measures-msg – 2/3/08
Period measures and cautions for recipes.
NOTE: See also the files: commerce-msg, p-menus-msg, beverages-msg, measures-art, Sandglass-art, clocks-msg, calendars-msg, coins-msg.
KEYWORDS: measures measurements conversions units
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This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org
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Stefan at florilegium.org
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From: perkins at msupa.pa.msu.EDU ("corpusculorum velocium perexiguorum
Date: 1 Oct 91 15:46:39 GMT
Jeremy de Merstone greets the Rialto and comments (at length--sorry) on
Duke Sir Cariadoc's interpretation of the Hippocras recipe from Le Menagier
de Paris (as found in the 1928 translation of the 1830s collation):
> To make powdered hippocras, take a quarter of very fine cinnamon
> selected by tasting it, and half a quarter of fine flour of cinnamon,
> an ounce of selected string ginger, fine and white, and an ounce of
> grain of Paradise, a sixth of nutmegs and galingale together, and
> bray them all together. And when you would make your hippocras, take
> a good half ounce of this powder and two quarters of sugar and mix
> them with a quart of wine, by Paris measure. And note that the
> powder and the sugar mixed together is the Duke's powder.
>
> (this is the end of the period recipe; the rest is how we do it)
>
> 4 oz stick cinnamon 1 oz of ginger
> 2 oz powdered cinnamon 1 oz of grains of paradise
> RA sixthS (probably of a poundQ2 2/3 ounces) of nutmegs and galingale
> together
>
> Grind them all together. To make hippocras add 1/2 ounce of the
> powder and 1/2 lb (1 cup) of sugar to a quart of boiling wine. Strain
> through a sleeve of Hippocrates (a tube of cloth, closed at one end).
> We generally use somewhat less of both sugar and powder than the
> recipe calls for.
This last remark started me wondering what the units of measure in use in
Paris in 1393 were -- so I looked them up:
The standard "pound" in use in that time and place for food items was the
"livre poids de marc" or "livre de Paris" established by King John II (the
Good) in the 1350s (replacing for all but a few commodities the old "livre"
analogous to [but not quite equal in size to] the Troy pound used in
England). The "livre de Paris" continued in use for quite some time (up to
the Revolution, and metricization), virtually unchanged, so we know it to
be equal to 0.489506 kg (1.0792 US pounds) (at least to the precision of
the available weighing devices). It was divided into 16 "onces", so the
recipe is fine in that respect (this is not just a trivial matter -- the
pre-1350 "livre" was divided into 12 "onces", not 16, and even in 1393,
there were special "livres" used for certain goods (e.g., wool) which were
divided into 15 "onces").
The standard "quarte" used in Paris for wine held 1.863 liters (1.969 US
liquid quarts). The "quartes" used for other commodities varied widely,
and were usually much much larger, analogous to the British "quarter"
rather than to the "quart". The "by Paris measure" part is also rather
important, in that there was not a lot of uniformity in measurements from
place to place -- the fact that the Goodman follows the recipe His Grace
has quoted with a variant of it, mentioning "quarts of xxx" (where xxx was
a list of other regions) is evidence that this lack of regularity could
even affect ordinary household matters. The "Paris" standards were
considered as a sort of French national standard, but it was not required
that people elsewhere use them -- just that any measure claimed to be "of
Paris" had to conform to the standard.
The fact that His Grace finds that using "somewhat less of both sugar and
powder than the recipe calls for" gives more satisfactory results is
probably confirmation that modern tastes are *not* too different from the
Goodman's, whose "pound" is only 8% larger than ours, but whose "quart" was
97% larger. To reach the same sugar+powder concentration the Goodman found
most palatable, we should put only 55% of the expected quantity of our
measured-out-with-modern-equipment sugar+powder mixture into our
measured-out-with-modern-equipment wine (or else use measuring implements
calibrated to 1393 Parisian weights and measures standards -- I probably
should NOT assume that His Grace DOESN'T do this, but based on his
"generally use somewhat less" remark, I think it safe to so assume, I hope,
fingers crossed).
