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fd-in-Chaucer-msg - 12/22/08

 

Mentions of food in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

 

NOTE: See also the files: cookbooks-bib, online-ckbks-msg, fd-Anglo-Saxn-msg, fd-Wales-msg, England-msg, Tavern-Feast-art, pilgrimages-msg.

 

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NOTICE -

 

This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

 

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

 

I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.

 

The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.

 

Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s).

 

Thank you,

   Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous

                                         Stefan at florilegium.org

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Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2002 13:52:31 -0500

From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Food mentions in Chaucer

 

Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Has anyone ever researched the food references in Chaucer? I know

> Adamantius recently mentioned there were some, and I found a more

> complete reference to this in the Florilegium, but right now I

> don't remember what subject was being discussed.

 

http://www.godecookery.com/chaucer/ccookery.htm

has  A Chaucerian Cookery:

examines the references to food and dishes in all

of Chaucer's writings, studies the dietary habits

of his characters, and gives a complete list of all

foods Chaucer refers to. Included is A

Chaucerian Feast, which presents an authentic

Medieval feast based on the writings of Chaucer

and corresponding 14th c. recipes.

 

Johnna Holloway   Johnnae llyn Lewis

 

 

Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2002 14:35:58 -0500

From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Food mentions in Chaucer

 

See also:

http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/lifemann/manners/feast.html

and the paper by Hieatt, Constance B.

" A Cook of 14th-century London: Chaucer's Hogge of Ware."

Cooks & Other People.

Oxford Symposium on Food, held in 1995.

published 1996, pp. 138-143.

 

Johnna

 

 

Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:45:29 -0700

From: "Laura C. Minnick" <lcm at jeffnet.org>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] [Fwd: Nutmeg in stale ale]

To: SCA-Cooks <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

So, what do you all think? Why is the nutmeg in 'stale ale'?

 

'Lainie

 

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:      Nutmeg in stale ale

Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 11:22:26 +0200

From: Brian S Lee <brianlee at XSINET.CO.ZA>

To:    CHAUCER at LISTSERV.UIC.EDU

 

Fresh from a reading of John Keay's history of _The Spice Route_ (2005),

I can better appreciate the absurdity of Thopas's adventuring into the

forest of exotic spices incredibly located in Flanders.  Chaucer selects

the rarest and so most valuable of spices, cetewale (zedoary) from Java,

cloves from Ternate, and nutmeg from Banda, each further east than the

last, but their origins in the mysterious regions beyond India totally

unknown in medieval Europe.  Pepper, the commonest spice, he

significantly doesn't mention.  Thopas's world is one of precious

luxury, marred by the sudden injection of reality, that stale ale which

was doubtless all too common in the experience of readers (hearers) of

tail-rhyme romances.

 

Nutmeg, apparently, is a prestigious thing to keep in the kitchen

cupboard ("in cofre").  You wouldn't waste your most valuable spice

(would you?) in stale ale.  Would it help to improve or disguise the

flavour if you did?  Never having tried it, I await the comments of the

culinary experts on this list.  The Host wanted a drink of moist and

corny ale to help him recover from the Physician's Tale: does moist

simply mean fresh?  Isn't all ale moist?  Is stale the opposite of

moist, the result of neglect or poor brewing perhaps, or are these

technical terms for different kinds of ale?  Why put nutmeg in both

kinds, or is "stale" simply Chaucer's hint at the thoughtless use

of cliches for rhyme in the romances he's burlesquing?

 

Brian

 

 

Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2008 07:45:07 -0400

From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] [Fwd: Nutmeg in stale ale]

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

On Aug 2, 2008, at 5:45 AM, Laura C. Minnick wrote:

> So, what do you all think? Why is the nutmeg in 'stale ale'?

 

"Stale", as in "stale ale", and in fact as in, "English ale, good and  

stale," is regarded by brewers and drinkers as a good thing, in case  

that matters. It means it's fully fermented, and is not only at full  

potency, but also doth not engendyr wynde, etc.

 

So while I have no idea as to why the nutmeg's there, it's probably  

not a matter of throwing good money after bad.

 

Adamantius

 

 

Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2008 08:23:15 -0700

From: "Laura C. Minnick" <lcm at jeffnet.org>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] [Fwd: Re:  [Fwd: Nutmeg in stale ale]]]

To: SCA-Cooks <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

More questions!  -'Lainie

 

-------- Original Message --------

       

Which raises the further question: is the moist ale which the Host and

Pardoner seem to want or expect on the pilgrimage a cheaper or inferior

brew likely to be more readily available or perhaps easier on the palate

and stomach in the quantities ale drinkers seem to prefer?

 

Is there evidence that anyone in the Middle Ages expected the nutmeg to

have hallucinogenic properties?  There is at least one Google site that

suggests that if you can bear to eat enough of it you may start to see

little pink men from Mars, or  the like.  I don't advise the testing

thereof -- a poor druggie self-centered enough to describe his

experiment on the internet found it tasted so horrible that he was

obliged to mask it with so many other substances that it's hard to know

what caused his mild disorientation during his excruciatingly boring day

diarized in detail while his mother had left him alone.

