[Sca-cooks] Reference to 'stale' ale.

[Pixel, Queen of Cats]

Aargh. You know, I actually *picked up* Wilson's _Food and Drink in
Britain_ on my way out, to skim through for info on drinking water. And I
put it back in the book shelf.

Anyway. She's got a pretty useful chapter on beverages that I obviously
didn't memorize but if I'm being really motivated tonight I could go
through and glean. Hagen's Anglo-Saxon food books also mention hops in
brewing contexts, although her sources don't always specify medicinal
uses.

My love and inspiration is fond of quoting a late 13th c. English document
that talks about a fine imposed for serving (or selling, I disremember
which) ale adulterated with "a weed called hops". I'll have to pin him
down on that.

Dyer (_Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages_, a favorite book of
mine for English stuff) mentions beer as being a continental invention,
and also that it appeared alongside ale in the fifteenth century. Another
citation of his references ale and beer consumption, from a source which
is most likely records of household accounts, written in French, with the
Roman numerals XIV and XV. (While we're on Dyer, he cites the average
peasant family as having 3 quarters of barley for ale annually. According
to his info, a quarter of malt produced anywhere from 50 to 96 gallons of
ale depending on the strength.)



Margaret FitzWilliam