Reference:
_French_Weights_and_Measures_Before_the_Revolution_:_A_Dictionary_of_
Provincial_and_Local_Units_, Ronald Edward Zupko, Indiana Univ. Press,
Bloomington & London, 1978 (LC Classification QC89.F8 Z86, Dewey Decimal
389.10944, LC Cat Card # 78-3249, ISBN 0-253-32480-7)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeremy de Merstone George J Perkins perkins at msupa.pa.msu.edu
North Woods, MidRealm East Lansing, MI perkins at msupa (Bitnet)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: cav at bnr.ca (Rick Cavasin)
Subject: Re: How sweet were medieval wines?
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd.
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 18:09:30 GMT
In article <20pv22$qp at agate.berkeley.edu>, dgreen at athena (David Greenebaum) writes:
|> Greetings from Bjalfi!
|>
|> In sweetened- and mulled-wine recipes, I seem to recall a posting a long
|> time back, I think it was from Duke Cariadoc? showing research which
|> indicated that the term "quart" actually signified a larger measure
|> than the modern U.S. quart. Thus, making a recipe using modern quarts
|> of liquid in place of the medieval/renaissance quarts would yield a
|> stronger/sweeter recipe than the one actually enjoyed by the creators
|> of the recipe. (Though I don't think this ccan explain away ALL the
|> difference...) Milord Cariadoc, if it was indeed you who posted this
|> information, is this accurate?
|>
|> --------------------- Bjalfi Thordharson/College of St. Katherine/Province of
|> |\ | |\ |\ |// | the Mists/Principality of the Mists/West Kingdom
|> | > | |\\ | \ |/ | David Greenebaum/University of California/Berkeley, CA
|> |< | | \ | | | dgreen at athena.berkeley.edu, dgreen at garnet.berkeley.edu
|> | > | | | | |
|> |/ | | | | | "I make mistakes, but I am on the side of good -- by
|> --------------------- accident and happenchance." -- the Golux
Depends on the recipe. If it specifies 'X quarts honey to Y quarts
water', then it hardly matters whether quarts are thimbles or barrels
(as far as strength/sweetness is concerned). Some of Digby's recipes
go no further than parts honey vs parts water (yes I know it's OOP).
Where it *does* make
a difference is in cases where the measures are different (ie. X quarts
honey to Y barrels water) or where other ingredients (eg.spices) are
included.
Of course, I don't know much about medieval recipes. My favourite example
of obscure units in a medieval recipe comes up in a recipe for cheverel
(a type of oil tanned leather) wherein you find the phrase:
'Take as much oil as you would use to warm a bowl of soup'
Cheers, Balderik
From: perkins at MSUPA.PA.MSU.EDU
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: How sweet were medieval wines?
Date: 30 Jun 1993 00:02:08 GMT
Organization: MSU Dept. of Physics & Astronomy
Angharad [jtn at nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter)] writes in response to Bjalfi:
>>In sweetened- and mulled-wine recipes, I seem to recall a posting a long
>>time back, I think it was from Duke Cariadoc? showing research which
>>indicated that the term "quart" actually signified a larger measure
>>than the modern U.S. quart. Thus, making a recipe using modern quarts
>>of liquid in place of the medieval/renaissance quarts would yield a
>>stronger/sweeter recipe than the one actually enjoyed by the creators
>>of the recipe.
>
>I'm confused. If all the ingredients are specified in quarts, surely
>the diffence in the size of the quart will not affect the ratio of
>water to sweet ingredients, and so will not change anything but absolute
>amounts. If some of the ingredients are specified, say, in pints, and
>others in quarts, then again, surely the important issue is the number
>of quarts to pints in each system (are their pints _also_ commensurately
>larger), etc. With honey, the amounts are frequently specified in pounds
>-- and I've found that different varieties of honey measure out to different
>volumes to the pound anyhow, almost surely within the level of variation
>suggested here for the volume measures themselves.
The particular circumstance which Bjalfi recalls was a posting back in
September or October of 1991 by Duke Cariadoc of a translation/interpretation
of the Hippocras recipe in _Le_Menagier_de_Paris_. It had some measurements
expressed in terms of volume (mainly the liquids) and some in terms of weight
(mainly the solids, such as the added sugar and spices).
He mentioned that he himself generally made the recipe with less sugar and
spicing than it appeared was called for, as the result tasted better.
