Chronicle and Romance: Froissart, Malory, Holinshed: (The Harvard Classics Series)
History
Chronicle and Romance: Froissart, Malory, Holinshed: (The Harvard Classics Series)
England -- Social life and customs -- 16th century; Great Britain -- History -- Edward III, 1327-1377
As for the force of salt, it is well known by the effect, for
the more the drinker tippleth, the more he may, and so doth he carry
off a dry drunken noll to bed with him, except his luck be the better.
But to my purpose.
In some places of England there is a kind of drink made of apples
which they call cider or pomage, but that of pears is called perry,
and both are ground and pressed in presses made for the nonce. Certes
these two are very common in Sussex, Kent, Worcester, and other steeds
where these sorts of fruit do abound, howbeit they are not their only
drink at all times, but referred unto the delicate sorts of drink, as
metheglin is in Wales, whereof the Welshmen make no less account (and
not without cause, if it be well handled) than the Greeks did of their
ambrosia or nectar, which for the pleasantness thereof was supposed to
be such as the gods themselves did delight in. There is a kind of
swish-swash made also in Essex, and divers other places, with
honeycombs and water, which the homely country wives, putting some
pepper and a little other spice among, call mead, very good in mine
opinion for such as love to be loose bodied at large, or a little
eased of the cough. Otherwise it differeth so much from the true
metheglin as chalk from cheese. Truly it is nothing else but the
washing of the combs, when the honey is wrung out, and one of the best
things that I know belonging thereto is that they spend but little
labour, and less cost, in making of the same, and therefore no great
loss if it were never occupied. Hitherto of the diet of my countrymen,
and somewhat more at large peradventure than many men will like of,
wherefore I think good now to finish this tractation, and so will I
when I have added a few other things incident unto that which goeth
before, whereby the whole process of the same shall fully be
delivered, and my promise to my friend[5] in this behalf performed.
[5] Holinshed. This occurs in the last of Harrison's prefatory
matter.--W.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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