SC - Re: SC-Peanuts

[Elise Fleming]

Greetings.  Charles wrote:

>According to a documentary on the 'cocaine mummies' of vienna, 
>peanuts were found in China at least 2000 years old. But it was said 
>that they are a native american (N?S?) product

This was mentioned in Sophie Coe's _America's First Cuisines_.  Turns 
out that the peanut shells were dropped in modern times by people 
visiting/working on the graves.  Gotta be careful those tv shows!  She 
writes (page 34-35), "The first Chinese reference to peanuts dates from 
the 1530s, but there was a flurry among plant historians and 
archaeologists a few years ago when a few peanut shells were found in 
excavations at an Early Lungshanoid site dating from 3200 to 2500 B.C.  
It was the site that was that old, but the peanut shells were 
contemporary with the excavators, not the site they were excavating.

She mentions that the peanut was "brought to West Africa from Brazil by 
the Portuguese, along with maize and the sweet potatoes.  While the 
Portuguese were moving peanuts east, the Spaniards were taking them 
west across the Pacific from Peru and introducing them to the Far 
East."  She also notes that the peanut was "first imported into the 
United States from West Africa, on the ships that brought the slaves."

I mentioned this book a week or so ago and still recommend it highly 
for anyone interested in New World foods.  (And yes, I am doing a 
review for "Serve It Forth".) 

Alys Katharine



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