What on earth??

[luzula]

From The Compleat Housewife (1773):

How to Make Cock Ale: Take ten gallons of ale and a large cock, the older the better; parboil the cock, flay him and stamp him in a stone mortar till his bones are broken (you must craw and gut him when you flay him), then put the cock into two quarts of sack, and put to it three pounds of raisins of the sun stoned, some blades of mace, and a few cloves; put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find that the ale has done working, put the ale and bag together in a vessel; in a week or nine days' time bottle it up; fill the bottle but just above the neck, and give it the same time to ripen as other ale.

(I found this utterly bizarre when first reading it, but the more I think of it, the more it sounds kind of like a liquid meal, since ale has lots of calories in it. Chicken soup crossed with ale, or something.)

Comments

[luzula]

Hmm. So do the bacteria and yeast which do the fermenting kill or outcompete the bad kind of bacteria?

I can't pretend to understand the science

[jesse_the_k]

...but I'd always heard that explanation for the widespread use of fermented beverages, in particular, beer, as payment for factory workers and sailors.

Hmm, actual research contradicts this assumption:

https://www.tastesofhistory.co.uk/post/dispelling-some-myths-dirty-water-drink-beer

For some reason it is often stated on popular television programmes that Mediæval Europeans drank lots of wine, ale or beer all day, every day because the local water was dirty or somehow fouled. Unfortunately for those repeating this myth, there is plenty of evidence that people regularly drank water. After all, what was the town, village or castle well for?