[Sca-cooks] taro, ginger beer etc.

[James Chevallier]

<<< often sweetened and spiced like a medieval ginger beer. >>>
Again, a subject I have little info on. I would love to get more info on ginger beer, ginger tea etc. What is the difference between ginger tea and ginger beer? If the latter alcoholic and the former isn't?
While I don't know of either per se in the Middle Ages, medieval monks did make some kind of drink out of a variety of herbs and other flavorings. I presume they did this either by infusing the relevant product in water or mixing it into wine. I offer a look at some of these drinks in this blog post:

Beyond wine, water and beer: what else they drank in Medieval France
http://leslefts.blogspot.com/2014/04/beyond-wine-water-and-beer-what-else.html

The Menagier also has a recipe for bochet, a kind of mead on steroids which could include ginger and other flavorings; it sounds like the end product resembled ginger beer (if you used the ginger, that is).



Jim Chevallier
www.chezjim.com




-----Original Message-----
From: Stefan li Rous <stefanlirous at gmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Tue, Feb 14, 2017 10:23 am
Subject: [Sca-cooks] taro, ginger beer etc.

Madhavi asked some questions to ??rfinnr Hr??geirsson, and I wanted to comment on some of this, separate from this translation effort.

<<< "Taro seed"- what was the original term? Do you mean Colocasia esculenta? Because I grow Colocasia esculenta, and it has no seeds. The parts you eat are the root (actually a corm) and the leaves. It's an elephant ear plant.  >>>

Where and when was taro used in medieval times? I have only a small file on taro in the Florilegium, 
taro-msg (4K) 2/10/14 Use of the taro plant in period.
and my knowledge of taro is minimal, mostly from grade school social studies classes. I'd love to get more info, an article, bibliography etc. to put in the Florilegium.

<<< often sweetened and spiced like a medieval ginger beer. >>>
Again, a subject I have little info on. I would love to get more info on ginger beer, ginger tea etc. What is the difference between ginger tea and ginger beer? If the latter alcoholic and the former isn't?

Thanks,
    Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris       Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at gmail.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksharris
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****







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