[Sca-cooks] Limes

[Stefan li Rous]

Giano asked:
 >>>
A friend has been kind enough to give me two crates full of limes
left over from the Mother of All Caipirinha Parties.
<<<

What's a "Caipirinha" Party?

 >>>
I've subsequently spent
considerable time making and freezing juice and making lime cordial,  
but I'm
left to wonder what else they are good for.
<<<

It looks like you've already gotten a number of suggestions on what  
to use the rest of your limes for. However, have you considered some  
of the period recipes which use limes? Doing a search on the  
Florilegium using "lime" and "recipes" gets a number of results.  
Unfortunately, many of these are referring to limestone or quicklime.

There are several lime recipes in this file in the FOOD-FRUITS section:
fruit-citrus-msg  (58K)  6/12/04    Period citrus fruits. Recipes.

Including this one:
 >>>>
 From "The Illustrated History of French Cuisine" by Christian Guy,  
1962 L of
C Cat Number 62-15020.  The most whimsical/outragous reference found  
for use
of limes in period beverages.

Sir Edward Kennelís Punch
80 casks of brandy
9 casks of water
20,000 large limes
80 pints of lemon juice
13 quintals (1,300 pounds) of Lisbon sugar,
5 pounds of nutmeg
1 huge cask of Malaga wine (approximately equal to 100 regular casks  
at a
guess)

"It is written that on October 25, 1599, Sir Edward Kennel,
Commander-in-Chief of British Naval forces, offered to those of his  
command
and guests a mammoth punch which he had prepared in a huge marble  
basin on
his estate.  A platform was built over the basin to shield it from  
the rain
and the beverage was served by a ship's boy who rowed around on the  
sea of
punch in a rosewood boat. It is reported that to serve the 6,000  
guests one
ship's boy had to be replaced by another one the quarter hour over  
and over
again as each boy rapidly became intoxicated by the fumes from the  
pond of
punch."

Daniel Raoul
<<<<

You'll just have to divide down this recipe a bit. Or go buy a bunch  
more limes. :-)

And then there is this comment in the birth-control-msg file,  
although I'm not sure how much use this will be to you:
 >Moreach writes:
 >>I once read somewhere that there is some evidence that Renaissance  
women
 >>used cervical caps made from half a lime rind, which lime  
"essence" is a
 >>decent spermicide.

The half a box that you said you have left might be enough for this,  
though.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****