p-cold-treats-msg - 5/21/13

Period cold or frozen foods eaten cold.

NOTE: See also the files: dairy-prod-msg, wine-msg, hot-weth-fsts-msg, spiced-wine-msg, fruits-msg, berries-msg, fruit-citrus-msg, fruit-pies-msg, marmalades-msg.

************************************************************************
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
************************************************************************

From: "Elise Fleming" <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 09:04:14 -0500
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Period Ices/Sorbets/Cold Treats?

For any documentation (for or against) I would strongly recommend
reading Elizabeth David's _Harvest of the Cold Months_, Viking
Press.  If I read the material correctly, she negates the contention
that what we know of as sorbets existed within "our period".  She
admits to having spread some stories about the Medicis and ices
(before she knew better). "Since the story (my note: that Catherine
de Medici brought ices and frozen sherbets to France) is so widely
believed in Italy...and is one I was myself once gullible enough to
believe and repeat, it is necessary to say here that although the
source of the story remains unidentified, it is plain that its
origins are in the nineteenth century, the likelihood being that it
arose out of a linguistic confusion such as the one I have described
on p. 61..."

If I read her correctly, you could serve chilled wine, or wine with
crushed ice in it, but not a sweetened milk product, or ice with a
flavoring other than wine poured over it.  However, the best bet, if
one wants to be as "authentic" as possible, would be to request the
book from a library and have an interesting "read".

Alys Katharine


From: "Elise Fleming" <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 09:25:45 -0500
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Period Ices/Sorbets/Cold Treats?

Magdalena vander Brugghe wrote:
>I have read, and would *love* to get this confirmed, that the Italians
>would drag ice down from the mountains, chip it and serve it on the
>street with fruit juice.  Basically a period Sno-Kone.  Does anyone here
>know if there is any truth to this?

I'm still scanning Elizabeth David's book and can't find any
evidence that what we know of as snow cones, sorbets,
sherbets...existed within period.  It seems as if they originate as
novelties after 1660 or thereabouts.  There were ingenious ways to
cool _wine_.  And in my earlier post I had mentioned ice.  David
says that it was snow, not ice.  The 1688 English-Italian dictionary
that David quotes gives as a meaning for "sorbetto" 'any kind of
supping broth; also a kind of drink used in Turkey, made of Lemonds,
Sugar, Corrans, Almonds, Musk and Amber very delicated called in
England Sherbet.' "  David continues... "Torriano (the dictionary
editor) made no reference to frozen sherbets.  He didn't, however,
give an entry for 'gelato' as 'frozen, congealed, gellied'.  This
too was an entry new since 1611, and although it does not yet appear
as a noun it is not without relevance to the story of ices, because
when translating seventeenth-century and indeed earlier culinary
Italian IT IS ALL TOO EASY TO FALL INTO THE TRAP OF SUPPOSING THAT
'GELATO' MEANT SOMETHING FROZEN OR CONGEALED WHEN IN FACT IT MEANT
'GELLIED'."  (Caps are for emphasis, not shouting.)

Fruit encased in ice as part of a dessert display _was_ done.  But
this isn't fruit juice poured over ice, or frozen in cream...

Alys Katharine, getting hungry for ice cream


From: "Elise Fleming" <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 15:40:12 -0500
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Period Ices/Sorbets/Cold Treats?

I wrote:
>Fruit encased in ice as part of a dessert display _was_ done.  But
>this isn't fruit juice poured over ice, or frozen in cream...

And Olwen asked:
>Can you give some examples of this fruit encased in ice and some
>documetation please.

Short of re-reading the whole book (I may just take it to Pennsic
with me!), I think now even the fruit encased in ice was OOP for the
purists.  She says re a 1625 meal, "it is difficult to tell if
Frugoli meant fruit sent in ice, or preserved and sugar-frosted
fruit in pyramids, or simply fresh fruit with snow or crushed ice.
Here indeed is a fair example of the linguistic trap which has been
responsible for many improbable legentds concerning the early
history of ices..."

She mentions (p. 61) that Leonardo (da Vinci, I suppose) had
designed an ice mountain.  Frugoli who lived in period, wrote about
meals covering the years 1618-1631.  (Gee!  Someone can do library
research!)  The book is _Practica e Scalcaria_ with detailed lists
of the dishes served at 80 different meals.  By the 1700s you can
find dessert tables with pictures of iced fruit.  Massialot (1734)
has a number of them.

