milk & honey: some of the moments in lithuanian mead history · some of the moments in...
TRANSCRIPT
Milk & Honey: some of the Moments in Lithuanian Mead History
Rimvydas Laužikas
Vilnius University
Faculty of Communication
Beekeeping, Jan van der Straet [Stradanus], (1523–1605)
Historical notes: Lithuania’s first
Mead: probably the first alcoholic drink in the world
• Extremely simple recipe: honey + water + vessel + fire• The first [known] honey-eaters and fire-users – Homo erectus (1.89 mln.- 143 000
BC).• The first vessels-makers – Homo Sapiens (probably pottery in China, ~ 20 000 BC). • Word “mead” - from proto-Indo-European root *medhu- ”honey, sweet drink”
(cognates: Sanskrit madhu ”sweet, sweet drink, wine, honey”, Greek methy ”wine”, Lithuanian medus ”honey” and midus “mead”).
• Mead = alcoholic drink [comp. Greek methy "wine" to methyl alkohol].
The contemporary Honeybee range
One from Lithuania‘s first dishes [mentioned in the sources]
• Wulfstan of Hedeby – late 9th century traveller and trader
• His travel accounts were included in Alfred the Great's translation of Orosius' Histories.
Eastern Baltic coast, Fra Mauro, Mappa mundi, 1459
• About the Eastern Baltic coast:
... there is a great quantity of honey and fish; and even the king and the richest men drink kumis (mare's milk), whilst the poor and the slaves drink mead....
Lithuania‘s first recipe [mentioned in the sources]
• Olaus Magnus, “Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus”, Rome, 1555.
Lithuania in Olaus Magnus, Carta Marina, 1539
Why milk and honey?
• The message about “... the richest men drink kumiss (mare's milk), whilst the poor and the slaves drink mead...” was repeated in another historical sources [XI-XV centuries].
• Hypothesis A.: the chroniclers are right, but in this case....
- the nobility was the abstainers?- the poor and the slaves drink the better drink?- the nobility drink kumis and blood cocktails? [good
background for vampires stories...]
• Hypothesis B.: there was some confusion over the drinks
- the white mead [milk is added]- kumis and blood = white and ordinary mead cocktail
or milk and mead cocktail [usual in the Indo-European oblation].
Mead in Culture: from the drink as tool to the drink as aim
Drink as tool
• Mead in pre-Christian oblation:- Jan Dlugosz, “Historia Polonica”, 15 century;
Joannes Lasicius, 16 century; Matthaeus Praetorius, 17 century.
- Pour out to the ground, incinerate... • Mead connecting people: - orthodox mead brotherhoods [orthodox
craftsman’s corporations] in the GDL cities (15-17 century).
- “duty free” mead making and drinking at religious feasts (Pentecost, St. Nicholas, Christmas, Pokrow day (01 Oct.)).
• Mead in the banquet: - to honour the guests;- to show the richness of house.
The Apotheosis of mead
• Nicholas Christopher Radziwill's map of GDL, Amsterdam, 1613
• “...they [Lithuanians] make the honey, water and hops drink, which is accompanied by a cherry juice and various spices and stored in the noble houses by over 100 years <...> its taste and aroma is better that the best Malvasia wine...”
Drink as aim
• Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, atlas “Civitates Orbis Terrarum”, 1572 m., about Vilnius: “... [Lithuanians] drunk mead, warmed wine or strong beer <...> and drunken quarrelling, scuffling, injuring each other and violently struggling together...”
• Andreas Volanus (1530-1610); Michalo Lituanus (1490-1560) : drunkenness is the problem...
• The healing recipes:- Benedykt Chmielowski (1700-1763),
“Nowe Ateny Albo Akademiia Wszelkiej Sciencyi Pełna ...”, 1745 m. – the owl’s eggs for babies...
- “Uwagi oekonomiczne, czyli prawidla gospodarskie”, 1785 m. – the wine with smothered eel...
The decline of the mead culture
• The wine was more prestigious than mead [from middle 16 century].
• The distillate drinks was strongest and cheapest than mead [from II half of 16 century].
• The honey and beeswax based export was changed to grain and wood export [from middle 16 century].
• Wood export had deleterious influence for old-forest with bees-trees [from middle 16 century].
• 16 century, Linkmenys village (1554): 11 beer taverns, 2 mead taverns and 1 distillate drinks tavern.
• 19 century Vilnius district (1801-1807): 5 breweries, 9 mead works and 7700 spirit works.
Mead’s relicts in the “distillate drinks culture”
• Hypothesis A.: vodka “born” as result of mixing of spirit and water. The idea about this mixing could be “imported” from mead making technology [honey and water mix].
• Lithuanian traditional liquor Krupnikas recipe could be started from mead and spirit mixture.
Krupnikas recipe by Adi Morscher, http://adimorscher.com/?p=95
