SC - Paprika (also an introduction)

[Philip & Susan Troy]

david friedman wrote:

> 1. As you probably already realize, pepper is from the new world didn't get
> to Hungary until the 16th century. The earliest reference I have seen is a
> late sixteenth century reference to growing turkey peppers, which
> apparently is what they called paprika.

Agreed. That still doesn't solve the problem of whether it was used as
anything but an ornamental curiosity, or for any culinary purpose. It
may have been used as food, but the fact that it was grown in Hungary
doesn't prove it. This is one of those things that might have turned up
in a dish in period, but probably isn't representative of the cuisine in
period, and might give others a distorted view of what was going on.  
> 
> 2. Unless you include German as central European, or Islamic as Eastern
> European, you are going to have a hard time finding period sources. 

Just to cloud the issue, I'll point out that there apparently were large
communities of people who were ethnically German (in this case, Saxon)
living all over the area then known as Transylvania, but which overlaps
a good deal with modern Hungary, as of the 13-14th centuries. There are
numerous old (but not necessarily period) Transylvanian recipes referred
to as "Saxon style" for this reason. I myself am descended from some
ethnically German ancestors living in Hungary, although their migration
to Hungary was in the 18th century. That might explain the reason for a
translation into Magyar of a German recipe book.

Adamantius

> David/Cariadoc
> http://www.best.com/~ddfr/