Re: Ended My Fast

On 2007-08-29, Yowie <yowie9644.DIESPAMDIE@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Whiskers" <catwheezel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:20070822193718.5D78.7.NOFFLE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[...]

For what it's worth, I aim at something along the lines of a modestly
prosperous medieval peasant sort of diet: roots, pulses, grains, oils or
fats, a little meat and fish, and greens and fruit in season. Look up
'pottage' for the general idea. Of course, modern industrially processed
food is difficult to resist sometimes, especially when one is feeling
'lazy' or pressed for time. I confess to a particular fondness for ice
cream <G> (I contend that is an effective anti-depressant). I also like
tea and coffee and a little beer etc.

Beer is perfectly compatable with 'prosperous medieval peasant' :-).. And
icecream - if made 'naturally' isn't so far out of the question either.
Frozen cream with a bit of honey (and maybe some berries) is well within the
technology of the time.

Yowie

'Small beer' was the only sensible stuff to drink, especially in towns,
until modern fresh-water and sewage systems were working. Everyone drank
it, even babies. Most villages and large houses had their own brewery,
often associated with the bakery as they both share yeast and heat as
essential ingredients. Monks were (and are - try some Trappist Ale if you
get a chance!) particularly good brewers.

As for the ice cream, the trick is to get ice in the summer - or at any
time of year in most places. Rich people sometimes had 'ice houses' that
could preserve ice harvested from frozen ponds and rivers in the winter,
but that wasn't accessible to most people. In the 19th century, ice was
an important export from Norway and north America
<http://www.canalmuseum.org.uk/ice/iceimport.htm>. Producing cold food in
hot weather was a very ostentatious display of wealth and power. But I
think Elizabeth I sometimes got ice cream or sorbet as a special treat
(she had a very sweet tooth and was partial to food high in refined sugar,
which was just becoming available as a luxury inmport from the plantations
in the New World; her teeth were famously black).

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~
.

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