[Sca-cooks] Beverage experiments
Lilinah
lilinah at earthlink.net
Thu Feb 14 14:15:21 PST 2008
Re ice in beverages...
Several books i have (i will have to look for titles this evening)
mention that ice was brought down from the mountains and stored in
ice cellars *for the noble, wealthy, and privileged* in places like
Persia - i will assume here that this was to cities near mountains
and not the humid southern gulf coast - as well as 'Abbasid Baghdad
in its heyday (9th-11th C.) and Ottoman Istanbul in the 16th century.
One book at least (again i'll have to find the reference) mentions
the use of straw-lined boxes to carry ice down from the mountains.
Again, this wouldn't be served in your drink just anywhere, but for
the rulers and similarly well-placed families.
And i recall on another list re-enactors in Europe mentioning storing
foodstuffs that need to be kept cold in holes dug in the ground lined
with packed straw for insulation. This is modern as well as
traditional, although i'm not claiming it goes back to SCA period in
Europe. So at least it's a technology that works, even if it wasn't
widespread or widely available.
Additionally one book i have on technology in the Medieval Middle
East describes a sort of Medieval "swamp cooler", although i don't
recall if it was in 'Abbasid Baghdad or in Persia. In this case, the
walls of one room are partly hollowed and stored ice was packed into
the space. In the room is a "sail", a large piece of cotton or linen
cloth operated by a "servant" to circulate the air as the ice chills
the wall.
I know that references are required, and i'll look for them this
evening. I do not recall reading about this in Europe beyond Istanbul
or in other lands bordering the Mediterranean, but it could just be
that my recollecting facilities are not dredging up the info.
--
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita
My LibraryThing
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/lilinah
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