[Sca-cooks] "An Arab Mead" !!!

[Huette von Ahrens]

Good catch, Cariadoc!  I agree with you.  May I pass
on your comments to others?

Huette

--- david friedman <ddfr at best.com> wrote:
> The latest T.I. has an article describing a recipe
> from an Arabic
> medicinal formulary which the author thinks is a
> mead or, more
> precisely, pyment. I have sent off the following
> letter to T.I..
> Comments?
> -----
> The article "An Arab Mead" in T.I. 140 describes its
> recipe as
> "clearly a variety of mead (or, more properly, a
> sort of sack
> pyment)." I would have said that, on the evidence
> provided, it is
> clearly nothing of the sort. Consider:
>
> 1. The recipe specifies boiling the liquid until it
> is reduced by
> half. That is a very long boil, and one could not
> reasonably expect
> any yeast in the original grape pulp to survive it.
> Nothing is said
> about adding any additional source of yeast after
> the liquid has
> cooled.
>
> 2. The liquid contains grape juice at about twice
> its natural
> concentration, plus about three pounds  of honey per
> gallon. The
> combination comes to roughly three times the sugar
> concentration
> normally used to make wine or mead.
>
> 3. The recipe says to put the liquid into flasks and
> stopper them.
> There is no intermediate fermentation and nothing is
> said about
> leaving the stoppers loose. Failing to do so, as the
> author of the
> article points out, leads to problems.
>
> Each of those points by itself is evidence that what
> is being
> described is not a fermented drink. Combining them
> and  adding the
> religious prohibition against drinking fermented
> gape juice makes the
> article's interpretation highly implausible.
> ---
> Those of you who have not received you T.I. yet will
> find the article
> webbed by the author at:
>
> http://web.raex.com/~obsidian/arabmead.html
> --
> David/Cariadoc
> http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
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=====
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they
shall never cease to be amused.

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