[Sca-cooks] Alexey's answer to Brandu (birch sap)

[Phlip]

Greetings Phlip & Brandu (in case the answer is forwarded)!

Birch sap is never used as a sweetener. As it was discussed here
developing a thread about maple sugar, it needs a warmer climate than
Russian one to get really sweet sap, and you won't get any sugar from
maples here, even if you get the seedlings from the New World. It
simply can't accumulate enough carbohydrates. This year Moscow was
choked by the burning turf fields (irrigated once for land to
sell/turf to cut & sell), and apples were in great numbers - but all
were still green & sour even in September. Lack of sunlught. Same with
other cultures. This land enjoys sunlight for about 170 days a year,
if I got the figures right. So, it's one thing.

The other thing is birch sap is sweet for a very short time, so you
can't get it fresh for the whole year. In summer it's bitter. So they
invented the usual (for ancient cultures) way to preserve it - to
store it fermented. But it's not a mead, usually it's called Braga
(beer w/o adding hop), as it's not so sweet and thick as meads are
(though, meads are divided into literally meads - "Myod" ("honey"), or
"Stavlenny myod" ("fermented honey")and
thin, easy-pouring mead-based drinks called "Miedovukha" ("made of honey"),
which
have significally less honey in the recipes).The latter, of course is
more commercially effective (not just cheap, but requiring less
honey), so they managed to bottle it and I have tried two brands
available in Moscow. Nice, though, as all fermented drinks, almost
every block of bottles has a slightly different taste.

The third thing is that actually fermented birch sap is NOT a Russian
issue. The historians refer to old Finnish tribes of north-central
Russia and the Volga Bulgars as inventors & main consumers of it.
Finnish tribes (the Bulgars had settled in the midst of them)
were really fond of birch and all the goods it provided. Birch bark
their favourite, & weaving baskets & shoes was their
national pride (they say they could weave a small bucket & boil water
in it), so I think it's true that it was them who found out birch sap
is fermentable. Fermented birch sap, therefore, is drunk mainly in
Finnish & ex-Finnish territories (a latitudal belt from Estonia to the
mid-Urals, which includes a lot of "Traditional Northern Russia", with
Tver, Moscow, Vladimir-Souzdal, Ryazan, etc), borrowed with lots of other
things: woven birch bark baskets, Pelmeni, steam baths, etc.

bye,
Alex.
Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....