[Sca-cooks] Re: Soap

[Stefan li Rous]

Sue Clemenger wrote:
> Soap....I'm going with some (relatively) modern recipes, and using all
> the modern safety precautions (I've got a friend who was burned with
> lye, and the scar is NOT pretty, nor is the description she sent me of
> her skin bubbling and turning black....<blech>).  I've got _no_ period
> references, other than some anectdotal (un-footnoted, etc.) stuff in the
> introductory section of a couple of books.  One reference in a class
> handout to "castile" soap, in a recipe apparently taken from Plat's
> _Delights for Ladies_ (anyone on this list know the dates for that, by
> the way?).
> Anyone out there have any sources on period soap recipes, references,
> etc.? (besides the Florilegium, of course <g>).> --Maire

Well, since you seem to have checked the Florilegium, I won't detail
the files, but there are four different files in the Florilegium on
soap or soapmaking (just in case you missed one) and here is a message
that I thought you might find useful which I haven't put in the
Florilegium yet.

--
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 ****

> Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 10:24:41 -0400
> From: "Elyse C. Boucher" <70521.3645 at compuserve.com>
> To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
> Subject: SCA-ARTS digest 1144
>
> Greeting from the humble scrib Merouda Pendray.
>
> Looking for soap references after Pliny and before Strassburg?
>
> Try Mappe Clavicula, available in translation from the American
> Philosophical Society, which exists in various copies made in the
> 9th-12th centuries. Excellent resource for a whole varietis of subjects,
> as it is a collection of receipts for a wide range of things, like
> seseme seed candy, construction of battering rams, flaming arrows, scribal
> materials, and....soap. :-)
>
> I'm at work, can't recollect the whole cite off the top of my head, but
> I do have the refernce in my online biblio, in the instructions subset,
> at http://www.geocities.com/merouda/aboutbib.html.
>
> Your Typo-makin' Servant,
>
> Merouda