So, my earlier statement may well have been in error; that the
ice-encased fruit may well have started just past 1620.  I still
recommend reading Elizabeth David's book.  I tend to read fast, and
I will sometimes miss things that others will pick up.

Alys Katharine


From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
To: "'sca-cooks at ansteorra.org'" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Re: Period Ices/Sorbets/Cold Treats?
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 15:55:20 -0500

Gelato is attributed to Bernardo Buontalenti, an architect and hydraulic
engineer performing services similar to those provided by Leonardo da Vinci
50 years earlier.  I haven't found any pointers to primary or solid
secondary sources, but the scope of the gentleman's works make the
attribution a distinct possibility.  The date given for his preparation of
gelato is 1565, which is during the period when Catherine de' Medici really
was altering French cusine.

However, the earliest recipe I've found (without having read David's work)
is from 1750.

"Take 12 pints* of cream and 4 pints of milk and let it boil with 3/4 pound
of sugar. Take 1/2 pound of chocolate that you melt in a pan of water set in
the fire, which you stir with a spatula or wooden spoon, and let it simmer
just to the point of boiling. You must add three egg yolks that you have
mixed well with the milk and cream. Pour it all into the pan with the
chocolate and mix together. Then you must place it in a terrine until you
are ready to place it on ice."

Menon, La science du maitre d' hotel.

Bear


From: Druighad at aol.com
Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 09:37:13 EDT
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Period Ices/Sorbets/Cold Treats?
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

alysk at ix.netcom.com writes:
<<
 But... prior to 1600?  I sure would trust Elizabeth David's
 scholarship over a culinary magazine, for example.  Or over the
 beliefs of the Ice Cream Council.  Last Sunday our local newspaper
 printed an "authoritative" timeline.  It states:
 1200: Flavored water ices were known in Asia for centuries. Venetian
 adventurer Marco Polo brings back to Italy recipes for making these
 treats.
 1600: Early colonists bring ice cream recipes to America.

 Their sources include Dreyers web site, an ice cream magazine,
 International Dairy Foods Association, etc.  That 1600 assertion
 that colonists bring recipes starts warning sirens in my head.  I
 have not seen any references to ice cream prior to 1600 and you
 can't tell me that the colonists just happened to have some
 confectioner's secret recipe.  Elizabeth David makes  frequent
 references to words that look like modern words but had a different
 meaning in an earlier time.  Specifically, the Turkish sorbet.
 Anyone else out there up to reading this book?  Finnebhir?? >>

I'll be up to reading some new material after Pennsic, when I actually have
some time on my hands again, but I still can't find that reference....

Just found it. What is actually being discussed is the process for making
frozen desserts and it is from " the Magia Naturalis" 1589, Giambattista
della Porta, Italy. A 13th century Arab treatise is also mentioned, but not
named or detailed. Also, the article mentions that "by 1600's, Sicilian ice
cream makers were famous throughout Italy, creating granitas(and such) for
aristocratic households" Some starting points could be other texts that were
quoted from. Not SCA period, but maybe a jumping point to earlier texts?

"A Tour Through Sicily and Malta" Patrick Brydone- 1773

"Picturesque Voyage to Sicily" Jean Houel-1784

"A Tour in Italy and Sicily" L. Simond-1828

Finnebhir


From: "E. Rain" <raghead at liripipe.com>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 09:18:26 -0700
Subject: [Sca-cooks] RE: Period Ices/Sorbets/Cold Treats?

Well topically I just came across this while doing some work in the Tacuinum
Sanitatis (14th c. Italian health Handbook).

Here's Luisa Cogliati Arano's translation from the Liege MS:
Nix et glacies: Snow and Ice
Nature: cold and Humid in the second degree.  Optimum: that which has been
formed from sweet water.  Usefulness: Improves the digestion.  Dangers:
causes coughing.  Neutralization of the dangers: By drinking it moderately.

the illustration is very vague & might be an iced over pond?

And here is Judith Spencer's Translation from the Vienna (Cerruti) MS:
Snow and Ice: Nix et Glacies
The nature of both these things is very cold and extremely moist; hence both
are suited only to those with ardent temperaments and only in the summer and
in southern regions.  Snow and ice, being things of winter and the north,
very rarely have any use to which they can be put unless one has the costly
opportunity of having them brought from their place of origin with all the
ingenious devices required.  They help to improve the digestion, if they
originate from good, fresh water.  They cause cesicationem to the joints and
also paralysis; they also cause coughing, for which reasons one should take
them only after drinking a moderate quantity of wine.

the illustration shows a man leading a mule next to a pit with what I assume
is snow in it.


Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 09:27:26 -0700
From: Susan Fox-Davis <selene at earthlink.net>
To: sca-cooks <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Wine ice

Just because people want to know...  Here is what I can find so far on
documentable SCA-period ice goodies.

Magia Naturalis by Giambattista della Porta [1535-1615]
1658 English Translation
http://members.tscnet.com/pages/omard1/jportat5.html

Book XIV, "Of Cookery"
Chapter XI, "Of Diverse Confections of Wines."
http://members.tscnet.com/pages/omard1/jportac14.html

"Wine may freeze in Glasses."

Because of the chief thing desired at feasts, is that Wine cold as ice
may be drunk, especially in summer.  I will teach you how Wine shall
presently, not only grow cold, but freeze, that you cannot drink it but
by sucking, and drawing in of your breath.  Put Wine into a Vial, and
put a little water to it, that it may turn to ice the sooner.  Then cast
snow into a wooden vessel, and strew into it Saltpeter, powdered, or the
cleansing of Saltpeter, called vulgarly Salazzo.  Turn the Vial in the
snow, and it will congeal by degrees.  Some keep snow all the summer.
Let water boil in Brass kettles, and pour it into great bowls, and set
them in the frosty cold air.  It will freeze, and grow harder than snow,
and last longer.


From: Charlene Charette <charlene at flash.net>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: ice and ices
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 07:50:29 GMT

Not too long ago there was a discussion here on ices and ice cream.  I
was doing some non-SCA research on ice cream and came across the
following book:

David, Elizabeth; edited by Jill Norman; Harvest of the Cold Months: 
The Social History of Ice and Ices; 1994; UK edition Butler & Tanner, US
edition Viking Penguin; ISBN 0-670-85975-4

The book is a series of essays covering from the earliest records to the
20th century and includes worldwide info (rather than just western
Europe).  Because of its essay format, there is some repetition among
chapters.  There's extensive footnotes and the author appears to have
done some pretty thorough research.  She debunks several myths --
providing evidence and speculating on the origins of the myth (the two
biggies being Catherine de Medici introduced ices to France and Marco
Polo learned how to make ices from Kubla Khan).  She goes into some
detail on the etymology of various words, in different languages, such
as "ice", "ices", "sorbet", etc. and discusses linguistic traps
historian have encountered.  One gets the impression she had quite lost
her patience with 19th century historians.

--Perronnelle

Quotes from the book:

----
Buontalenti's snow monopoly lasted until his death in June 1608, and
somehow, no doubt via familiar linguistic misinterpretation of later
generations, his name, already associated by his contemporaries with the
much-increased popular use of ice and snow in Florence, subsequently
became attached to the invention of ices, it being a curious truth that
food historians, of whatever nationality, rarely trouble to distinguish
between ice and ices.  (In English the usage of the nineteenth century
there was a common lack of distinction between ice for cooling and ice
meaning ices as refreshments.)

----

RE:  Torriano's 1688 update of Florio's English-Italian dictionary

He did, however, give an entry for gelato as 'frozen, congealed,
gellied'.  This too was an entry new since 1611, and although it does
not yet appear as a noun it is not without relevance to the story of
ices, because when translating seventeenth-century and indeed earlier
culinary Italian it is all too easy to fall into the trap of supposing
that gelato meant something frozen or congealed when in fact it meant
'gellied'.

----

Ice-diluted and ice-cooled sherbets do not, however, equate with frozen
sherbets any more than putting a few pieces of ice into a glass of
drinking water turns that water into ice, or than the milk half-frozen
in the bottle on your doorstep in an icy morning has become ice-cream. 
It should not be necessary to state truths so crashingly obvious, but it
is surprising to discover the ease with which such basic confusions took
root, and in the minds of an extraordinary number of people grew into a
belief in this or that fairytale....

