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Mead (; archaic and dialectal "medd"; from Old English "meodu",) is an alcoholic beverage created by fermenting honey with water, sometimes with various fruits, spices, grains, or hops.〔http://www.yourdictionary.com/mead〕〔Beer is produced by the fermentation of grain, but grain can be used in mead provided it is strained off immediately. As long as the primary substance fermented is still honey, the drink is still mead.〕〔Hops are better known as the bitter ingredient of beer. However, they have also been used in mead both ancient and in modern times. The ''Legend of Frithiof'' mentions hops: That this formula is still in use is shown by the recipe for "Real Monastery Mead" in 〕 (Hops act as a preservative and produce a bitter, beer-like flavor.) The alcoholic content of mead may range from about 8% ABV〔Lichine, Alexis. ''Alexis Lichine’s New Encyclopedia of Wines & Spirits'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), 328.〕 to more than 20%. The defining characteristic of mead is that the majority of the beverage's fermentable sugar is derived from honey. It may be still, carbonated, or naturally sparkling; and it may be dry, semi-sweet, or sweet. Mead is known from many sources of ancient history throughout Europe, Africa and Asia. "It can be regarded as the ancestor of all fermented drinks," Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat has speculated, "antedating the cultivation of the soil."〔Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat (Anthea Bell, tr.) ''The History of Food'', 2nd ed. 2009:30.〕 Hornsey considers archaeological evidence of it ambiguous; however, McGovern and other archaeological chemists consider the presence of beeswax markers and gluconic acid, in the presence of other substances known to ferment, to be reasonably conclusive evidence of the use of honey in ancient fermented beverages.〔http://www.penn.museum/sites/biomoleculararchaeology/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/GrogGreeks.pdf〕〔http://www.penn.museum/sites/Midas/feastremains.shtml〕 Claude Lévi-Strauss makes a case for the invention of mead as a marker of the passage "from nature to culture."〔Lévi-Strauss, J. and D. Weightman, tr. ''From Honey to Ashes'', London:Cape 1973 (''Du miel aux cendres'', Paris 1960)〕 Mead has played an important role in the beliefs and mythology of some peoples. One such example is the Mead of Poetry, a mead of Norse mythology crafted from the blood of the wise being Kvasir which turns the drinker into a poet or scholar. The terms "mead" and "honey-wine" are often used synonymously. Honey-wine is differentiated from mead in some cultures. Hungarians hold that while mead is made of honey, water and beer-yeast (barm), honey-wine is watered honey fermented by recrement of grapes (or other fruits).〔(History of beer in Hungary ) - difference between mead and honey-wine (in Hungarian)〕 ==History== In Asia, pottery vessels containing chemical signatures of a mixture of honey, rice and other fruits along with organic compounds of fermentation dating from 6500-7000 BC were found in Northern China. In Europe, it is first attested in residual samples found in the characteristic ceramics of the Bell Beaker Culture (c. 2800 – 1800 BC).〔https://books.google.com/books?id=V3sCCLcsJFkC&pg=PA159&lpg=PA159&dq=archaeological+evidence+for+the+European+production+of+mead&source=bl&ots=m_pLTrmTgO&sig=isBbJMpYQIOWldDJ8cV_hIhPDPc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAmoVChMItvitqJizxwIVh3ySCh3BPwEN#v=onepage&q=archaeological%20evidence%20for%20the%20European%20production%20of%20mead&f=false〕 The earliest surviving description of mead is in the hymns of the ''Rigveda'',〔Rigveda (Book 5 v. 43:3–4 ), (Book 8 v. 5:6 ), etc〕 one of the sacred books of the historical Vedic religion and (later) Hinduism dated around 1700–1100 BC. During the Golden Age of Ancient Greece, mead was said to be the preferred drink. Aristotle (384–322 BC) discussed mead in his ''Meteorologica'' and elsewhere, while Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) called mead ''militites'' in his ''Naturalis Historia'' and differentiated wine sweetened with honey or "honey-wine" from mead. The Spanish-Roman naturalist Columella gave a recipe for mead in ''De re rustica'', about AD 60. There is a poem attributed to the Brythonic-speaking bard Taliesin, who lived around AD 550, called the ' or "Song of Mead."〔''Llyfr Taliesin'' XIX〕 The legendary drinking, feasting and boasting of warriors in the mead hall is echoed in the mead hall ''Din Eidyn'' (modern day Edinburgh) as depicted in the poem ''Y Gododdin'', attributed to the poet Aneirin who would have been a contemporary of Taliesin. In the Old English epic poem ''Beowulf'', the Danish warriors drank mead. In both Insular Celtic and Germanic cultures mead was the primary heroic drink in poetry. Later, taxation and regulations governing the ingredients of alcoholic beverages led to commercial mead becoming a more obscure beverage until recently. Some monasteries kept up the old traditions of mead-making as a by-product of beekeeping, especially in areas where grapes could not be grown, a well-known example being at Lindisfarne, where mead continues to be made to this day, albeit not in the monastery itself. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「mead」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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