[Sca-cooks] Brown Ale -
Gretchen Beck
grm at andrew.cmu.edu
Sun Jun 7 08:09:59 PDT 2009
--On Sunday, June 07, 2009 7:33 AM -0700 Susan Fox <selene at earthlink.net>
wrote:
> The nut-brown ale, the nut-brown ale,
> Puts down all drink when it is stale!
> The toast, the nutmeg, and the ginger
> Will make a sighing man a singer.
> Ale gives a buffet in the head,
> But ginger under-props the brain;
> When ale would strike a strong man dead
> Then nutmeg tempers it again.
> The nut-brown ale, the nut-brown ale,
> Puts down all drink when it is stale!
>
>
>
> John Marston (1575?-1634)
>
> My read on the line "puts down all drink when it is stale" means, even
> when it's gone bad, it's still better than anything else around.
The OED would disagree:
Stale (adj) : 1. Of malt liquor, mead, wine: That has stood long enough
to clear; freed from dregs or lees; hence, old and strong. Obs.
...1586 COGAN Haven Health ccxviii. 221 Good ale..must be..made of good
corne, well sodden, stale and well purged...
It also includes a quote from Chaucer:
c1386 CHAUCER Sir Thopas 52 Notemuge to putte in ale, Whether it be moyste
or stale.
So, moist would be the opposite of stale, new and old, perhaps still a
little sweet vs dry?
toodles, margaret
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