----

This time it was the feast of Pentecost and there were two fountains and
two monti di frutti diversi diacciate, two mountains of divers iced
fruit, by which it is difficult to tell if Frugoli meant fruit set in
ice, or preserved and sugar-frosted fruit in pyramids, or siimply fresh
fruit with snow or crushed ice.  Here indeed is a fair example of the
kind of linguistic trap which has been responsible for many improbable
legends concerning the early history of ices.  It has been all too easy,
to later generations, to interpret sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
Italian and French allusions to plain ice, iced drinks, glazed creams,
and sugar icing and frosting as meaning ices and ice-creams.

----

Sherbets came into Europe, from Turkey, Persia and India, as sweet,
syrupy, fruit- and flower-scented essences, pastes and powders.  Some
were freshly prepared from fruit juice, sugar and spices, some were made
for storage in boxes and jars, and were exported. They were drunk
diluted with cold water and frequently also with ice or snow, or were
chilled by indirect contact, but as countless travellers from the
thirteenth century onwards have testified, they were not ever -- and
indeed still are not -- frozen.  Nor were Italian sorbetti, French
sorbets or English sherbets at first frozen or even necessarily iced,
the term sherbets and its European equivalents being another of those
linguistic traps into which unwary nineteenth- and twentieth-century
gastronomic historians have tumbled, assuming that right from the first
a sherbet or sorbet was the part-frozen, grainy refreshment, neither
quite solid nor quite liquid, which it eventually became and which until
as recently as the 1950s it remained.  Except, that is, in the United
States, where the term sherbet has for so long implied a frozen
milk-based or fruit juice confection that I have been very conscious
during my researches that unless some explanation such as I have no
supplied were forthcoming, American readers would be baffled by
allusions to sherbets as differentiated from frozen sherbets.  That
nobody need go further than Webster to discover that 'a water ice to
which milk, egg-white or gelatin is added before freezing' is not the
primary but only the third meaning of sherbet is less to the point than
the prevailing American belief that a sherbet is a frozen dessert, not
an iced drink.  When I questioned James Bear on the subject, he was
quite emphatic that in the United States a sherbet indicates some kind
of ice-cream or frozen confection.  [And thus her opinion of the Yanks.

-- P]


Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 10:00:59 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Camp cooking ideas
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

We tried making ice cream one year in the War, but we didn't have
the ice cream bowl sufficiently cold.  This is of course the problem
that they encountered in the Renaissance when working with ices.
It's all related to making things cold. See Elizabeth David's Harvest
of the Cold Months for the information. I'm afraid I've never purchased
the old fashioned ice cream maker that uses salt and ice.
There are dozens of sorbet recipes including beer sorbet at
http://www.hungrymonster.com/recipe/recipe-search.cfm? 
Course_vch=Sorbet&ttl=176

Johnnae

>  Yes I have tried to making a wine sherbert, didn't actually freeze but was
> enjoyed by all. Course then again I cheated and used  an ice cream machine.
> Never actualy became a sherbert, sort of became a huge slushy, more  
> liquid then ice.
>  Cealian
>
> Has anyone tried to freeze something like that with wine? Will  
> the wine freeze or just get slushy?
>
> Ysabeau


Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:12:32 -0600 (CST)
From: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Beverage experiments
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Well, there's lots of 14th-16th c. garden pictures, etc. of people cooling
something in jugs placed in containers of water, streams, well-heads, etc.
But it's not clear what they are cooling, since we can't really see.

It's certainly possible that fewer of the brewed grain beverages
(ales/beers) made in period were meant to be served chilled-- apparently
lagers are the most outstanding of category of beers-to-be-served-cold,
and lagers, using a more cold-adapted and bottom-fermenting yeast, seem to
have been less common in period. And ales, so says my local beer nerd, are
generally to be drunk room temperature.

-- Jadwiga

> But it _is_ interesting to think of where, on the map of Europe, we
> find people cooling with unglazed pottery wine coolers soaked in
> water, say, and simply drinking things like "warm" ale. There's
> obviously a much broader range than, "Ick, that's warm!" and beverages
> chilled with snow from the mountains. I'd also be curious as to how
> much we really know whether people would even care about beverages
> being cold, bearing in mind that these people may conceivably have
> been a lot more concerned about keeping warm in the winter than about
> being cool in the summer, how the Little Ice Age enters into all this,
> and the fact that there are still entire cultures today  who prefer
> beverages warm even in the summer.
>
> Adamantius
-- 
-- Jenne Heise / Jadwiga Zajaczkowa


Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:42:41 -0600 (CST)
From: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Beverage experiments
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

> On Feb 13, 2008, at 8:12 PM, jenne at fiedlerfamily.net wrote:
>> Well, there's lots of 14th-16th c. garden pictures, etc. of people cooling
>> something in jugs placed in containers of water, streams, well-heads, etc.
>> But it's not clear what they are cooling, since we can't really see.
>
> Nor can we see how cool the stream is; it's presumably a safe
> assumption it is below 98.6, but how much below, who knows?

