SC - Tomatoes

[LrdRas at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/14/99 2:16:50 PM Eastern Daylight Time, alm4 at cornell.edu 
writes:

<< does this mean that if you are
 cooking a feast using Spain as your region, that if you prepared tomatoes
 in such a way as listed below it is then period?  Also, what would a
 typical feast where you would prepare something like this be?  
  >>

If the citations are accurate decriptions of actual dishes, yes, it would be 
'period'. It would not be 'medieval' however. It would be early modern 
cooking since recipes and service took a dramatic change in 1450 C.E. much 
like cooking in a our own era took a dramitic turn in the 1940's and again in 
the 80's. The type of event would most likely be best done as a rapier event 
or some such set in southern Spain or Southern Italy.

On the downside, a lot of folks (at least the people I usually prepare feasts 
for) would be  dissappoited if they had to eat corn, beans, tomatoes, 
potatoes and all the other New World foods we take for granted. There are so 
many recipes from the medieval era that there is little reason, other than a 
desire to deal with the familiar, to use New World foods at  an SCA feast 
EXCEPT if that feast is specifically geared toward a theme that evokes one of 
the new world cultures, such as an Aztec feast or a Spanish Colonial feast. 

The reality of the matter is that within  SCA time most if not all New World 
foods were grown by only the very wealthy as unusual novelties or in 
botanical gardens as 'oddities'. Those that questionably may have been used 
by the masses (e.g. potatoes, either sweet or white) were not considered 
noble food or fit for the wealthy and oftentimes were considered poison or 
bad for the health (e.g.tomatoes). A good example of a food that was grown 
widely but caused revolts and had to be forced on the populace by military 
might was the potato when introduced into Russia. Previously it had been 
grown solely as pig food. Maize was very slow in being excepted in Germany as 
human food where it was used slely for animal feed until this century. Such 
attitudes are still evident in this century . Many like those my grandfather 
had (e.g. oats are for horses not people) were clearly a social attitude.

I recall going to a feast held by one of the Pretendfaires....er...I mean 
Renfaires and making a hew and cry at the Feast served because  I maintained 
they were trying to poison everyone in the hall when they served us tomatoes 
in a salad and baked potatoes. Needless to say my contribution to historical 
authenticity was little appreciated by the organizers of the debaucle...er, I 
mean feast. <shrug> :-)

Ras
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