Imperial-Style Thirst Water
I was trawling through a really large Yuan Dynasty cookbook The Compendium of Essential Arts for Family Living when I came across a section of recipes titled "thirst-waters." Curious, I read more. The book says that these recipes are called, in foreign lands, 攝里白 which in reconstructed Middle Chinese is something like "syep li baek." A similar recipe I found in an anecdote in the 18th century Corrections to the Bencao Gangmu , relating a 14th century orchard of lemon trees planted by the Khan, says that the mongols call these drinks 舍里別 “syae li pjet.” There's a category of Central- and West-Asian drinks that are fruit syrups dissolved into water called " sherbets ," and that's indeed what these recipes are for. The earliest references I've found to thirst-waters in China date to the 12th century, where the Old Stuff from the Martial Forest lists, but does not give recipes for seventeen drinks named "cool waters": Sweet b