True. Since these usually appear as part of festive parties, the container
does appear to be in the water to keep it from overheating. But any
temperature between freezing and 98.6 is possible, especially when we  
see the jug placed in large bucket or tub containing water.
-- 
-- Jenne Heise / Jadwiga Zajaczkowa


Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:27:26 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] ICE was Beverage experiments
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

David Friedman wrote:
>>  I think it is worth
>> mentioning that the use of ice to cool drinks was commonly  
>> practiced in the Mediterranean area.
>
> In the summer? Where did they get the ice and how did they store it?

In that new book
Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens. Ibn Sayya-r al-Warra-q's Tenth- 
Century Baghdadi Cookbook
[English Translation with Introduction and Glossary by Nawal Nasrallah
Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007]

There is a mention of ice and chilled drinks. This is the
English translation of the complete text of
the /Kitab al ? Tabikh/ or (Book of Dishes or Book of Cookery) which  
dates from the 10th century.

Chapter 110 (beginning on page 450) is titled
"Measures taken when drinking water cooled in Muzammala or
chilled with crushed ice (Thalj Madrub)"

There we read "Ice-chilled water (ma al-thalj) should be taken
in small amounts when having a meal,and only sparsely."

We are also told on page 451 that "people with weak nervous
systems or cold stomachs and livers should shun ice-chilled water."

Alright folks, so that's part of the various mentions of ice and chilled
drinks. I have to admit that I will
be doing an article on this topic in the near future all in time for
various summer publications no doubt.

Johnnae


Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:34:18 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Warm Beer was Beverage experiments
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

There was of course that English publication that I came
across last year. It's titled:

Warm beere, or, A treatise wherein is declared by many reasons that
beere so qualified is farre more wholsome then that which is drunke cold
with a confutation of such objections that are made against it,
published for the preservation of health.
Published in Cambridge : Printed by R.D. for Henry Overton, and are
to be sold at his shop ..., 1641.

So even as early as 1641 the English were being urged that warm
beer was more wholesome.

Johnnae

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:
> snipped  bearing in mind that these people may conceivably have
> been a lot more concerned about keeping warm in the winter than about
> being cool in the summer, how the Little Ice Age enters into all this,
> and the fact that there are still entire cultures today  who prefer
> beverages warm even in the summer.
>
> Adamantius


Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:03:13 +0100 (CET)
From: Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de>
Subject: [Sca-cooks]  evaporative cooling
To: SCA-Cooks maillist SCA-Cooks <SCA-Cooks at Ansteorra.org>

> Are you speaking of modern times or do we have any
> evidence of evaporative cooling being used in
> period?

The Kunst- und Gewerbemuseum Hamburg has a green-glaze
pottery beverage cooler that probably dates to the
sixteenth century. Some parts of it appear
deliberately left unglazed, perhaps with evaporative
cooling in mind (it makes no aesthetic sense to glaze
the inside of the beverage compartment, but not the
visible outside of the water compartment surrounding
it). I'll have a closer look at the thing next time I
visit - it is just about possible it's actually
designed as a warmer, but I doubt it.

> I believe the ice houses, that started this thread,
> were only used in the 16th century, and not used
> throughout our period of study.

IIRC that is mostly a 'when and where' question. Ice
houses are not in evidence in England before the 16th
century, though they may have arrived slightly
earlier. At least one local historians believes that
the very deep, narrow cellars under wealthy residences
in Nuremberg (shown to tourists as 'dungeons') were
designed as ice stores. They date to the fifteenth
century. Yet culinary sources as early as the Roman
Empire assume the availability of ice or snow as a
given. I personally suspect that stored ice was always
available as a luxury - something the very wealthy and
the fortunate few living in sophisticated urban
centres could enjoy - but not popular outside the
Mediterranean and Middle East until well into the
Renaissance. It seems not to have found broad
application until freezing with salt-ice or
saltpetre-ice mixes was invented, at least according
to Elizabeth David.

Giano

<the end>
Edited by Mark S. Harris	p-cold-treats-msg	11 of 11