[Sca-cooks] Nocino, period cordial or not?

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Christiane:
>Hi everyone, I have a question from someone off the SCA-Italiano 
>list about if there is a period recipe for nocino, the Tuscan 
>cordial made from green walnuts that are picked on St. John's Day 
>and steeped in alcohol, sugar, and spices for 43 days.
>
>As far as I can tell, I don't even know if nocino was made or 
>consumed within period. I poked around on the Florilegium a bit, but 
>didn't turn up anything except the 12 Precious Waters recipes and 
>the ones submitted by Aoife. Any ideas of where else I can look?
>
>Gianotta "will take limoncello over nocino any day of the week" dalla Fiora

Through most of the Middle Ages, while distillation was known, you'll 
probably find that most cordials (IOW, beverages whose purpose was to 
stimulate the heart and aid digestion, etc.) were made with wine. A 
common one was hippocras. Arnold de Villanova has recipes for 
wine-based cordials, I believe.

One consideration on the more modern cordials is that they seem to 
contain a lot of sugar, and you're probably not going to see drinks 
made in that way until, I suspect, the 17th century or later.

Adamantius
-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

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