[Sca-cooks] Moffett and Markham on Malt Syrup

[Johnna Holloway]

Just to nail another nail into the coffin, probably the best evidence that they didn't have malt syrup lies in The English Housewife  By Gervase Markham. (I used the hardbound edition  as edited by Michael R. Best.) It was first published as early as 1615.

Chapter VII is titled "The office of the maltster, and several secrets and knowledges belonging to the making of malt."
Markham believed the making of malt fell under the sphere of the housewife because it was performed indoors.
Nowhere does he mention malt syrup. You can be certain if they had or could make malt syrup and sub it in for
honey or sugar, he would have been endorsing it whole-heartedly. 

Another Elizabethan work, Healths improvement: or, Rules comprizing and discovering the nature, method, and manner of preparing all sorts of food used in this nation.: Written by that ever famous Thomas Muffett, Doctor in Physick: corrected and enlarged by Christopher Bennet, Doctor in Physick, and fellow of the Colledg of Physitians in London. (written 1590s. printed 1655) By Thomas Moffett, Thomas, 1553-1604. and Christopher Bennet,  1617-1655.

also says nothing about malt syrup in its sections on malt.

I also searched ECCO (eighteenth century collections online) yesterday and failed to find it mentioned there either. I don't believe that they used it in England in our period of interest as a sweetening.

Johnnae