SC - Byzantine Cooking (Long)

[Decker, Terry D.]

Your pardon, but I am in error on some points and imprecise in my
phrasing on others.  I lost some of my notes in a disk crash and I was
working from my faulty memory.  I located a hard copy of some of my
notes this morning.

The utensils I mentioned in this post  are from the 14th and 15th
century.  They become more elaborate toward the end of the 15th Century
and more common in the 16th and 17th Centuries.

Uker places coffee as a drink about 1300 CE, but general introduction
and the attendent riots and civil problems is early 16th Century, rather
than the 11th Century I stated.  He places the general use of coffee in
Arabia to about 1450 with it moving northward along the Red Sea to Mecca
and Medina about 1470 and Cairo about 1510.

The physician Rhazes refers to bunca or bunchum (coffee) about 900 CE
and Avicenna describes its medicinal properties about 100 years later,
so the odds are that it was primarily a medicinal herb until somewhere
late in the 13th Century.  

A point I need to check is a note I have that the first coffee house in
Constantinople is the Kiva Han opened in 1475.  Uker places the first
coffee houses in Constantinople in 1554 being opened by Shemsi of
Damascus and Hekem of Aleppo.  The introduction of coffee to
Constantinople may be either 1453 or 1517, depending on the veracity of
the sources.

One of these years, I need to do a paper, just to sort out my opinions
and present them with supporting documentation.  Maybe it will be long
enough to sell as a book. :-)

Bear
 
>>Bear quotes me:
>>
>>>>Coffee comes into the Islamic world in late period; does anyone know when
>>>>tea makes its appearance, and when? With the Mongols? It doesn't get to
>>>>Europe until quite late--17th c. for England.
>>
>>and responds
>>
>>>I'll quibble on the coffee.  While its expansion beyond the Arabian
>>>Peninsula was limited primarily to the rich, it was known and in use as
>>>early as the 9th Century.
>>
>>Evidence? The Hattox book concludes, after looking at a good deal of
>>evidence and disputed claims, that it was native to Abyssinia, and didn't
>>come into use in Arabia until the middle of the 15th c.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>David/Cariadoc
>>http://www.best.com/~ddfr/
>
>Not having read the Hattox book, I depend on Uker as my primary source
>on coffee and his comments on coffeehouses, edicts for and against them,
>and the riots over them.  The trade aspects are from some old notes
>taken from a book on trade in the Islamic world, whose name escapes me
>at present (which means I need to reread it and see if I've gotten more
>knowledgeable).
>
>The earliest date I have for the discovery of coffee is 750 CE.  Most
>scholars place it at 850 CE.  If Avicenna was actually describing
>coffee, one of these dates is probably correct.
>
>The Ommayids moved the capitol of Islam to Damascus in mid-7th Century.
>After the Abbasids seized control in 750 CE, they moved their capitol to
>Baghdad, so that it was the capitol by the beginning to the 9th Century.
> The sole survivor of the Ommayids, creates the Caliphate of Cordoba by
>the end of the 8th century.  This means that by the time coffee is
>discovered, the seat of power is Baghdad and the Arabian peninsula is a
>backwater.  Wealth and power moved out of Arabia, and I can easily see
>Arabia coming to coffee late when the supply increased and its cost
>diminished.
>
>One of the major spice routes was up the Red Sea to Egypt then to other
>Mediterranean ports, then inland to land locked cities.  Mocha is a port
>on this route in southwest Yemen.  If I remember this correctly, Uker
>places the use of coffee in Egypt and Damascus  in the 11th Century,
>approximately conteporary with Avicenna.  An inference can be made, that
>the sea ports closest to Ethiopia were harvesting coffee and sending it
>up the trade route as a luxury good.  This trade route probably changed
>at the beginning of the Crusades.
>
>Turkish and Syrian utensiles from the 13th and 14th Centuries have been
>identified as coffee grinders and coffee makers.  Barring error in the
>identification of such utensiles, this suggests that coffee use was
>spreading.  It also suggests that coffee was moving from harvested wild
>coffee to cultivated coffee, increasing the available supply.  
>
>A cultivated supply of coffee was certainly available by the 15th
>Century.  When Constantinople fell in the mid-15th Century, coffee was
>immediately available within the city and the coffeehouse which later
>opened there made coffee a middle class luxury, rather than the
>exclusive drink of the wealthy. 
>
>These are a few of the points that cause me to hold the opinions I do.
>As I have said, I have not read Hattox and of the many books on coffee I
>have read, Uker is the only one I consider valuable enough to use in a
>scholarly argument.  When I have the opportunity to consider Hattox's
>arguments, I may change some of my opinions.  Until then, please pardon
>my quibbles.
>
>Bear 
> 
>============================================================================
>
>To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
>Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".
>
>============================================================================
>
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================