Paul D. Buell on Tea Meal was: Fw: [Sca-cooks] Re: Sca-cooks digest, Vol 1 #2334 - 12 msgs

[Susan Fox-Davis]

I really, really appreciate that this friendly scholar regards "SCA land" as
kindly as he does, instead of the frequently-encountered attitude we usually get
from "real" academics.  He understands the meaning of the word "amateur" as
ama-teur, who does these things for the love of it!

>  If its Mongol food the beverage choices
> > would be a) kumiss, the preferred drink, b) a sharbat, probably
> > non-alcoholic but fermented ones were served as well, use a Persian
> recipe,

Fermented sharbat?  That little phrase suggests LOTS of possibilities.  As I
understand the word 'sharbat' it means a flavored sugar or honey syrup plus
water.  These fermented sharbats would be along the lines of the small meads or
ginger beers we already make, yesno?

> > or c) "Mongolian Tea," i.e., brick tea boiled in milk. Tsampa, tea with
> > butter and other things was also consumed. For lack of period recipes use
> > modern Tibetan ones. "Mongolian Tea," by the way, which I have had, is
> > excellent. However, in general, no self-respecting Mongol during the period
> > would have been without his kumiss. That was THE prestige food. If you can't
>
> > get horse kumiss, use camel.

I don't know where he lives, but in SoCal we see more horses than camels.  I
suppose if I put the word out to the Caid list that I'd like some mare's milk
for experimentation, I'd get razzed horribly,  so I'm out of luck anyway.  Will
cow's or goat's milk approach the "real" thing?  [I'm looking it up in the
Florilegium after work, honest.]

Selene Colfox
selene at earthlink.net