HERB - Timeline of Food

[Christine A Seelye-King]

I have been cruising through "The Timetables of History, A Horizontal
Linkage of People and Events" by Bernard Grun, based upon Werner Stein's
"Kulturfahrplan", published by Simon and Schuster in 1982.  I was looking
for date confirmations for my holiday book, and I came across quite a few
food and plant entries I thought you might find interesting.  Here goes:

Romans learn to use soap from the Gauls		50AD
Tamo brings tea from India to China			500
Sugar planted in Egypt				710
Hops as beer wort used for the first time in Bavaria	750
First reports of ergotism epidemics in Western Europe,
	caused by poisoned grain			857
Calibrated candles used in England to measure the time	870
Cane sugar arrives in Venice from Alexandria		996
Munich becomes center of salt trade			1158
Tea arrives in Japan from China			1191
Indigo and Brazilwood imported into England for dyeing	1193
Cotton manufactured in Spain				1225
Linen first manufactured in England			1253
Lyons silk industry developed by Italian immigrants	1315
The Shogun of Japan prohibits the drinking of tea		1350
Mocha in SW Arabia becomes main port for coffee export	1450
Romano Pane, a monk who accompanied Columbus, 
	becomes the first to describe the tobacco plant	1496
Pineapples arrive in Europe				1514
Coffee in Europe for the first time			1517
Chocolate brought from Mexico to Spain			1520
Turkeys from S. America eaten for the first time at the 
	English Court				1524
Hops introduced to England from Artois			1525
India rubber mentioned for the first time		1536
First Christmas tree, at the Strassbourg Cathedral		1539
Guinea Pepper plant grown in England			1548
Tobacco brought for the first time to Spain from America	1555
Portuguese introduce Europeans to the habit of taking snuff	1558
Tobacco plant imported to W. Europe by Jean Nicot	1560
Sir John Hawkins introduces sweet potatoes and tobacco
	into England				1565
Method perfected to bottle beer by Alexander Nowell, 
	Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral			1568
First German cane-sugar refinery at Augsburg		1573
Venice imports coffee from Turkey to Italy		1580
Italian cooking predominant in Europe			1580
Forks used for the first time at French Court		1589
Tomatoes introduced in England			1596
Tea from China shipped for the first time to Europe by 
	the Dutch East India Trading Co. 		1609
Tobacco planted in Virginia				1612
Potaotes planted in Germany for the first time		1621
First Coffeeshop opens in London			1632
Tea first drunk in England				1650
Drinking Chocolate introduced in London			1657
Ice Cream becomes popular dessert in Paris		1677

I am fairly impressed with the credentials of the authors (multiple
checkers and translators) of this book.  Most dates I found were right on
the money with other sources I had already.  There were certain things I
didn't agree with, but they are going with the first written record of
things, (perfect for us!) and not necessarily when things first came into
use.  This is intended to stimulate polite conversation, please don't
flame me.  See above bibliographical information if you want to check it
out.  

Mistress Christianna MacGrain, OP, Meridies

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