[Sca-cooks] Ale with soup consistency

[Johnna Holloway]

Medieval Market Morality: Life, Law and Ethics in the English Marketplace

includes a passage from Piers Plowman which reads:

"Thikke ale and þ[th]ynne ale; þ[th]at is my kynde thick; thin And noзt hakke after holynesse; hold þi tonge, Conscience!"

You can find the passage here:
http://piers.iath.virginia.edu/exist/piers/docs/B/W/19/scribal/0

Johnnae

On Jul 18, 2015, at 7:11 PM, Terry Decker <t.d.decker at att.net> wrote:

> This may be the "plena cervisia" (full bodied ale) referenced in the Domesday Book.  You might also check Tacitus to check his comments on beer in Germania.  As I recall, he speaks of it being similar to Roman wine (which, IIRC, was commonly sweet and thick).
> 
> Bear
> 
> 
> I was recently given a copy of Georges Duby’s 1961 work, Rural Economy and
> Country Life in the Medieval West. Early on in the book, speaking of the
> 9th and 10th century in England, Duby describes a form of ale that seems,
> at best, unusual. ‘Ale had often the consistency of thick soup and so could
> be counted perhaps more as a food than a drink’. He doesn't cite any source
> for this, but it's an odd enough concept to follow up on.snipped
> 
> Le meas,
> Aodh