[Sca-cooks] A mystery ingredient in a soap recipe

[Daniel Myers]

On Wednesday, September 24, 2003, at 06:05  PM, Sharon Gordon wrote:

> In a soap recipe people are trying to figure out what "aluminic 
> casini" is.
> Taken literally it would translate as "little aluminum houses" which 
> would
> perhaps make sense if there were a form of aluminum that was 
> maufactured
> into little house shapes of some sort and sold in that form.  But that 
> still
> wouldn't explain the actual chemical content of aluminic casini.
>
> Any ideas or places to look?

How old is this soap recipe?  If it's period then it can't be a 
reference to the metal form of aluminum - it wasn't discovered until 
1825.  The word "aluminum" however is derived from the latin word 
"alumen" which means "alum".

Throughout history, alum has been used in dying.  Casini might be a 
reference to casein (a milk protein), or "aluminic casini" might be a 
idiomatic expression meaning something like "cottage alum" (kind of 
like saying "farmer cheese" or "home fries").  This is all just rampant 
speculation though, seeing as my Italian is almost non-existent.

- Doc


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  Edouard Halidai  (Daniel Myers)
  http://www.medievalcookery.com/
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