A tax on authentic cider?
A new tax on cider, or more properly, the end of a tax exemption for small cider producers is currently being demanded by the European Union, at the same time as a PDO designation for Welsh cider is being proposed. It is predicted that the end of the exemption will have a detrimental effect on […]
![Stone Carving of the goddess Mayahuel. El Museo de Templo Mayor, Mexico City. Photo by the author.](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/consumingauthenticities/files/2015/03/052-150x150.jpg)
The Story of Pulque Part 2: A Tangle of Origins
In the last post, I described one of the stories about the discovery of pulque that was recorded in the 17th century and purportedly related to historical events that took place some 7 or 8 centuries previously, in the last generations of the Toltec empire. However, differing accounts of pulque’s origins circulated in pre-Columbian and […]
![Page from the Florentine Codex Book 1 (a 16th century text co-produced by Spanish friar Bernardino de Sahagún and numerous indigenous writers), showing one of the Aztec divinities associated with pulque, a maguey plant, and a foaming jar of pulque. Image from the excellent, informative Mexicolore website. http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/ask-us/origin-of-pulque](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/consumingauthenticities/files/2015/03/pulque-borbonica-150x150.jpg)
The Story of Pulque, Part 1
In the 17th century, the Mexican historian Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl recorded a pre-Columbian legend about the origins of pulque. According to Ixtlilxochitl’s version, a noble maiden named Xochitl presented the 8th Toltec king – Tecpancaltzin – with a gift of pulque, a fermented alcoholic drink with a foamy, milky-white appearance. Xochitl’s father had learned […]
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