1/2 oz yeast
SUGAR TO FEED THE PLANT
7 tsp ground ginger
SUGAR TO FLAVOUR
1 1/2 lb sugar
1 juice of 2 lemons
Directions
Mix starter ingredients with 3/4 pint of warm water in a glass jar.
Stir, cover and leave in a warm place for 24 hours. This is your
starter "plant".
Feed the "plant" with 1 teaspoon each of ground ginger and sugar each
day.
After 7 days strain through a fine sieve. Dissolve the sugar in 2
pints of water. Add the lemon juice and the liquid from the "plant".
Dilute with 5 pints of water, mix well and store in corked bottles
for at least 7 days.
Use strong bottles as pressure may build up which will cause thin
bottles to explode. For the same reason use corked bottles rather
than those with a more secure closure that will not 'give' under
pressure.
Ross requested a recipe for ginger beer. This is a recipe that I have
often used and it produces a really old-fashioned drink. It is quite
a long process but well worth the effort. The amount of sugar in the
final stage can be varied according to taste. Please excuse the use
of Imperial measures - I am only a poor ignorant pom.
Recipe By : ianrice@theridge.demon.co.uk (Ian Rice)
Servings: 1 servings
Old-Fashioned Ginger Beer Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Alcohol; Beer; Beverages
The History of Recipes
It is quite feasible to prove the history of written cooking instructions back into the far past, at least as far back into history as the Egyptians, and maybe further still. Interesting though that is, sadly, these early recipes were just simple pictorial, hieroglyphic or cunieform instructions for meal preparation.
Interestingly, the oldest recipe discovered so far, according to historians are a few tablets in Sumerian which recount the preparation of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as having made anyone who tried it feel `wonderful`. Closer to modern times, we have some recipe books from the 14th Century - one book published under the title `Forme of Cury`, and another named `Curye on Inglish`. Despite their titles, they are nothing to do with the indian curry that we all know today, but instead descriptions of the types of food on the menues of the rich people of the time. During the next few hundred years, the rich families of Wesstern Europe competed with each other to offer the best banquets, and because of this the best cooks and their recipes were much in demand. However, it was during the 1800s that cookery and recipe books reached a high level of popularity. The Famous Mrs Isabella Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Farmer in the USA, dedicated their lives to assembling, verifying, and recording recipes to help cooks of their time. By the time we get to the twentieth century, cooking publications were in great demand, due to higher levels of literacy, people having more leisure time and having more money. Like it or not, the introduction of TV brings us TV cookery programs and the spin-off recipe books. And that neatly brings us to the present day and the internet revolution, permitting everyone to search through thousands of recipes just like those on our site. |
We hope you enjoy this Old Fashioned Ginger Beer recipe.
