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Awesome - wine is a mead-like beverage made with grapes substituted for the honey

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mannye

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Goea to show that some wine guys have class.


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Stasis

Honey Master
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hah love that quote. I should change my signature before someone else nabs it :p
 

ScottBehrens

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Piatz is quoting from Robert Gayre from Wassail! In Mazers of Mead in his introduction.

Gayre says 'mead came first, followed by a lesser beverage made from grapes, and an even lesser beverage made from grains". In his view grapes and grains were used out of necessity only when honey was scarce and expensive.

He goes on 'ale started out as a light mead made from honey, but adopted the use of grains as 'a cheap substitute for honey'.
 
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mannye

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Piatz is quoting from Robert Gayre from Wassail! In Mazers of Mead in his introduction.

Gayre says 'mead came first, followed by a lesser beverage made from grapes, and an even lesser beverage made from grains". In his view grapes and grains were used out of necessity only when honey was scarce and expensive.

He goes on 'ale started out as a light mead made from honey, but adopted the use of grains as 'a cheap substitute for honey'.

That's probably true but quite impossible to verify.


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ScottBehrens

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Yep, wish we knew for sure. Kind of goes against the beer invention story of the farmer who accidentally left his grain out in the rain. We'll never have that recipe again.
 

mannye

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Yep, wish we knew for sure. Kind of goes against the beer invention story of the farmer who accidentally left his grain out in the rain. We'll never have that recipe again.

And the story that beer was discovered in ancient Egypt when an urn full of grain cracked and water seeped in. Apparently this happened often and the resulting fermented liquid was thought poisonous. Some guy tries to commit suicide by drinking it and suddenly felt a lot better. Beer is born.

Nice story but totally a figment of an active imagination.


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Chevette Girl

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Doesn't really matter what came first, as soon as humans figured out how much fun it was to ferment one thing, I'm sure they tried to ferment anything else that would sit still long enough!
 

mannye

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Boy oh boy. Sauerkraut. That's one of those things you wonder who was the first guy that made it and ate it. Don't get me wrong, I like it but you know what I mean right?


Kraut, cheese, soy sauce (have you seen how they make soy sauce???) all have a phase that's just nasty.


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Honeyhog

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It's like garum, the popular Roman fish sauce of the time made from the fermented guts and blood of anchovies. Who would have ever originally thought that was a good idea? They used it to season many dishes, apparently it's making a small comeback, mmmm, mm. Now thems good eatin'.
 

curgoth

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Lack of refrigeration leads directly to "Damn, I'm hungry. I bet this is still okay, even if it does smell a little weird..." And thus were all fermented foods born. :)
 

Chevette Girl

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More like, "Hey, if we encourage it to spoil this far, it tastes pretty good AND won't spoil any further!"

:)
 

joemirando

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Yep, wish we knew for sure. Kind of goes against the beer invention story of the farmer who accidentally left his grain out in the rain. We'll never have that recipe again.

Groan. I HOPE I'm not the only one who got that. Maybe everyone else just groaned and decided to ignore it. I'm not that generous. <LOL>

Well SOMEONE left it out in the rain. I dont think that I can take it. Because it took so long to make it. And, as you said, we'll never have that recipe again.

Good one tho!
 

fatbloke

good egg/snappy dresser.....
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I sometimes despair of the negative traits of the "human condition" !

Especially when we don't realise that we have it.

All the "my booze is better/older/tastier" etc, competitive sh1t ? Is mostly marketing nonsense.

We know beer/wine/mead, all have roots going back at least 2 millennia. Fine.

Plus we all understand that the changes in the fashion for drinking certain types of booze are most likely to do with commercial needs of turning round investment quicker, so we can boast about being wealthier/richer than the next bloke.

Meads just happen to be a bit weird, inasfaras, they were almost forgotten, except as mentions in historical text (excluding a few places, like Poland, Ethiopia, etc).

So why do we need to re-invent those negatives ?

Sure there are elements of western society, are more interested in it for the historical connections, so that's nice (I've no real interest in all the ren fayres and dressing up stuff - that's mostly influenced too much by the Hollywood parasites IMO).

Maybe we can just run with the idea of making the best meads we can, given our differing local resources, and enjoy the side benefit that globalisation of trade means we can often have a go at making types that wouldn't normally be possible.

Then explain and publish the detail, in a simple open/democratic way.....
 
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