SC - period references

[Mark.S Harris]

Lord Ras said:
IMO, It is very evident from reading extant pre-Ren European recipes, that
Middle Eastern influence over the major population centers was very pronounced
for the entire period of the Crusades.and continued only until new shipping
routes to the Far East stripped the Middle East of it's wealth, power and
influence through loss of trade.

- --Interesting. Can you give some more specific examples over this time
- --period? Do you mean trade spices from the Middle East or traded
- --through the Middle East were used? Or that specific cooking methods
- --from the Middle East were used?

On a side note, I find it rather interesting that the use of saffron was all
but non-existant after the Moors were finally driven from Spain in 1492 C.E.
by Ferdinand's armies.

- --Also interesting. However, perhaps the use of saffron was already dying
- --out before the Moslems were driven from Spain. Was Spain the only source
- --of saffron for the European markets or just the dominant one?

Given these two rather interesting tidbits, and the observation that many
esxperts place the end of the Middle Ages in the Middle East at 1796 C.E.,

- --Which experts? And were they basing this on political changes, social
- --changes, food changes or what? I’ve seen widely varying dates given for
- --the end of medieval times in Europe depending upon what the authors are
- --using for their definition of the middle ages.

I think that untranslated manuscripts  from that exact ending era would, if
nothing else, answer the question of to what degree changes had occured in
Middle Eastern Cookery over the five hundred and seventy year medieval period
since al-Baghdadi (circa 1226 C.E.) was published.

- --Yes, I think these would be interesting to analyze and compare to each
- --other. Do you know if these manuscripts are comparable to each other?
- --For instance, are they both written for royalty? Or both sets for the
- --middle class? etc.

Woould you or anyone know of anyone who would be interested in translating
these documents? Please respond privately to LrdRas at aol.com if you know of
someone who might be willing to do this.

- --Good luck in getting these manuscripts translated.
- --Stefan li Rous
- --stefan at texas.net
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