I was curious about this comment, as well as by the phrasing of one of the
measurements ("by Paris measure", I believe), so I checked a reference on
the details of the measurement system in use in the Paris of the late 14th
Century. It turned out that the "pound" ("livre de Paris") used for the
dry measures in the recipe was only a little heavier than our modern
American pound, while the "quarte" used in the recipe's liquid measure was
almost twice as large as the modern American quart. Hence, a blind
translation would yield a result more than 80% higher in sugar and spice
concentration than the original recipe writer intended. I posted this
information and pointed out that His Grace's reduction of the "blind
translation" amounts for taste's sake was supporting evidence that medieval
taste was not terribly out of line for our own (or, to be more accurate,
for the experienced-in-medieval-cookery palate, such as His Grace's), as it
went in the direction of restoring the true original recipe.
Obviously, had there not been the nearly-factor-of-two difference in the
solid/liquid measuring system ratio, it would have been harder to
distinguish the "blind" translation from the original. Or, if Le Menagier
had stuck to weights only or volumes only in the recipe, there would have
been no problem to begin with.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeremy de Merstone George J Perkins perkins at msupa.pa.msu.edu
North Woods, MidRealm East Lansing, MI perkins at msupa (Bitnet)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: ddfr at quads.uchicago.edu (david director friedman)
Subject: Re: How sweet were medieval wines?
Organization: University of Chicago
Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 06:27:10 GMT
Bjalfi asks about medieval quarts. What he is remembering is probably
not a posting by me but a posting politely pointing out an error I
had made; I have forgotten who posted it.
My error involved the ratio of spices and sugar to wine in Le
Menagier's Hippocras recipe. Spices and sugar are given by weight,
wine by quarts of Paris measure. The poster, whose name I have
forgotten, pointed out that the quart of Paris measure c. 1392 was
almost twice the modern quart, whereas the units of weight used were
close to the modern unit, making the ratio of spice and sugar to wine
about half what my careless reading of the recipe (taking quarts as
modern quarts) implied. This was particularly interesting because it
meant that in modifying the recipe to my own taste (cutting the spice
and sugar in half) I had inadvertently corrected my error--thus
providing evidence, through a blind experiment, that medieval tastes
in spicing were similar to modern tastes (or at least my taste).
Note that units of volume varied from time to time and place to
place, so you should not conclude from this that all medieval quarts
were bigger than modern quarts.
David/Cariadoc
From: djheydt at uclink.berkeley.edu (Dorothy J Heydt)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Rosary/Paternoster
Date: 11 Jul 1994 03:34:22 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
In article <9406097738.AA773807543 at inet.sagepub.com>,
CATHERINE_CHILTON <CATHERINE_CHILTON at sagepub.COM> wrote:
> Incidentally -- has anyone ever actually timed a Latin Ave
> or Pater to see how long it takes to say them? I'd know a
> lot better how long to stir things in medieval recipes.
A Pater Noster is 20 seconds. I say three when blanching
almonds, to know when to take 'em out of the boiling water. An
Ave is about 13 seconds. This is recited at a good speed, but
not dropping any syllables for Titivillus to pick up.
Dorothea of Caer-Myrddin Dorothy J. Heydt
Mists/Mists/West UC Berkeley
Argent, a cross forme'e sable djheydt at uclink.berkeley.edu
PRO DEO ET REGE
From: IMC at vax2.utulsa.edu (I. Marc Carlson)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: PEDANTRY: Measurement (Was: Army Times)
Date: 13 Oct 1994 14:13:29 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
U.J|rgen \hman (bubba at adolf.ludd.luth.se) wrote:
: Could someone by the way tell me where the yard, mile, pound and gallon comes
: from and how/if they are related to each other.
Inch English. From the Latin "Uncia" (or a twelfth part), an
inch is 1/12 Foot. A measure of length.
In French, the unit of 1/12 a "foot" is the Pounce. In
Spanish, Pulgadas. nb. A 12th of a Pounce is a Ligne, and a
12th of a Pulgadas is a Lignas. English inches are
traditionally divided into eighths.
