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Cider Digest #0150
Subject: Cider Digest #150 Thu Aug 20 11:00:01 EDT 1992
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 11:00:02 -0400
From: cider-request@expo.lcs.mit.edu (Are you SURE you want to send it HERE?)
Cider Digest #150 Thu Aug 20 11:00:01 EDT 1992
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Jay Hersh, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
More on meat in ciders (Dave Murphy)
Re: Bramleys, cider, etc. (M.E.Bennun)
Re: Ciders (M.E.Bennun)
Send submissions to cider@expo.lcs.mit.edu
Send requests to cider-request@expo.lcs.mit.edu
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Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 03:35:57 -0400
From: Dave Murphy <djmurphy@wam.umd.edu>
Subject: More on meat in ciders
The topic of apples and what to do with them recently came up on another
mailing list (devoted to a PC wordprocessor, so you can guess what some
people suggested doing with apples :-) ). One of the correspondents, from
Devonshire England, referred to the practice of putting meat in the cider.
I'm sending along, with his permission, his first post and a private
followup. After reading them I must say I'm beginning to wonder
about the English. :-)
- ---dave
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 16:24:42 GMT
Sender: Nota Bene List <NOTABENE@TAUNIVM.TAU.AC.IL>
From: M.E.Bennun%CEN.EX.AC.UK@TAUNIVM.TAU.AC.IL
Subject: Re: Bramleys, cider, etc.
There is a brew called scrumpy.
It is dangerous.
It even looks dangerous.
It's basically un-vintage cider which has not been racked. It is grim,
cloudy, murky brew which still has Things floating round in it. I
think it tastes vile. Even though it is raw, it still has the full
alcohol content of racked cider because the fermentation is complete.
But it does not make you slosheder fashter - just slosheder nashtier
because of all the other grunge in it - which makes it a most potent
laxative indeed until you get used to it. It's very popular because
it's cheap, and it is actually quite refreshing but with a very raw
taste. Those who take the trouble at about puberty to get used to it
and drink some every day for 90 years live to be very old.
But it is possible to get decent local cider which has not been
preserved, plasticised, synthesised, and so forth at farms. You can
even blend your own; local farmer near us invites you to taste the dry
and sweet and helps you get your own mix. Can take all afternoon....
very difficult process, needing fine and careful adjustment and
frequent tasting to get it right. He's very helpful. His dry gets you
breathing out of your toenails. He says he always makes his
traditionally - at least one dead rat per cask. Nowadays they sling in
a lump of steak, but it's not the same thing at all.... darned
grockles ruin everything.....muttermuttergrumble....
---------------
Mervyn E. Bennun, Law Department, University of Exeter
Phone: (+44) (0) 392 263 161
Postal Address: Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4RJ, Devon, U.K.
- ------------------------
From: M.E.Bennun@cen.exeter.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ciders
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 8:50:05 GMT
[replying to my asking if they really put meat in the cider]
David,
I will put it to you guardedly and non-committedly:
The locals who make farm cider say that the Devon tradition is that
you sling in a lump of steak, or a dead rat or two, with the raw
apple-juice when you set it up for fermenting in the first barrel.
It's supposed to do something for the taste. Sugar (or is it
saccharine?) is added to make the sweet cider, and the dry is just as
is. I guess that the sweetener is added when the fermentation is
complete. Dry can be pretty well undrinkable, so cider is mostly
blended.
Cider-making in Devon and Somerset is about as old as Dartmoor
(there's an old song, "We coom oop fram Zomerzet, where the zoider
apples grow...", if I might transliterate the accent; it's of the same
vintage I guess as Men of Harlech - the sort of local national anthem)
and I've heard the story so often that I would be unwilling to
discount it without positive evidence that it would actually spoil the
cider: it must be part of a very, very old tradition. It is so
well-established that it should be taken seriously and not discredited
before testing. But no - I have never seen a farmer poke a dead rat or
a beefsteak through the bunghole on a cask. On the other hand, I've
never been round when the fresh juice is being poured or pumped into
the cask either.
I've seen some of the cider cellars and barns; they're sometimes
200-300 years old, and I guess that conditions must have been pretty
primitive originally. They are still pretty rustic on the farms. I
think that the big cider factories, on the other hand, are full of
plastic piping and shiny stainless steel vats - dunno; never been to
Whiteways or Bulmers. I can well imagine that a rat might get into a
cask on a farm, and the bones be found only when it has been cleaned
out after use and in preparation for the next season. I suppose that
the soft tissues simply get digested away. Dunno.
Imagine an ancient, mud-floored, long barn, with rows of hogsheads,
casks, barrels, ranged in rows along the walls and down the middle,
cider press in the shed alongside, smelling of cider and apples... of
course there're rats. Farm cats are working cats, you know. It's
actually pretty much like what I imagine Americans imagine old England
to look like. Me, I'm not from England....
Locally, by the way, scrumpy is essentially cider after the first
fermentation, as I understand it. Farm cider is racked several times -
the more the clearer and golden-coloured as the yuck settles to the
bottom and the cider is taken off from the top and left to stand again
for several weeks. The stuff [scumpy] is a sort of cloudy colour. It's
famous for its laxative qualities until one gets used to it - standard
joke on grockles is to buy them a pint or two. It's cheaper, and I
think it's usually drunk by the farm hands and tough types. It's
supposed to drive you mad. I am virtually teetotal myself, but I
loathe the stuff. If I drink cider I prefer a decent, very sweet farm
vintage.
Cider vinegar is superb. If your cider goes wrong, don't throw it
out... bottle it and give it away. The local saying is that if you
drink a cupful a day for 95 years youn will live to be very old.
Seriously, it's supposed to have medicinal qualities.
Okay?
Cheers!
---------------
Mervyn E. Bennun, Law Department, University of Exeter
Phone: (+44) (0) 392 263 161
Postal Address: Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4RJ, Devon, U.K.
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End of Cider Digest
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