[Sca-cooks] Period Ices/Sorbets/Cold Treats?

[Philip W. Troy & Susan Troy]

Barbara Nostrand wrote:
>
> Noble Cousins!
>
> Greetings from Solveig! The Romans were supposed to be doing something
> with ice. The Japanese were making shaved ice confections during the
> Heian period. One of these is mentioned in the Pillow Book of Sei
> Shonagon.
>
>                                         Your Humble Servant
>                                         Solveig Throndardottir
>                                         Amateur Scholar
>
> >I have read, and would *love* to get this confirmed, that the Italians
> >would drag ice down from the mountains, chip it and serve it on the
> >street with fruit juice.  Basically a period Sno-Kone.  Does anyone here
> >know if there is any truth to this?  'Twould be way cool if there is...
> >pun intended :)


Hmmm. Does anybody else spot an interesting trend developing here? Or
the possibility of it developing here?

Please note that I'm not saying frozen or snow/ice-based confections did
not exist in period or even earlier. The fact is I don't know if they
did or not; all I know is that I haven't seen any really compelling
evidence for it. There may be scads of evidence that I haven't run
across, but, not having run across it, well, you get the idea.

I was interested in the fact that this post from Lady Solveig comprises
the first real documentation for such practices that I've seen. At
least, I'm assuming it's legit. Mostly what I've seen is something like,
"Yeah, didn't Nero or one of those guys do that? I read it somewhere..."

What I am wondering is if we, as researchers, have ever established the
periodicity of a practice, a dish, or whatever, by using a rumor to
support another rumor. For example, and I'm making this up here, have we
ever gone from, "The Vikings had access to plenty of snow and ice; they
must have made cloudberry snow-cones. I mean, the Romans did that all
the time, I think I read that somewhere; it sure makes sense that the
Vikings would have done it too," to "The Vikings made cloudberry snow-cones."

I'm interested in other possibilities, as well, this just happens to be
what made me ask myself the question _this_ time. I'm not questioning
anybody's research. (Although I would love to see a quote from a primary
Latin history source, or even some other, detailing this
Romans-eating-Snow-Cones thing.)

It strikes me as something that medieval physicians would consider
amazingly unsound.

Adamantius
--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

"It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98