[Sca-cooks] Ni Tsan's "Cloud Forest Hall Rules For Eating And Drinking"...

[Saint Phlip]

On 2/18/07, Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com> wrote:
> Drakey commented:
> <<< With the recipes I recommend...
> Snow temple vegetable
> Honey stuffed crabs
> BBQ pork
> Yellow bird buns
> Prawn soup
> Chicken wantons (better in a spiced stock)
>
> Just avoid the mung bean wine... It's nasty! >>>
>
> I'm more into European foods than Mongol/Chinese, so I probably
> wouldn't be making this beverage even if you said it was wonderful,
> but please tell us more about this recipe and your experiences with
> it. Did you try this just once? Perhaps your batch just got infected
> or had some other problem. Or perhaps like kumiss it is just an
> indication that the result requires an acquired taste, or desperation
> for alcohol.:-)
>
> Stefan

I've been discussing this with Gene, and he said (in regards to a
second presentation of the manuscript):

 It corrected obvious mistakes but Victor Mair didn't
want to change much.  He felt Teresa's and my interps were as
good as Francoise's when there was question.  Probably wrong,
but who am I to judge?  Victor's CHinese is a lot better than
mine or even Teresa's.  Francoise is THE expert but is not
infallible.  Long history of short ms....
Nobody has ever figured out the garbled brewing recipes.
Don't waste your time on them.  The ordinary recipes are fine,
and usable, and Teresa and I got 'em about right.
best

I suggested we might try them anyway, and he said:

Those brewing recipes are badly garbled--Francoise and I agree
on that!  They got scrambled in transmission, evidently when
the book was just ms.  They might be reconstructable, but I
wouldn't bother.
The Chinese make all kinds of tinctures of animals.  They soak
mutton in hard liquor because the iron is good for anemia from
malaria etc.  THey sometimes would add mutton or medicinal
animals to the brewing.  But 99.9999% of the time, when you
hear of "mutton wine" or "snake wine" it means hard liquor
(NOT wine) with the animal soaked in it to make a tincture.
Of course herbs were more often added in the actual brewing
process, and still more often in the distilling, though again
"herbal wine" usually means hard liquor with stuff soaked in
it.  The liquor is raw whiskey or vodka made from millet or
rice, or sometimes other starch feeds.  They get it by
distilling Chinese "wine," which is really a still ale or
beer.  Distilling was known by 900 or 1000 AD in China, and
probably earlier, since what sure looks like a medicinal still
has turned up in a 100-200 AD site.  If interested look up H.
T. Huang's volume on fermentation in the SCIENCE AND
CIVILIZATION IN CHINA series.  H. T. was an incredible guy.
Lived to 100.  This book was his life work.  He retired from
USDA and dedicated the rest of his life to it--it came out
shortly before he passed on.  Great guy.
best--Gene

(I included the rest of the information because it might be of
interest to somebody). So, it appears that the recip[es themselves are
badly garbled- thus, they don't make a good drink.

-- 
Saint Phlip

Heat it up
Hit it hard
Repent as necessary.

Priorities:

It's the smith who makes the tools, not the tools which make the smith.