[Sca-cooks] Lemonade in medieval Egypt

[Johnna Holloway]

I came across another alternative version for
the history of lemonade tonight.

Clifford Wright has an article on his webpages
titled "Some facts about Mediterranean food history.
History of Lemonade."
He writes
"It appears that the all-American summer drink, lemonade, may have had 
its origin in medieval Egypt. Although the lemon originates farther to 
the east, and lemonade may very well have been invented in one of the 
eastern countries, the earliest written evidence of lemonade comes from 
Egypt. The first reference to the lemon in Egypt is in the chronicles of 
the Persian poet and traveler Nasir-i-Khusraw (1003-1061?), who left a 
valuable account of life in Egypt under the Fatamid caliph al-Mustansir 
(1035-1094). The trade in lemon juice was quite considerable by 1104. We 
know from documents in the Cairo Geniza--records of the medieval Jewish 
community in Cairo from the tenth through thirteenth centuries--that 
bottles of lemon juice, qatarmizat, were made with lots of sugar and 
consumed locally and exported.6"
The footnotes given are
6. Watson 1983: 46, 169 n. 28; Sarton 1927: (1) 468; Goitein, S. D. A 
Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as 
Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza. Berkeley: University of 
California Press, 1967 vol. I: Economic Foundations: 121; 428 n. 42.

http://www.cliffordawright.com/history/lemonade.html

Now what was that question about non-alcoholic medieval drinks?

Johnnae llyn Lewis