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1. Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jan-2022 18:39:08 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅
   Insults can tell you a lot about a person and a people. What do they find worthy of contempt? Here's an aristocrat in Constantinople, angry at how the common people jeered at them when the Venetians and crusaders took over after the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_… , and talking about how vile the new masters are:
   
   "for they had not yet had much to do with the beef-eating Latins and they did not know that they served a wine as pure and unmixed as unadulterated bile"
   
   Greek-speaking Romans ("Byzantines") didn't eat beef? How was wine in Consantinople and Rome different?
   • アズラ: 大キツネ (azure@tailswish.industries)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jan-2022 18:56:10 UTC アズラ: 大キツネ

     in reply to
     @clacke …this is surprising to me. I know the Greeks mixed wine with water.
     
     But so did the Romans.
     
     I think they would sometimes use unmixed, pure wine for religious purposes, but I didn't think unmixed wine was a normal, daily thing for them.
   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jan-2022 18:56:10 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅

     in reply to

     • アズラ: 大キツネ
     @Azure People in Rome still mix water in wine when drinking it for meals! At least my Italian corridor-mates in university did. So I'm confused.
     
     But I think maybe ancient Romans did and modern Romans do, but 1200s Venetians and French didn't and don't? Those form the core of the "Latins" referred to here.
   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jan-2022 18:57:29 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅

     in reply to
     As for the beef:
     
     > Most houses kept pigs. Lamb was more expensive. Beef was only seldom eaten. Cattle were used to pull ploughs instead, and were seen as work animals.
     
     So in Constantinople, eating beef was kind of like eating donkey.
     
     www.cooksinfo.com/byzantine-fo…
   • valhalla (valhalla@social.gl-como.it)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jan-2022 19:11:05 UTC valhalla

     in reply to

     • アズラ: 大キツネ
     @clacke @Azure The romans used to complain about the fact that germanic barbarians used to drink wine straight instead of mixed with water: I'm not sure how much of that was based on truth and how much it was just a way to say that they weren't civilized.
     
     If it was true, then it's pretty much likely that the crusaders and Venetians, coming from elite classes that descended from germanic conquerors, also drank straight wine.
     
     On the other hand, it could have also been the greek speaking romans keeping alive the tradition of accusing people of not being properly civilized.
     Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 likes this.
   • ♥lich :mtg_black: (pilou@deadinsi.de)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jan-2022 21:18:32 UTC ♥lich :mtg_black:

     in reply to

     • valhalla
     • アズラ: 大キツネ

     @valhalla @clacke @Azure
     Interestingly, mixing wine with water is what the tarot card "Temperance" represents. It's "tempering wine". And the tarot is from the Italian and French Renaissance period, if I'm not mistaken.

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperance_%28Tarot_card%29

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   • Thomas (tfb@functional.cafe)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jan-2022 21:19:08 UTC Thomas

     in reply to

     @clacke Did the byzantines still drink wine stored in resinous vessels? That gives it a very particular taste

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   • valhalla (valhalla@social.gl-como.it)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jan-2022 21:46:14 UTC valhalla

     in reply to

     • Thomas
     @clacke @tfb I think that the Greeks are still doing that today :) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retsina
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   • Ruben (trregeagle@social.mjd.id.au)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Jan-2022 01:45:50 UTC Ruben

     in reply to
     @clacke I must admit to being a wannabe classicist. I developed a taste for retsina many years ago in Greece and I will happily water down my wine.
     Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 likes this.