[Sca-cooks] What class would you teach/take?

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

> It was a long time ago, and I may have misremembered the name; it
> was a ginger something-or-other. . . but still quite delicious, and proof-free.

'Ginger Beer' in the modern sense is zero proof, and I've made a good
approximation by making a strong mixture of ginger-lemon syrup and selzer.
Mixed with ordinary water it's delicious and more period but I don't
believe I have documentation for it, except Culpeper's mentions of using a
syrup mixed with water as a 'julep,' and that's postperiod.

> >Funny, I thought the authenticists believed that nobody ever drank fruit
> >juice unfermented.
> I'm not that much of an authenticist. I'm also thinking that when you're
> in the middle of harvest, you'll drink anything, even if it were unfermented
> - and, hey, with all those apples around, why not?

Erase and correct. I know that people drank various juices with and
without sugar _medicinally_, including things like cabbages... Culpeper,
who is postperiod, gives instructions thuswise:

"                                                Of Juyces.
1. Juyces are to be pressed out of Herbs when they are yong and tender,
and also out of some Stalks, and tender tops of Herbs and Plants,
and also out of some Flowers.
2. Having gathered your Herb you would preserve the Juyce of, when it is
very dry (for otherwise your Juyce will not be worth a Button)
bruise it very wel in a stone Mortar with a wooden Pestle, then having put
it into a Canvas Bag (the Herb I mean, not the Mortar for that
will yield but little Juyce) press it hard in a press, then take the Juyce
and clarifie it.
3. The manner of clarifying of it is this, put it into a Pipkin or
Skillet, or some such thing and set it over the fire, and when the Scum
riseth, take it off, let it stand over the fire till no more Scum rise,
then have  you your Juyce clarified, cast away the Scum as a thing of no
use. "
(From the 1652 edition of The English Physitian, webbed at Yale Medical
School. http://www.med.yale.edu/library/historical/culpeper/culpeper.htm)



-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
jenne at fiedlerfamily.net OR jenne at tulgey.browser.net OR jahb at lehigh.edu
"Are you finished? If you're finished, you'll have to put down the spoon."