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"Boiled" Millet Wine

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I brought one new wine to King and Queens Arts and Sciences : a "boiled" millet wine.  This is the first wine for the second "exceptional" yeast cake recipe in Qimin Yaoshu - the yeast cakes I'm actually using at the moment .  It's got something weird going on.  Let's dive in. YE2W1 造神麴黍米酒方：To make proso millet wine using exceptional yeast cakes 細剉麴，燥曝之。麴一斗，水九斗，米三石。須多作者，率以此加之。其甕大小任人耳。 Finely file the yeast cakes, and air them in the sun to dry.  For one dou of yeast cakes, use nine dou of water, and three dan [30 dou ] of grain.  If you need to make more, keep the ingredients in this proportion.  Use an appropriately sized weng . 桑欲落時作，可得周年停。初下用米一石，次酘五斗，又四斗，又三斗，以漸待米消既酘，無令勢不相及。 When the mulberry trees lose their leaves [Chinese months 9 or 10, mid October - mid December].  First, add one dan of grain, then add five dou , then four dou , and then three dou , adding each after the grain has dispersed [note that this only adds up to 2.2 d
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A Few Cooking Recipes

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I was asked by to translate some of the food recipes in Qimin Yaoshu by some SCA colleagues, so I thought I'd share them.  I'm hoping they'll give me cooking and tasting notes, which of course I'll share here. It's worth pointing out that this book is from northern China, and probably has a fair amount of barbarian influence on the cooking, hence all the sheep (or goat, they're the same word) meat. There are quantities here that I should explain before we dive in. Weight 1 jin  = 16 liang A reasonable guess of the weight in this period and locality in modern units is that 1 jin  is 440 grams. Volume 1 dan  = 10 dou 1 dou  = 10 sheng 1 sheng = 10 ge A reasonable estimate of the volume in this period in modern units is that 1 dou  is 3 liters. 羹臛法第七十六 Chapter 76: Methods for Stew and Broth. 《食經》作芋子酸臛法：To Make Taro Seed Sour Broth From the Classic of Food: 「豬羊肉各一斤，水一斗，煮令熟。 “One jin each of pork and sheep meat, one dou of water,
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Imperial-Style Thirst Water

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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
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