SC - OT Creativity Changes

[LrdRas@aol.com]

At 9:03 AM -0500 6/12/98, Brian Songy wrote:
>
>Obligatory cooking comment:  When was grappa (and other brandies) first
>made in Northern Italy?  What foods were commonly eaten in Venice in
>~1250CE ?  Tomato sauces?  Pasta?  Polenta?  Pizza?
>
The earliest Italian cookbooks I know of have pasta recipes, and pasta goes
back in England to late 13th c. and also is used by 13th c. in the Islamic
world, so I think that it is a safe bet. Tomato sauces and polenta are from
New World plants (polenta is always made from corn/maize, isn't it?), so
they would certainly not be in use by the 13th c., although tomatoes were
eaten cooked in Italy in the 16th century. Lack of tomatoes  also means
that pizza in the modern American sense would not have existed; I don't
know of any period recipes for pizza-like things (say, bread with cheese
and herbs) in period, but it isn't inconceivable.  I don't know about
brandy, but I have the impression that distilled drinks tend to be late or
out of period.

For what was eaten in Italy a couple centuries later, look up our
Miscellany and do a search for Platina.  The Miscellany is webbed at:

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/miscellany.html

Elizabeth/Betty Cook


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