SC - Period Potatoes

[Decker, Terry D.]

<deleted>

>I had seen that comment before that "Potatoes aren't period" but I don't
>see how this is possible.  There were Irish people living during Medival
>times, and  potatoes in Ireland are a STAPLE food!  In fact, I saw on TLC
>once, where hundreds of thousands of Irish men women and children starved to
>death at one point (sorry, it was a few months ago, and I dont' remember the
>date cited) because of a blight brought in from England that destroyed ALL
>the potato crops on the Island.  It left the poor with nothing (as the show
>stated it , "not very little to eat but NOTHING to eat") to eat for many
>months, and the population was devastated.  I'm far from an expert in
>Medival cooking, but I do not see how potatoes could be anything but period!
>
>-Laurene


Pardon what may be perceived as a lecture tone, but it's the fastest way
to dump all these facts, which, in this case, are mainly lifted from
James Trager's Foodbook, some of his dates and interpretations are open
to question, but he seems pretty solid on the generally agreed upon
facts.
  
The white potato and the sweet potato are both New World in origin, so
no potatoes in Europe before 1492.  Yams which look like sweet potatoes
are a different species of plant and were common in Asia and Africa.

Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada found white potatoes being eaten in tha Andes
approximately 1530 C.E.  These were apparently shaped like peanuts and
between the size of peanuts and plums.  The first written reference to
potatoes is in Pedro de Leon's Cronica del Peru, circa 1553.  In general
in the New World, the sweet potato was preferred over the white potato
in size and taste.

The Germans were probably the first Europeans to regularly eat potatoes.
 The earliest known recipes appear in Ein Neu Kochbuch, circa 1581.  A
century later Frederick William forceable spread the planting of
potatoes in Brandenburg.  Fifty years after that, Frederick the Great
spread seeds and cultivation instructions in Prussia. 

Apocryphally, Sir Walter Raleigh introduced the potato to England and
grew them on his estates.  In 1663, the Royal Society urged the planting
of potatoes to prevent famine with little success.  By 1770, they were a
cash crop, sold in the public markets of Britain.  They became the basis
of the Irish diet late in the 18th century. 

The Great Irish Potato Famine occurred 1845-49.  Interestingly, in the
1840s potato famines appear to have been international, affecting every
country dependent upon potatoes.  The Irish famine is remembered because
the British government by its inaction used a natural disaster to rid
itself of the problem of the Irish.

Potatoes are mentioned in two of William Shakespeare's plays; The Merry
Wives of Windsor, circa 1600, and Trolius and Cressida, circa 1601.

>From the dates, you can plainly see that the existence of potatoes and
the knowledge of potatoes is period.  What isn't period is the eating of
potatoes in Europe.  While some adventurous souls probably tried them,
they would not have been common to a pre-1600 European feast.  The
exception to this, may be Germany, because of the cookbook noted above.

If we can get a copy of the recipe and post it to the list, we may get a
heated discussion about what ingredients come closest to the period
ingredients and precisely how to prepare the dish, as is currently being
debated in the cuskynoles chain.

Bear

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