[Sca-cooks] Aloxa, a honey drink

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

> We've had a lot of OT posts in the past few days, and several of those have
> been from me (bad Brighid, no bizcocho!).  By way of atonement, here's a
> small segment from my new translation project.
>
> La aloxa es cierto genero de agua miel que se haze con especias calientes,
> bevese en tiempo de estio, porque dizen que refresca, y no se engañan
> mucho en ello, porque aunque sea verdad que por parte de las especias y la
> miel calienta, empero por la mucha porcion de agua refresca, y las especias
> hazen penetrar la agua por todo el cuerpo, por que se abren los caños y
> poros del cuerpo, y ansi casualmente de per accidens refrescan, aunque de
> suyo calienten.
>
> Aloxa is a certain kind of honey water which is made with hot spices; it is
> drunk in summertime, because they say that it refreshes, and they are not
> very wrong about that, because although it is true that the spices and the
> honey heat it up, however, the much larger portion of water refreshes, and
> the spices cause the water to penetrate throughout the body, because they
> open the channels and the pores of the body, and thus coincidently and per
> accidens [Latin for "by accident"] they refresh, although by themselves they
> cause heat.
>
> Francisco Nuñez de Oria, "Aviso de Sanidad" (Advice on Health),  Madrid,
> 1572
> http://alfama.sim.ucm.es/dioscorides/consulta_libro.asp?ref=X533126427
>
>
> Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
> Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
> rcmann4 at earthlink.net

Cool! Is there anything in the MS about what "hot spices" might be
generally considered to be, or do we just go with what we like? What
spices were popular in Spain at that time?

Margaret