[Sca-cooks] pear juice, pears and Alexander Neckam's 'De naturis rerum'

[sera piom]

> Very interesting stuff!  Where was this from?  Italy?

Venantius Fortunatus was born in Italy (i.e. what is Italy today), but later on moved to France. Radegundis was born in what is Germany today. She was sort of kidnapped and brought to France, where she -- long story snipped -- finally founded a monastery, somewhere around Poitiers.

> Since the word "siceratores" (brewers) is used, are they talking
> about fermented pear juice (similar to hard cider), or fresh, or both? 

I am not sure. There are some websites out there that take the passage from the Capitulare de villis as a source for the history of cidre, apple wine, pear wine. The passages in the vita rather indicate a non-alcoholic interpretation.

Speaking of pears, I just found, that Alexander Neckam's 'De naturis rerum' is available at:

http://books.google.com

Search for "neckam". They have the whole 1863 edition in a downloadable file (size 19 MBs). Pears are mentioned on pages 174f and 483. No, it did not read the whole thing yet, there is an index.

Enjoy, Serafina


 
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