[Sca-cooks] RE: Sca-cooks digest, Vol 1 #1580 - 17 msgs

[Brian Songy]

>>My question is:  where did the Chinese get soda in the Qan's time?  Is
this a
>>period ingredient, or some redactor's addition to appeal to modern tastes?

>The short, simple answer? I don't know. The smartarse but true
>answer? Probably the same place the Romans got it from hundreds of
>years before the Yuan dynasty. Wherever that was... some mineral
>deposit, maybe?



Greetings:



Perhaps this may be helpful.  At http://cator.hsc.edu/~kmd/caveman/ is a web
site for a chemistry class in which the instructor has students reproduce
certain key technologies.  One of these projects is the production of potash
(at http://cator.hsc.edu/~kmd/caveman/projects/potash/index.html ). Potash
is potassium carbonate.  However, part of the process consists of
concentrating the potash from a mixture of potash and soda ash (sodium
carbonate), that is obtained by running water through wood ashes.  Perhaps,
concentrated soda ash could also be obtained could be obtained by a
analogous process.

Soda ash (sodium carbonate) is listed at the bottom of the page as also
being called washing soda.

The web site also mentions the chemistry of baking soda (sodium
bicarbonate), but does not talk on the subject


Is it reasonable that soda ash/washing soda/sodium carbonate is the "soda"
referred in the chinese sources mention above?  ..the Roman's?

I hope this helped a bit.

Matheus de Troyes