[Sca-cooks] Water

[Alec Story]

I found an interesting description of water preferences in *Qimin Yaoshu*,
a sixth-century Chinese farm manual that I'm working through translating.
When choosing water to make a particular kind of cereal wine, the author
has a few things to say:

One recipe mentions,
The water you use for rinsing the rice and in the cauldron, and for
cleaning any tools used in brewing, should always be river water, as it is
the best.

Another recipe says,
How to take the water:  river water is best; after that take the sweetest
well water; if there’s even a little salt then it’s not good.

The explanation for preferring river water that I've read is that in
Northern China, well water is often high in alkali salts that make the
water bitter, among other things.  Surface water is sweeter, and preferable.

I wonder if there are locations in Europe or (more likely?) in Northern
Africa or Western Asia that have similar problems with water quality.

On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 2:44 PM, The Eloquent Page <
books at theeloquentpage.com> wrote:

> Medieval Tastes : Food, Cooking and the Table by Massimo Montanari and
> Beth Archer Brombert has an interesting chapter on water, too.
>
> Katherine
>
>
>
>
> On 6/23/2016 9:43 AM, Johnna Holloway wrote:
>
>> I suspect the topic of drinking water is a matter of time and place and
>> what applies to one era and region might not apply to another. And quite
>> frankly our thoughts today are colored by knowledge of the major outbreaks
>> of water borne diseases which came later. Who doesn't think about phrases
>> like the stinking Thames and John Snow's removal of the pump handle during
>> the cholera outbreak in 1854? Try a search on the phrase 'did people drink
>> water in the Middle Ages?' And see what pops up.
>> There's this article of course titled "Did people drink water in the
>> Middle Ages?"
>> http://www.medievalists.net/2014/07/09/people-drink-water-middle-ages/
>>
>> At least for England, I'd also suggest Dorothy Hartley's Water in England
>> and sections in works by C. Anne Wilson and Peter Brears.
>>
>> Johnnae
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
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>>
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-- 
Alec Story