[Sca-cooks] Using aloe in food

Michael Gunter countgunthar at hotmail.com
Fri Jul 13 12:43:35 PDT 2007


I'm conducting a class in period non-alcohoic drinks for our
Baronial Arts & Sciences competition and one of the main
sources I'm looking at is An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook
of the Thirteenth Century translated by Charles Perry.

There are several wonderful syrups for drinks in there as well
as the benefits believed to be derived from drinking them.

One of the drinks I wish to present is a Syrup of Apples.
The recipe is pretty straightforward for the most part but
one area I'm curious on is that after the apples have cooked
down and the juice removed, sugar and a bag of crushed
aloe stems are added and then it is cooked down to a syrup.
I've been doing research on aloe because of this and have
only found that ingestion of aloe really only helps with
constipation as well as being very bitter. The benefits of the
drink don't indicate the laxative aspects and only that it
"gladdens the heart". So I would guess the crushed stems
would add a bitterness to counteract the sweetness of
the apple juice and sugar.

I don't want to serve aloe tea to my guests who could
experience several digestive problems in the process.
Could anyone indicate a substitute for the bitter? Maybe
even a regular teabag would work. Or perhaps the translation
is either incorrect or a different plant was used that was called
"aloe".

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Gunthar

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