[Sca-cooks] Danelaw feast - Take Two

[Carole Smith]

Wasn't there a wine trade in England on the earlier side?  It is my understanding that when the weather got colder (more or less corresponding to Elizabethan times) that they could no longer grow wine grapes and became dependant on wine from other countries.

Cordelia Toser

Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de> wrote:
Am Sonntag, 17. Juli 2005 06:01 schrieb Lonnie D. Harvel:

> >> * Peru on Wine (pears in wine sauce): Pears, red wine, honey,
> >> cinnamon, cloves, cumin, pepper
> >
> >Has
> >anyone tried this with mead or perry?
>
> Mead? What a wonderful idea! I will give it a try. (Wine was rare?)

I'm not sure about it being rare, given the alcohol-soaked lifestyle of 
Germamnic upper classes, but definitely expensive and imported. You can grow 
grapes in England and it was done in period, but the effort is not repaid in 
quantity or quality (abnd even if the weather was better in the 9th and 10th 
centuries I doubt it was that good). Wine was a major article of trade later 
in period, and for an English household to be cooking with wine is making a 
statement of wealth, roughly similar to using cold-pressed French grape seed 
oil for pan-frying today (I know someone who did this. It works, but what a 
waste...).

Giano
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