to forward the pertinent bits
of this to Dr. Buell and see what he says, or maybe someone with more
caffeine in his/her system can slog through this math.
    
Well, I _had_ hoped this would help, but at this point... I'm gonna go
get more hot water for my teacup.

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com