[Sca-cooks] Another contempory account of drinking water

[Michael Gunter]

>I believe the wine in Ancient Rome was a syrup
>and during parties or normal drinking, water was
>added by measures. The strength of the wine was measured
>by how much measures of water was placed in. I don't
>know if people in the Middle Ages did this or not.
>
>Misha

I'm not sure about this "syrup" thing. I don't doubt
that they did something similar with final pressings
or that they codensed wine in some ways but this is
really the first I've heard of this. Master A would
probably know more about this than I. However after
living in Sicily for some time I got used to the fact
that most of the restaurants either made their own
wine or bought it from a local source. So every day
the wine was a little different. Sometimes very good
and sometimes not so good. You could tell the quality
of the wine when you came in by the numbers of Aqua
Minerale bottles on the tables. Basically you would
water the wine until it was palatable.

On a related note, I remember a passage from a book
about the English excursions into France where the
army was under-rationed. One of the main grumbles was
the fact that the knights had to drink water instead
of wine which was proper for them.

Gunthar
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