Foot The length of a Man's Foot. A measure of length. From town
to town, country to Country, this measurement could differ,
but as a rule a French Pied was equal to 12.8 English
inches, while a Spanish Pie was 10.96 English inches
Yard A unit of linear measure equal to equal to 3 feet or 36
inches. Also the corresponding measure of area (square yard
= 9 square feet) or of solidity (cubic yard = 27 cubic
feet). Aka Verge. NOT to be confused with:
Yard A unit of linear measure equal to 16 1/2 feet or 5 1/2 yards
(but varying locally); AKA rod, pole, or perch. Sometimes
distinguished as land-yard.
Ell English. From the Latin "Ulna". A unit of linear measure
equal to 45 inches. The word ell seems to have been
variously taken to represent the distance from the elbow or
from the shoulder to the wrist or to the finger-tips, while
in some cases a "double ell" has superseded the original
measure, and has taken its name.
English ell = 45 in.
Scots = 37.2 in.
Flemish = 27 in.
Nail A measure of weight for wool, beef, etc., usually equal to
eight pounds = clove
A measure of land.
A measure of length for cloth; 2.14 inches, or the 1/16th
part of a yard.
"The precise origin of this sense is not clear. The use of
the nail in early examples suggests that one sixteenth from
the end of the yard-stick may have been marked by a nail."
(OED)
Ounce
English. From the Latin "Uncia" (or a twelfth part), an
ounce is 1/12 Pound (or was originally, and is still in
"troy" weight). A measurement of weight.
Pound
A measure of weight and mass derived from the ancient Roman
libra (which is equal to 327.25 grams), but this ancient
standard has been modified variously over the course of
time, and in different countries.
The pound consisted originally of 12 ounces, corresponding
more or less to that of troy weight. This is still used by
goldsmiths and jewellers in stating the weight of gold,
silver, and precious stones; but as early as the thirteenth
or fourteenth century a pound of sixteen ounces was used for
more bulky commodities. This was made a standard for general
purposes of trade by Edward III, and known as the pound
aveir de peis, i.e. of merchandise of weight, now called
avoirdupois, q.v.
At other times the pound has varied locally from 12 to 27
ounces, according to the commodity, pounds of different
weight being often used in the same place for different
articles, as bread, butter, cheese, meat, malt, hay, wool,
etc.
Scotch pound of 16 ounces of Troy or Dutch Weight
consisted of 7608.9496 grains
the Tron pound kept at Edinburgh = 9622.67 grains.
Italy between 300 and 350 grams
Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and some German
states between 459 and 469 grams (Ie., those lands
ruled by Charles V?)
In other German states, Denmark, etc. between 477 and
510.22 grams. But the standard German pfund is now 500
grams.
Mark A denomination of weight formerly employed (chiefly for gold
and silver) throughout western Europe; its actual weight
varied considerably, but it was usually regarded as
equivalent to 8 ounces (= either 23 or 12 of a pound,
according to the meaning given to the latter term).
Mile Originally, the Roman lineal measure of 1,000 paces (mille
passus or passuum), computed to have been about 1,618 yards.
Hence, the unit of measure derived from this, used in the
British Isles and in other English-speaking countries. Its
length has varied considerably at different periods and in
different localities, chiefly owing to the influence of the
agricultural system of measures with which the mile has been
brought into relation (see furlong). The legal mile in
Britain and the U.S. is now 1,760 yards (5280 feet). The
Irish mile of 2,240 yards is still in rustic use. The
obsolete Scottish mile was longer than the English, and
probably varied according to time and place; one of the
values given for it is 1,976 yards.
Furlong
Originally the distance an Ox could pull a plow before
needing to rest, ie., "a furrow long". As early as the 9th
c. it was regarded as the equivalent of the Roman stadium,
which was 18 of a Roman mile; and hence furlong has always
been used as a name for the eighth part of an English mile,
whether this coincided with the agricultural measure so
called or not. The present statute furlong is 220 yards, and
is equal both to the eighth part of a statute mile, and to
the side of a square of 10 statute acres.
League
An itinerary measure of distance, varying in different
countries, but usually estimated roughly at about 3 miles;
app. never in regular use in England, but often occurring in
poetical or rhetorical statements of distance.
Although the league appears never to have been an English
measure, leuca occurs somewhat frequently in Anglo-Latin
law-books (Bracton, Fleta, etc.); it is disputed whether in
these works it means one mile or two.
Gallon
An English measure of capacity. The imperial gallon contains
27714 cubic inches: the winegallon of 231 cubic inches is
the standard in the United States.