[Sca-cooks] Re: dissolved pearls

[Stefan li Rous]

Lucrezia replied to me with:
> [doffs cook's hat, dons jeweller's hat] Sorry to disillusion you but
> this is
> indeed a myth. Pearls are made of calcium carbonate. Their structure is
> actually like that of an onion - <snip>
> The vinegar/acid actually required to 'instantly'
> dissolve a pearl would also dissolve your internal organs, and anything
> weak
> (and palatable!) enough for you to drink would take some length of time
> to
> dissolve a pearl - say years. The Cleopatra story, entertaining though
> it is
> (it comes direct from Pliny's 'Natural History' Book 37, where he
> claimed
> the pearl Cleopatra dropped into her drink and supposedly 'dissolved'
> was
> worth 10 million sesterces - a large fortune in those days),
Well, the directions I was referring to were later than Cleopatra and
from one comment, might have been for cosmetic use rather than to be
used internally. But it does look like the pearls were disolved and
that it might not take that long. Anyone got some pearls to experiment
with? :-)

 From the file:
> 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.
>
> This is toward the back of the book, in a section entitled "Choice
> Secrets
> made known", not in the food sections.

> 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

> >>- What exactly is a Majistery? What was the pearl dust used for?
> >I don't know what Majistery is, but if I had to guess, I would say
> this is
> >some kind of cosmetic.
>
> Hmmm... this sounds like what the ladies and gents used back then for
> a face
> powder to effect that pale white pasty look..... I may be way off base
> here,
> and will have to do a bit a looking, but  I have a feeling that is
> what it
> is.
> <------------------------------------------------------------>
> <  mystarwin - Moira Breabadair - Cindy Mays >
Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****