[Sca-cooks] mead

Suey lordhunt at gmail.com
Mon Nov 1 08:58:21 PDT 2010


This is the translation that appears in the Perry document on the 13th C 
Anon Andalus:


    Recipe for Honey-Water

Take a /ratl/ of honey and add five /ratls/ of water, cook until the 
water departs and the honey remains, and clean off the foam little by 
little. Pound half an /ûqiya/ of pellitory[211] 
<http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/andalusian_footnotes.htm#fn210> 
and place it in a cloth, put it in the kettle and bruise it once and 
again until its substance comes out. Remove it to an earthenware vessel, 
and take it from it at the necessary time, for it makes up for all that 
which detracts from this notable quality.

There appears to be a typo here: [221] 
<http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/andalusian_footnotes.htm#fnB220>Pellitory. 
Dozy reads /"tagandast,"/ a Berber word. (HM)
Pellitory: "an asteraceous plant (/Anacyclus Pyrethrum/) of Southern 
Europe, whose root is used as a local irritant." (_Webster's 
Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary_, 1989)

 From browsing the internet it does appear that the original text is 
referring to the root, not the leaves. Then I question what is released 
from the root. Its easy to directly translate and say "the substance". 
Not being familiar with pillitory I do not know if I would be looking 
for juice or oil.

Anyway as I could not understand the Perry text I went to the Huici text 
and this is what I got:


The 13th CAnon Andalus calls for 1 oz of honey and 5 lbs water boiled 
until all the water has evaporated. The honey is skimmed constantly. 
Then it is dampened with 1/2 oz. of pellitory. The mixture is strained 
through a cloth and put in a marmite where the pellitory is bruised 
until the juice is released. Then it is poured into a glass jar and 
drink as needed. Mrs. Glasses's (in her Cookery of 1767) recipe calls 
for five parts water to one part honey which is boiled and then 
cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and "ale yeast" are added. The mixture is left 
to ferment between two and four months. See aloxa. 
[Anón/Huici.1966:494:270-271; Covarrubias. 1998:52:a:28; and Glasse. 1997]


The addition of pellitory before straining sounds odd as afterward it is 
bruised.


Further, my references say pellitory is placed on sour gums or tooth 
aches. Why would that be a "local irritant"?

What is your advise?

Suey




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