[Sca-cooks] dissolved pearls

[Susan Fox-Davis]

Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Ester gave some good ideas for Roman or psuedo-Roman feasts and among
> this said:
> > Come up with a dessert -- or even a soup -- based on the grand old
> > cracker
> > of Cleopatra dissolving a pearl in wine -- a "soup" in which "pearls"
> > of
> > sour cream/cream cheese, that sort of thing "dissolve".
> Pardon me if I misunderstood you, but it sounds like you don't believe
> they dissolved pearls in Roman times. But I imagine they did, at least
> for the most prosperous. They did it in the Middle Ages, and I suspect
> they were doing it from medical tradition handed down from Classical
> times.

I believe this is a 2000 year-old Urban Legend, perpetrated by Pliny The
Elder.
http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~snlrc/encyclopaedia_romana/miscellanea/cleopatra/cabanel.html

It's still a classic story, known in our target time period, which would
make a fine jape if some more soluble and palatable item than actual pearls
could be used.

Selene Colfox