[Sca-cooks] -sans pearl

[Stefan li Rous]

Mirhaxa asked:
> Better than -in- the wine. Do pearls really disolve when dropped into
> wine?

Probably not in wine unless it is pretty acidic or has turned to
vinegar. Pearls will disolve in an acid such as vinegar.

The following is from the pearls-msg file in the ACCESSORIES section
of the Florilegium:

> I've been reading through my newly-acquired copies of "A Queen's Delight"
> and came across the following "recipe":
>
> To make a true Majistery of Pearl.
> Dissolve two or three ounces of fine seed Pearl in distilled Vinegar, &
> when it is perfectly dissolved, and all taken up, pour the Vinegar into a
> clean glass bason; then drop some few drops of Oyl of Tartar upon it, & it
> will cast down the Pearl into fine Powder, then pour the Vinegar clean off
> softly, then put to the Pearl clear Conduit or Spring water, pour that off,
> and do so often untill the taste of the Vinegar and Tartar be clean gone,
> then dry the powder of Pearl upon warm embers, and keep it for your use.

And further on:
> The only part of this problem that I can address is how the vinegar
> dissolves the powdered pearls--pearls are calcium carbonate, and like
> limestone and calcite, and a lot of other minerals that contain calcium,
> and like bones, they will dissolve in fairly weak acids.  The weaker the
> acid, the longer they take to dissolve--so grinding them up helps the
> process of dissolution.
>                                            Theo

--
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 ****