"Beware that ye geue no persone palled drynke, for feere
Hit mygtt brynge many a man in disese durynge many a yere."
—John Russell's Boke of Norture, in Babees Book, p. 13.
"Sowre ale, and dead ale, and ale the whiche doth stande a tylte is good for no man."—Andrew Boorde, Regimen of Health.
"Of ale and beer, as well as of wine, we find various kinds mentioned. There were single beer, or small ale, which could do little more than quench thirst,—and double beer, which was recommended as containing a double quantity of malt and hops,—and double-double beer, which was twice as strong as that,—and dagger-ale, which, as the name implies, was reckoned particularly sharp and dangerous,—and bracket, a kind of ale which we are unable distinctly to describe. But the favourite drink, as well as the chief article of vulgar debauch, was a kind of ale commonly called huffcap, but which was also termed 'mad dog,' 'angel's food,' 'dragon's milk,' and other such ridiculous names, by the frequenters of ale-houses: 'and never,' says Harrison, 'did Romulus and Remus suck their she-wolf with such eager and sharp devotion as these men hale at huffcap, till they be as red as cocks, and little wiser than their combs.' The higher classes, who were able to afford such a luxury, brewed a generous liquor for their own consumption, which they did not bring to the table till it was two years old. This was called March ale, from the month in which it was brewed. But the servants had to content themselves with a more simple beverage that was seldom more than a month old. A cup of choice ale was often as richly compounded with dainties as the finest wines. Sometimes it was warmed, and qualified with sugar and spices; sometimes with a toast; often with a roasted crab or apple, making the beverage still known under the name of Lambs'-wool; while to stir the whole composition with a sprig of rosemary, was supposed to give it an additional flavour. The drinks made from fruit were chiefly cider, perry, and mum. Those that had formerly been made from honey seem to have fallen into disuse in consequence of the general taste for stronger potations; metheglin being now chiefly confined to the Welsh. A simple liquor, however, was still used in Essex, called by Harrison, somewhat contemptuously, 'a swish-swash,' made of water with a little honey and spice, but 'as differing,' he says, 'from true metheglin as chalk doth from cheese.' He informs us, moreover, that already the tapsters of England had learned to adulterate their ale and beer with pernicious compounds."—Pict. Hist. of England, ii. 883.
"In the parish of Hawsted, Suffolk, the allowance of food to the labourer in harvest was, two herrings per day, milk from the manor dairy to make cheese, and a loaf of bread, of which fifteen were made from a bushel of wheat. Messes of potage made their frequent appearance at the rustic board."—Knight, Pict. Hist. of England, i. 839.
[E439] Harrison gives an account (pp. 153-4) of the following kinds of bread made in England: 1. Mainchet, "commonlie called white bread, in Latine Primarius panis." 2. Cheat "or wheaton bread, so named bicause the colour therof resembleth the graie [or yellowish] wheat [being cleane and well dressed,] and out of this is the coursest of the bran (vsuallie called gurgeons or pollard) taken. The raueled is a kind of cheat bread also, but it reteineth more of the grosse, and lesse of the pure substance of the wheat." 3. Brown bread, of which there were two kinds, viz. (a) of whole meal unsifted, (b) pollard bread, with a little rye meal, and called Miscelin or Meslin. "In champeigne countries much rie and barleie bread is eaten, but especiallie where wheat is scant and geson."
[E440] "Baies." Halliwell prints this word as baics in his Dictionary, defining it as "chidings, reproofs," and giving as his authority Hunter's Additions to Boucher.
[E441] "Droie." See Note in Prompt. Parv., s.v. Dryvylle and Deye. Probably a corruption of droile; a scullion, kitchen-boy, or servant of all-work.—M. Droie also occurs in Stubbes' Anatomie of Abuses, 1583.
[E442] "In some places it [the malt] is dried at leisure with wood alone, or strawe alone, in other with wood and strawe togither; but of all, the strawe dried is the most excellent. For the wood dried malt when it is brued, beside that the drinke is higher of colour, it dooth hurt and annoie the head of him that is not vsed thereto, bicause of the smoake. Such also as vse both indifferentlie, doo barke, cleaue and drie their wrood in an ouen, thereby to remooue all moisture that shuld procure the fume, and this malt is in the second place, and with the same likewise, that which is made with dried firze, broome, etc.; whereas, if they also be occupied greene, they are in maner so preiudiciall to the corne, as is the moist wood."—Harrison, Description of England, ed. F. J. Furnivall, Part I. p. 157.