[Sca-cooks] Another contempory account of drinking water

[Stefan li Rous]

Misha asked:
> > In editing my bev-water-msg file, I came across this recent message.
> >  I thought some here might be interested. This would seem to be another
> >  indication that plain water was drunk, even if it wasn't a favorite
> >  beverage. Since it was generally the better off folks that could afford
> >  to make a pilgrimage, and the only ones that would be reading such a
> >  travelogue, this also indicates that the better off and not just
> >  the peasants, did drink plain water.
> >
> >  Stefan li Rous
>
> Wasn't water usually made for brewing beer since most of the water was
> undrinkable?

Well, that was one way that water was often drunk. The fact that the
water had to be boiled to make ale helped sterilize the water. But
water was also used when wine was drunk. It appears that most wine
in the Middle Ages was diluted with water.

The statement I quoted also seems to indicate that they knew there
was both drinkable and non-drinkable water and that not all water
was bad.

The previous discussions here were talking however about whether
water was ever drunk as is, by itself. I think someone made a
statement that water was never drunk. I dislike such blanket statements
like that for such a broad time period over such a time span, so
I keep my eyes open for counter arguments. I believe that individual
did however, later change their statement to water wasn't drunk
by the gentle class.

While I will admit that water was unlikely to be served at a feast,
and generally was not a preferred beverage by the gentles or the
peasants, I submit it was still drunk at various times.

For a little bit, way less than I would like, take a look at the
file mentioned above in the BEVERAGES section:
bev-water-msg     (18K)  6/29/01    Water as a beverage in period.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/BEVERAGES/bev-water-msg.html
--
THLord  Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas         stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****