 

Brian

 

 

Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:34:56 -0400

From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] [Fwd: Re:  [Fwd: Nutmeg in stale ale]]]

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

On Aug 2, 2008, at 11:23 AM, Laura C. Minnick wrote:

 

-------- Original Message --------

Which raises the further question: is the moist ale which the Host  

and Pardoner seem to want or expect on the pilgrimage a cheaper or  

inferior brew likely to be more readily available or perhaps easier  

on the palate and stomach in the quantities ale drinkers seem to  

prefer? >>>

 

You might take a look here:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=601639

 

I gather that "moist" in Chaucerian ale terms is the polar opposite of

"stale". Neither is bad and either can be appropriate for certain  

specific conditions, but it's conceivable that moist ale was cloudy  

and still had bits of unsettled grain and yeast in it, and while  

deprecated by some later medical authorities such as Boorde, it may  

have been considered more robust and more filling for someone on a  

journey.

On the other hand, a bellyful of active yeast isn't necessarily the  

first thing I'd be looking for to get ready to walk all day.

 

<<< Is there evidence that anyone in the Middle Ages expected the nutmeg  

to have hallucinogenic properties? >>>

 

I don't think that's a period concept; I believe that's a discovery  

made in the 20th-century American prison system, and one highly  

disputed, at that, but everyone seems to agree that it takes a large  

amount of nutmeg to have any effect.

 

Adamantius

 

 

Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 13:43:07 -0500

From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] [Fwd: Nutmeg in stale ale]

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

<<< So, what do you all think? Why is the nutmeg in 'stale ale'?

 

'Lainie >>>

 

In the this context, Chaucer is likely using "moist" to mean "new" and

"stale" to mean "old."  Considering that traditional ale is unhopped and

meant to be drunk immediately, that "old" is probably relative and may

relate to a higher alcohol content as the fermentation will continue until

all of the sugars are consumed.

 

IIRC, Falstaff also adds mutmeg to his ale in one of Shakespeare's plays.

 

I suspect the nutmeg is being added to the ale to give it some bite.  The

traditional ales I've encountered tend to be a little on the sweet side.

 

Bear

 

 

Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:50:26 -0400

From: Gretchen Beck <grm at andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] [Fwd: Nutmeg in stale ale]

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

--On Saturday, August 02, 2008 11:09 AM -0700 "Laura C. Minnick"

<lcm at jeffnet.org> wrote:

<<<

S CLEMENGER wrote:

> Can you quote the original (pertinent) passage from Chaucer, for

> context's  sake?

> --Maire

 

From CT, Sir Thopas' Tale. I'm on my way out to an event- I'll try to

find it when I get home if someone else hasn't found it first.

 

'Lainie >>>

 

Ther spryngen herbes grete and smale

The lycorys and Cetewale

And many a clowe gylofre

And Notemuge to putte in Ale

Wheither it be moyste or stale

Or for to leye in cofre

 

-------------

There sprange herbes great and small,

The liquorice and the setewall,* *valerian

And many a clove-gilofre, <12>

And nutemeg to put in ale,

Whether it be moist* or stale, *new

Or for to lay in coffer.

 

toodles, margaret

 

 

Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:20:55 -0400

From: Gretchen Beck <grm at andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] [Fwd: Nutmeg in stale ale]

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

--On Saturday, August 02, 2008 1:43 PM -0500 Terry Decker

<t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net> wrote:

 

>> I suspect the nutmeg is being added to the ale to give it some bite.  The

>> traditional ales I've encountered tend to be a little on the sweet side.

 

I think it's also being added to balance the humors of the ale (of course,

in medieval cooking, I'm always amazed how taste and humors often follow

each other:-)). Here's some lines:

 

from Robert Greene (contemporary of Marlowe and Shakespeare), Looking Glass

for London and England:

 

"...I am a Philosopher that can dispute of the nature of Ale; for marke you

sir, a pot of Ale consists of foure parts, Imprimus the Ale, the Toast, the

Ginger, and the Nutmeg...The ale is a restorative, bread is a binder, mark

you sir, two excellent points in physic: the ginger, O, ware of that! the

philosophers have written of the nature of ginger, 'tis expulsitive in two

degrees; you shall hear the sentence of Galen:

  "It will make a man belch, cough, and fart,

   And is a great comfort to the heart,"

a proper posy, I promise you; but now to the noble virtue of the nutmet; it

is, saith one ballad (I think an English Roman was the author) an

underlayer to the brains, for when the ale gives a buffet to the head, O

the nutmet! that keeps him for an while in temper..."

 

The ditty "The Nut-Brown Ale" by John Marston (1575-1634) more or less

repeats this (or perhaps vice versa, or perhaps both just make fun of

conventional wisdom)

 

The nut-brown ale, the nut-broen ale

Puts down all drink when it is stale!

The toast, the nutmeg, and the ginger

Will make a sighing man a singer.

Ale gives a buffet in the head,

But ginger under-props the brain;

When ale would strike a strong man dead

Then nutmeg tempers it again.

The nut-brown ale, the nut-brown ale,

Puts down all drink when it is stale!

 

toodles, margaret

 

<the end>



Formatting copyright © Mark S. Harris (THLord Stefan li Rous).
All other copyrights are property of the original article and message authors.

Comments to the Editor: stefan at florilegium.org