Based on papers read at the Fifth Leeds Symposium on Food History and Traditions, held at the University of Leeds in April 1990.
From comforting hypocras to a genuine 'liquid diet', this book traces the history of nourishing beverages from prehistoric times to the present day. Using original research on their preparation and consumption, the chapters focus on drinks and liquid foods which have all but disappeared in their original form, and place them in their social context. Amongst the subjects examined are: prehistoric pottages and their strange ingredients, exotic sherbets, the last domestic brewhouse, the emergence of modern cider, the rituals accompanied by hot spiced ale, and surprising new evidence on the date wine distillation began. With early recipes, and a host of stimulating and not so stimulating beverages, Liquid Nourishment makes an important contribution to the history of food.
Contents:
Pottage and soup as nourishing liquids / C. Anne Wilson Sherberts / Alan Davidson A liquid diet / Helen M. Pollard Brewing at Hickleton / Peter Brears Hypocras, caudels, possets and other comforting drinks / Moira Buxton 'Vinetum Britannicum" : cider and perry in the seventeenth century / Stuart Davies Wassail! : celebrations in hot ale / Peter Brears Water of life : its beginnings and early history / C. Anne Wilson
Constance Anne Wilson (in her published works C. Anne Wilson) is a British food historian. She was previously in charge of the special collection of cookery books at the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds, Leeds, England. She published the wide-ranging Food and Drink in Britain in 1973, and her more specialised The Book of Marmalade: its antecedents, its history and its rôle in the world today won the 1984 Diagram Prize for the oddest title of the year at the Frankfurt Book Fair. In 2006 she published Water of Life: a history of wine-distilling and spirits; 500 BC - AD 2000. She has edited several volumes of the proceedings of the Leeds Symposium on Food History and Tradition.