[Sca-cooks] A college class... on Coffee

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Pat:
>Wassail wasn't a holiday tradition?
>
>Mordonna
>
>"Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magister at verizon.net> wrote:
>>Although it was a holiday tradition and not an everyday thing,
>>perhaps wassail is another, similar tradition. And that does go way
>>back.
>
>I dunno, maybe you're reversing something in your logical sequence. I
>don't think these were holiday dishes/beverages in period, but have
>since become associated with them. It's kind of like, how many
>non-SCAdians make gingerbread in the summertime? I think it may be
>more likely that we remember our old traditions around the holiday
>season.
>
>Adamantius
>--

There's a logical fallacy somewhere in this: something about 
inclusion, maybe, but it's too early in the morning for me to be sure 
;-). Wassail _is_ a holiday tradition, but not in addition to caudles 
and possets, because they're basically not. They're cold-weather 
drinks whose likelihood to be drunk on, say, Christmas has little or 
nothing to do with the fact that it's Christmas, but rather with the 
fact that it's cold. At the risk of belaboring the issue, how much 
were possets and caudles drunk during the Christmas season in 
19th-century Australia? Or chicken soup and hot cocoa, today? They'd 
more likely be drinking them in July, I think.

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

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04