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Passum

Pertinax

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As many of you will be aware , I am trying to recreate the appropraite "medium" for appropriate herbal medicines as used in the Roman world. Andrew Dalby was kind enough to suggest that a species of cheap Malaga would be a good approximation, in terms of palate and (probably) appropriate quality for usage by the rough soldiery. As we have discussed in the forum various common medicines were stored in amphorae , with the herb macerated in a wine base. This form of storage is still , in essence, the format of modern herbal tinctures , certainly the maceration process would be understood by a Roman commercial producer.

 

I got hold of Sally Grainger's "Cooking Apicius" which is a practical Roman cookery guide .

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1903018...ay&v=glance

 

certainly the recipes we have tried so far have been a success.

 

In this little volume there are notes on Passum as a dessert wine ie: a raisin wine made with grapes allowed to shrivel on the vine (or dried on rush matting). Grainger suggests "Malaga Dulce" , though I assume this would be too "sophisticated" for the hoi polloi."Muscat of Samos" also gets a mention from Greece.It just so happens that these people...

 

http://www.stickytoffeepudding.co.uk/

 

have a "pudding wine" which seems to fit the bill quite nicely.It happens to be an Aussie sweet raisin wine, and I have a bottle right here. I suspect two of the main "cough" syrup herbs will be masked by the sweetness of the wine, elecampagne and horehound (both attested as found in amphorae in Britain).I hope to now produce a "real" medicine that wont kill any re-enactors.

If you require a recipe for this excellent pudding , here is another local one (ignore the margarine! use butter):

http://www.sugarvine.com/recipes/recipes_details.asp?dish=47

or

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database...pud_67654.shtml

 

If by any chance you are unfamiliar with Mr Dalby's excellent site may I link you thus:

 

http://perso.orange.fr/dalby/ephemeris/arc...2/entry_88.html

 

by way of a splendid quotation...

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Lost_Warrior
I suspect two of the main "cough" syrup herbs will be masked by the sweetness of the wine, elecampagne and horehound

 

Am I the only weird person who thinks that horehound actually tastes GOOD?? or is it just that I've gotten used to taking the tincture either on a spoon of sugar or straight so I have "aquired a taste for it".

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Pertinax
I suspect two of the main "cough" syrup herbs will be masked by the sweetness of the wine, elecampagne and horehound

 

Am I the only weird person who thinks that horehound actually tastes GOOD?? or is it just that I've gotten used to taking the tincture either on a spoon of sugar or straight so I have "aquired a taste for it".

 

Most people will, after initially making bad faces, get used to nearly any tincture-not least because of the effectivness. Sub-lingual ingestion in the pytallin (in saliva) makes very efficient use of any medicine, rather than dropping it straight into a vat of stomach acid.Black Walnut and Wormwood are the two most bitter tastes, though wormwood as "vermouth" adds a piquancy to any fortified wine.

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Lost_Warrior

Lol can it possibly taste worse than that modern artificial cherrry? (YUCK!) aspirin is pretty bad when it dissolves in your mouth, but the cough syrup is infinitely worse. :ph34r:

 

artificial cherry+menthol= :*****:

 

I hadn't known that wormood was used in modern wines, except for absinthe (which isn't really wine now is it?) because of wormwood's poisonous nature.

 

[edit]HEY that's no fair! The board's emoticon is censored! :lol: LOL

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Pertinax

Pertinax, how do the ancient medicines and modern ones compare in effectiveness?

 

If you hunt about in my blog and the "Roman World Herbal" gallery there are lots of side notes about "modern" usage of remedies. For example, Henbane, which we saw being given to Titus Pullo, is still the essence of modern pre-med anasthesia: foxglove is digoxin the cardio medicine : the best short statement is that the extraction of the active medical principles has improved, but, thats why chemical medicines have side effects, divorce from the plant matrix. Asprin is a small and handy drug but can give you acetelyne poisoning, meadowsweet and white willow (from which it comes) dont have that problem.

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